Eating What You Kill

As the weather gets warmer and we inch closer and closer to summer I’ve developed an obsession with lobster. These days my food obsessions have been more about finding a product and trying to teach myself a method of cooking it as opposed to trying to find it at a restaurant ready and prepared for me to eat. I’m not sure where exactly this lobster obsession came from, I think it’s a combination of seeing lobster all around me (in stores/markets) and fond memories of eating lobster in Maine when I was a kid (don’t we all have similar lobster memories?)

All of last week I couldn’t help thinking about lobster, and how to cook it at home. I wasn’t interested in the straight boiling process, I wanted to learn to use lobster as part of a composed plate. Since I haven’t cooked much lobster before I turned to the French Laundry Cookbook, one of my favorites, for guidance. Using the knowledge that stabbing a lobster in the brain is the most humane way to kill it, and some direction form the cookbook, I decided to create my own variation of Thomas Keller’s butter poached lobster.

The night started out with me preparing a ton of clarified butter to poach the lobster in and to finish my vegetables with as well as a blanching of sugar snaps, and leeks. I also decided to try to make some potato chips with my newly purchased mandoline and happened to take a healthy chunk out of my thumb after a brief loss of focus.

I then had to slaughter the lobsters. While we understand that all the meat/fish we eat were once living, it’s one thing to buy the product and something completely different to kill the product yourself. I wouldn’t say that I was squeamish, but I did feel a little sorry for the lobster sitting on my cutting board moving around with no idea what was about to happen. I sharpened my knife and looked down at the little guy and started to feel a little bad. Then I found the spot on the top of its shell where the brain is supposed to be and plunged the tip of my knife down into it. It went in fairly easily only I realized that as I was stabbing the lobster in the head I found myself saying “I’m sorry, I’m sorry” to the lobster I was killing. I then twisted off its tail and arms as directed. After a brief steep in boiling water I removed the meat from the shells and came up with this:




The lobster poached in butter tasted amazing, as did the melted leeks and fresh sugar snaps. The potato chip added I nice texture (it was very crisp) but the sauce (lobster stock mixed with fennel and saffron) lacked body and needed to be thicker, notice the fact that it looks more like a broth. Overall, I was happy with the taste and not terribly mortified by my first time cooking lobster at home but I understand that I still need to learn a lot more about this delicious tasting creature.

***Note that butter poaching is an amazing way to cook lobster, something I plan on doing a lot more of.

Sausage and Booze

So I haven’t been posting a lot lately and I have several excuses ragning from laziness to work to etc… But this week I’ve actually been too busy cooking! After finishing the venison sausage earlier in the week I kept on thinking about how I could make the whole sausage thing better. It turned out that the final venison product was actually pretty good but I wasn’t extremely pleased with venison as a base.

This prompted me to try a couple of tried and true sausage bases, pork and lamb. With the pork I wanted to make one Asian inspired sausage and one pork chop inspired sausage (taking inspiration from how I like to eat pork chops.) With the lamb I tried to convert my meatball recipe into sausage form.

Pork chop sausage= Chopped granny Smith Apples, cinnamon, cloves, coriander, ground fennel and whole fennel seed with a little maple syrup

Asian Pork Sausage= Lots of Garlic, Onions, Lemon Zest, and some Sriracha

Lamb= dried Bing cherries, Pine Nuts, Mint, Garlic and Port Wine.

Upon early taste testing all three were tasty with the Asian inspired sausage being a home run. But we’ll see tonight when I feed these to people other than myself.

I also took my first stab at infusing my own liquor last night with the hopes of coming up with a few things for our BBQ cocktail list. My three experiments are as follows:

Bourbon infused with Bacon, Maple Syrup and Walnuts
Light Rum with a Grapefruit and Mint infusion
Vodka infused with Citrus and Melon.

We’ll see how they turn out.

Spring Needs to HURRY UP

Apparently spring was supposed to start on March 21st. However, I currently see no signs of Spring. When I think spring, I think green stuff and yet I went by the Greenwich street Greenmarket today and there were only three stands, two of which were selling bread. Really all I want out of this season is an abundance of new vegetables and new stuff to cook. I’ve really only had one to two greenmarket springs since I started cooking seriously so having the opportunity to work with new local ingredients and try new spring dishes is very exciting for me. I’ve been craving asparagus, fava beans and fresh peas for the last two weeks.

Yesterday I finally gave in. I couldn’t wait any longer for spring to simply happen. I was tired of seeing the same old beets, potatoes and sunchokes (even though I love sunchokes) at the Greenmarket and decided to buy some typically ‘spring’ vegetables from my local Korean deli. Usually I wait for produce to be in season before I go and cook with it but this time I couldn’t wait, I needed my vegetables.

I decided to pan roast some salmon and serve it over crisp fiore pasta with peas, carrots, asparagus and a light fennel cream sauce. I was able to cook the salmon perfectly so that the skin was crispy and salty and the flesh was firm but moist at the same time. (Side note: it makes me so happy when I can take a good ingredient and add salt and pepper and have it taste amazing by itself which is why I’m including the picture of the salmon while cooking.)

My parents loved the dish and I thought it worked really well too. The vegetables were really the focus of the plate while the salmon and the cream added a little weight and fattiness to the dish and the pasta added a nice textural element as well as a starch. Now I need to make this dish when it is actually Spring. Here’s to hoping that the wild asparagus arrives soon.

Tomorrow: The Mexico recap

Who Wants a Nice Home Cooked Meal on a Sunday Night?

Apprently no one...

So after a long weekend of cooking I decided to try to have some friends over for dinner last night. I was all primed to have six or seven people over and try out some Asian inspired dishes and drink some really old Riesling. However…everyone bailed with some even bailing at the last minute. What’s up with that? Instead of cooking for eight I ended up cooking for three.

The first course was one of my favorite pasta dishes—Orechiette with veal beef and pork simmered in onions, ginger, garlic, jalapenos, and soy sauce. I then made a fish dish that I used to make but hadn’t really worked on in a while. I feel like it has finally involved into a keeper. To all of you who skipped my dinner last night, here’s what you missed (Vindictive tone of voice…)





Here we have striped bass marinated in sake, soy sauce and sesame oil then crusted with black sesame and szichuan peppercorns. Its served over honey roasted mangos and sriracha. I thought the textures and flavors of the dish were really nice. If I had to re-do it I’d probably give it a little less heat and a little more mango.

Both dishes went well with our two Rieslings, a Schmitt-Wagner Spatlese from 1992 and an ’05 Kartauserhofsberg Spatlese. It was kind of fun tasting an old and a young Riesling next to each other and comparing. I found both to be nice but I really like the subtle mellow qualities in old Riesling that are a little too pronounced in the young ones.

Overall, it was a nice dinner and I definitely have a couple of new keeper dishes. Hopefully people wont ditch me next time, my feelings are kind of hurt…

Sunday Cooking Project (I apologize for the strange camera settings)

Ever since eating at Telepan a couple of Saturdays ago I’ve been thinking of their smoked trout and celery root blini dish and of ways to make it my own. My Sunday project was celery root blinis, milk poached scallops, and fried leek filaments. Although my camera was on a weird setting, the final result can be pictured here:

Milk Poached Scallops, fried leek filaments, celery root blinis

Overall the dish was ok, but it was definitely missing something. I think the poached scallops probably lacked a depth of flavor of the smoked trout I had at Telepan. I did think however, that the fried leek filaments were a nice addition (they were like some delicious shoestring fry and onion ring hybrid) and the celery root blini was spot on. I really have to thank Bill Telepan for introducing me to this newfound love of the blini. Since I made the batter on Sunday, I’ve eaten at least eight of these savory little pancakes and even had more blinis, with pickled herring and green apple sour cream for dinner last night.


My other Sunday cooking project was a venison dish. I don’t know why I was thinking of venison but it definitely had something to do with the cold weather and the fast approaching Christmas holiday. My goal with the venison was to create a dish that tasted like descriptions of the smell of red wine. First I browned the venison and then I braised it in red wine with a mirepoix, red berries, roasted cocoa nibs, sage and rosemary. After the braising was finished I served the finished meat with a sauce of sautéed cranberries, cherries and cocoa nibs as well as crispy fried potatoes and roasted Brussels sprout. I thought the red and green might be reminiscent of Christmas! The flavors worked really well together and now I’m thinking of ways to improve on both of my Sunday projects.

Braised Venison with a cherry, cranberry cocoa nib sauce, crispy potatoes and roasted brussels sprouts

Scallops, Apples, Chorizo, Pea Greens, Parmigiano Vinaigrette

This recipe came from a couple of different idea combinations. The first was bacon wrapped scallops and the second was pork and apples. Instead of serving any one of those two things, I tried to find a way to combine them. I added pea greens so the dish could stand by itself as a main course and also because I think they add a nice freshness that compliments the apples and contrasts with the smoky chorizo and the seared scallops. The vinaigrette gives the dish a little acid and the creamy unctuousness to keep it from being boring and a bit dry.

Note: This dish is pictured on the side of the site but I don’t think I’ve ever included a recipe. Now is a good time to make it because apples and pea greens are available at the greenmarket and scallops and chorizo are always tasty.




For the vinaigrette:

1 tsp mustard powder
1 tbsp white wine vinegar
6 tbsp heavy cream
¼ cup grated parmigiano reggiano
1 tbsp finely snipped chives

Combine first three ingredients and set aside. Just before serving, add the parmigiano and the chives.

For the main dish

12-16 Scallops (very fresh)
2-3 Chorizo sausages
2 Apples
1 cup pea greens
Salt pepper
¼ cup olive oil + 1 tsp olive oil

Remove sausage from casing sauté in 1 tsp olive oil until cooked and then set aside or keep in low 200 degree oven

Season scallops lightly with salt and pepper.

Heat oil in sauté pan until hot and close to smoking. Place scallops in oil and let sit until well seared on one side 2-3 minutes (do not move them around in the pan) Flip for 30 seconds to one minute more.

While scallops are cooking cut apples into either half slices or core and cut into thin circles.

Top apples with scallops and chorizo, finish with fresh pea greens and vinaigrette.

Fennel Crusted Halibut, Sweet Corn, Pesto, Spicy Tomato

This dish takes inspiration from two restaurants that I really like, Little Owl and L'Impero. I took the idea of Halibut corn and pesto from Little Owl and the tomato from L'Impero, the spicy part and the fennel crust is all me (I also cook my halibut differently from Little Owl.)

I love eating this dish because it incorporates so many flavorful elements that I really enjoy on their own, and it has a little heat to keep the taste buds working. Fennel, corn, pesto and tomato work really well as a team in this dish with the fennel crust adding a texturally nice crispiness to the fish while the brightness of the corn keeps the pesto from being overwhelmingly strong. The tomato sauce adds color, some acidity and a little bit of heat to bring everything together.

I don't have a good picture of this dish in it's final form but I have a few of early versions that tasted good, but not as good as the the one in this recipe. (The pictures aren't the best, which is why they haven't been on this site yet)

Recipe is below the pictures. If you decide to make this note that there may be some adjustments necessary.






Serves 3-4
Desired amount of Halibut or Cod, thickly cut, not filleted usually about 1/3 of a pound per person works
1 Tablespoon fennel seeds
2 Teaspoons kosher or sea salt salt
1 Tsp Peppercorns
½ Tsp Coriander seed
¼-1/2 Tsp Salt
4 ears corn
1 bunch basil
8-10 plum tomaotes
2 Tsp hot pepper flakes
2-3 Tbsp pine nuts
1 cup olive oil
½ cup grated parmigiano reggiano


To make crust for fish, place fennel seed, salt, peppercorns, coriander in a spice mill or grinder (or crush with a mortar and pestle) and process to make a fine powder. Mix in the flour

For the corn. Husk corn, remove kernels with a knife, toss with olive oil and salt and pepper and place in oven at 350 degrees to cook for 20-30 minutes

For tomato sauce. Bring a pot of lightly salted water to a boil. Using a paring knife, cut a small X on the bottom end of the tomato. Briefly blanch the tomatoes in boiling water 3-045 seconds. And submerge in ice water or place under running cold water.

Remove the skins and the seeds (the seeds are bitter).
In a small sauté pan heat about 1/4 to 1/3 cup olive oil. When oil is hot, throw in the tomatoes. And keep heat at medium. Add hot pepper flakes and salt and pepper to taste.

Let the tomatoes simmer (stirring occasionally) and crush with a masher every five minutes or so. They should simmer for about 20=25 minutes to get the saucy consistency. To get a clean sauce you can then strain or you can leave the tomatoes as is.

While the tomatoes are simmering. Pick and clean the basil leaves, place into food processor with pine nuts and ½ cup olive oil, adding the oil gradually. Process to desired consistency and mix in parmigiano, set aside.

For the fish: In a large skillet or sauté pan, heat ¼ cup olive oil until hot and close to smoking. Cut thick piece of fish into squares or rectangles and give each a generous topping of the fennel mixture.

When oil is hot, place fish in pan mixture side down and let sit, without moving for 3-4 minutes. Flip the fish and cook until cooked through 2-3 more minutes. You can check doneness of fish by inserting a metal skewer into the center of the fish and the removing it and touching the end. If the tip is warm, the fish is done.

Mix together pesto and corn, top with fish and finish the dish by swirling the tomato sauce on the perimeter of the plate.

Fall Eating

I know it’s talked about all the time, but cold weather food cravings are much different from warm weather ones. Here I am now as the seasons are changing and I look back at last fall as a time when I first started to really think seriously about food. I guess this is why, for the first time, I’m really noticing the changing of my tastes as the air cools (although it hasn’t gotten that much colder.)

While my summer cravings are usually centered around fish, or burgers and beer, or sushi or even just eating outside. I find that now, all I really want to eat is pork and duck. As a result I’ve been able to work on my meat repertoire. I cooked duck last night to inaugurate fall and it turned out really well. Instead of pairing it with fruit I tried to find fall ingredients. Here, on my friend’s blue plate, is the dish:



Coriander crusted duck breast with acorn squash maple puree, butternut squash, hazelnuts, and truffle honey.


I also used one of the methods I learned in my steak class to cook pork chops. We cross hatched the fat, rendered it, then pan roasted the pork in its own fat in the oven. The result is a well browned, juicy fantastic tasting piece of meat. My first attempt at this involved Indian spices—cumin, cinnamon, fennel, and coriander with a tamarind flavored fennel and apple slaw and another accompaniment that tasted ok but had the appearance of ‘dog vomit’ according to my mom. The pork was extremely pleasing but I could have done better with the other parts. I’m going to make a go at this again tonight with Honeycrisp apples (the best kind in my humble opinion,) caramelized fennel and arugula. I hope it turns out a little better because a piece of meat that tasty deserves some proper sidekicks.



Here’s a picture of some good looking fennel from Migliorelli Farms (USQ farmers Market) to make your Thursday a little brighter.

Cooking Classes

As I continue to toy with the idea of trying to find a food related job, I have been trying to expand my food world knowledge by reading, dining out and taking classes. I haven’t taken too many classes yet but there was the Masters in French cooking class over the summer and most recently, my class on how to roast suckling pig.

Last Friday I went to the Inn on West 23rd to take a 4 hour course on Roasting suckling pig and cooking some of the traditional suckling pig meal accompaniments. The class was fun but I wish I would have been able to be a bit more hands on with the pig. Time constraints mean that the instructor pretty much dealt with the pig (which seems fairly easy) while the students prepared the sides. This was, however, the first time that I’ve been able to experience the joy of suckling pig in its whole form, and yes, the head was still attached (it’s a good think too.) I managed to try suckling pig trotter, cheek, rib, loin, ear, tongue and brain. My favorite part was actually the tongue, it was incredibly tender, piggy and flavorful and once it’s cut out of the mouth, you kind of forget that you’re eating a tongue!

Anyway, I’m taking a class next Saturday taught by the Ideas in Food tandem on “steak and eggs” in which we will investigate and prepare steak and eggs in various forms. If it’s anything like what their pig and apple class looked like I’m in for a treat. (Click on link for something bizarrely awesome.)


In relation to yesterday’s post, here is a meal composed of ingredients solely from the farmers market:


It’s Mako on top of cranberry beans with bacon and sage in a spicy tomato broth. Simple and delicious and I have enough left over for lunch tomorrow.


On a final note…The 2008 Michelin guide to New York was released. You can see the starred restaurants here. The starrings seem to be completely arbitrary (almost as if the Michelin people skipped half of the restaurants in New York) and are not to be trusted. I have no idea how accurate Michelin is in Europe but their New York guide is of no use to me at all.

It's Turkey Eating Time

I tend to overlook turkey as a viable dietary option. For whatever reason, other than during Thanksgiving season, I never eat turkey. I don’t dislike turkey; I love turkey legs, and I really enjoy making a mish mash of my mom’s leftover turkey and gravy from our holiday meal, but I never seem to find myself eating turkey other than at Thanksgiving time.

Luckily for me, a couple of friends (unknowingly) have led me back to turkey land. Last week one friend invited me over for dinner and cooked a delicious pasta dish with turkey meatballs made from DiPaolo’s turkey in the Greenmarket. Then, I was having dinner with a friend on Friday who told me she had a turkey craving. I took these two occasions as a sign that I should buy, cook and eat some turkey.

On my next trip to the farmers market, I made sure to seek out the DiPaolo’s stand. If you’ve ever been to the greenmarket you probably know them as the stand that always has something delicious smelling on the grill. You then probably notice that it’s a turkey stand and pass it by, something I have done many a time (big mistake.) This past Saturday I finally decided to buy some turkey sausage to make meatballs for Sunday dinner and subsequent workday lunches. I really enjoy the strong, fennel-y flavor of the turkey sausage and appreciate the fact that the DiPaolo’s people season their ground turkey so well that I don’t really have to do anything to it to make it good.

Here I serve turkey meatballs with tomato chutney stuffed squash blossoms and a pistachio pesto (I made the smear more to be funny that for appearance.) For lunch, I’ve been eating the meatballs over roasted corn with nut free pesto, (can’t be brining nuts to school with all the allergic children these days) heirloom tomatoes, and wild Italian arugula.I find that the strong taste of the turkey goes incredibly well with pesto, something that can often overwhelm other flavors.

While these dishes might sound, and perhaps even look good, the fact of the matter is that you can’t really go wrong with DiPaolo’s turkey. Buy it at your local greenmarket today!!!!!

Breakfast Fish

Several months ago I had the strange idea that fish might taste good if it was marinated in maple syrup. Ever since then, to the delight of friend and family, I’ve been serving maple marinated fish. I find that the idea works well with fish like sole and flounder that pretty much take on the flavor of the things around them. Usually I coat the marinated fish in a light layer of flour and sauté it, giving the fish a slightly crunchy sweet crust that really works well with the flounder I usually use. I then pair it with corn (something else that is slightly sweet and crunchy) and either poached cranberries or sour cherries.

This weekend I decided to play around with this dish and make it more breakfast-y. I was thinking of things I eat and thing I buy at the Green Market and thought about incorporating berries and bacon into the dish. Originally I wanted to marinate the fish or puree it with maple syrup and then stuff it with blueberries and walnuts, wrap it in bacon and bake it (which I still might do) but time constraints on Sunday (thanks to football) led me in a different direction. Instead of pureeing the maple marinated fish, I coated it in brioche bread crumbs (another breakfast item) and baked it. I then served the baked fish over crispy, slightly sour, Mutsu apples; blueberries, raspberries, and bacon-sage vinaigrette. Overall I was really happy with the dish although next time I might make a spread with the raspberries and bake the apples so that they’re a little softer in texture. I also found upon baking that the syrup coating the fish becomes a little more subtle. I think I might also add a little syrup to the vinaigrette to make up for this. I like the fact that the fish looks eerily similar to a McDonald's hash brown

I posted this today because after my dinner on Friday I was thinking of my own creative process and thought this was a nice example. Perhaps this post can inspire someone else to better understand they’re own creative process.

A Day for Mole

A couple of day ago, I found myself with a lot of free time and a determination to make something that I love, but is often prepared too quickly, ending in a muddle—Mole.
I summoned my inner poblano housewife and set to work making mole in as traditional a way as possible while still trying to keep it my own. Mole is often described as a chocolate sauce, but it’s actually much more complicated than just chocolate. Proper Mole Poblano involves chocolate, but also a combination of peppers, nuts and spices. Just for fun, I laid out about 90 percent of my mole ingredients on a cutting board before I set to work.


From what I’ve read, I understand Mole to be a dish used more for special occasions than day to day eating, and the prep time in making mole really confirms this. Individually roasting and frying peppers, toasting nuts and spices, blanching tomatoes, blackening tomatillo and mixing, pureeing, tasting, adjusting and boiling down took about two and a half hours. The time and end result was worthwhile as I had a sauce that tasted of chocolate and cinnamon and cloves yet was complex in that despite those flavors the sweetness was an underlying one giving rise to a slight and nuttiness as the flavors evolved on the tongue. I also ended up making more mole than I could possibly use in one meal, leaving me more Mole for future experiments, I’m thinking pulled pork enchiladas or duck breast or possibly lamb shank and mole.

The dinner I made on Monday was simple (one I spent all the time making the Mole.) I browned chicken legs then covered them in mole and turkey stock and baked them for 45 minutes. When finished I served them over rice (to absorb the Mole) with black beans, shallots and tomatoes. I finished the dish with sprinkled Garrotxa cheese (I hope using conquistador cheese isn’t an affront to Mexican cooking) and cilantro for the color and to brighten the dish a little.

If you enjoy cooking and find yourself with some free time, I wholly encourage making Mole or some other sort of traditional ethnic dish. Most of these dishes are very time consuming because traditionally, women in some of these cultures spent their days cooking and tending to their homes. However, the payoff in making these dishes from scratch is a truly great ethnic dish that doesn’t suffer from their more modernized mass produced ripoffs that we tend to see in our cuisine these days. It might even be an enlightening experience.

Sticking it to The Water Club

After spending $60 dollars on a lobster, I needed to find some way to make this poor little overpriced lobster's life a little more worthwhile. While sitting at our table we came up with the brilliant, but somewhat odd idea to take our lobster shells to go. When we asked the staff at The Water Club to bag our lobster shells (they shell the lobsters tableside) we were met with looks of confusion and grudging acceptance( is this the customer is always right?) Our waiter even asked why we wanted the shells. I told him I was going to make a lobster stock (I thought that a restaurant that sells lobsters for $30 dollars a pound might have staff that knows what lobster stock)but clearly, the idea went way over his head. Anyway, after our meal I took home four containers of lobster shells to make stock with.

I used it both to poach cod and as the base for a sherry, tomato cream sauce in this dish:


It's cod, poached in lobster stock served with caramelized purple white and orange carrots, fingerling potatoes, purslane and tarragon in a lobster sherry cream sauce.

Asking for the shells not only freaked out the very proper Water Club staff (very amusing for me) but also helped me make something tasty to eat for Sunday dinner.

Mangos

The recent news of Indian mangos being allowed into the United States has worked me into a sort of mango frenzy. I haven’t had the opportunity to buy Indian mangos yet but that hasn’t stopped me from trying to cook with mangos from other countries.

My idea with mangos was to pair them with fish. One night I bought a relatively ripe mango and ate it with slices of tuna sashimi. The flavors worked nicely together but texturally the combination left something to be desired. I then decided to make the mangos into a sauce and had to figure out some additions to make. I thought about what would go well with raw fish and I decided that I should try to find a way to add a little kick to the mangos to get the taste buds going.

The process caused my taste memory to kick in and I started to think about the hamachi/ edamame-horseradish puree/ nori dish at Momofuku Ssam Bar and thought that that a similar type of puree could work for mangos. Finally I got to grating my horseradish and pureeing it with the mangos. The final step was passing the mixture through a fine chinois (think really fine strainer) to get the desired consistency. The end result was a thick golden sauce that had the wonderful sweet fruity flavors of mango and a spicy kick.

I served the sauce with a duo of scallop and tuna sashimi on Friday night and used the leftovers last night in my weekly Sunday dinner. Here is a picture of the puree with swordfish, spicy braised red chard and currants:

Things I Like

I’ve had a ton of free time in the past couple of weeks and although I haven’t been writing about food as much as I have been, it doesn’t mean that I haven’t been eating/thinking and talking about/cooking/obsessing over food. There has probably been more food in my life than I have time to write about.

Today, in lieu of writing about any one food subject I thought I’d write down a list of foodish things that I’ve enjoyed in the past week or so.

• Goat Cheese dumplings and summer vegetable pesto. After seeing Dan Barber of Blue Hill's summer menu, I felt the need to figure out how to serve goat cheese dumplings with my own version of his summer vegetable pesto. I served these to some friends last Sunday and saw people giving each other the "holy s%#@! this is good, look" something any chef strives for. Essentially I coarsely grated potatoes with a cheese grater, coated balls of chevre with the shavings and fried them in oil so there was a crispy outside with a soft tangy chevre center.

• Eating raw fish. It's summer and raw fish is delicious, light and refreshing. It's even better with black Hawaiian sea salt.

• In keeping with the fish theme, I've started reading The Zen of Fish. It's a very interesting read if you eat sushi frequently or are interested in social histories or if you simply like food.

• Restaurants. Restaurant week is coming up and my stomach can barely contain it's excitement (that sounds kind of gross but I hope you get the point.) I also went back to Boqueria last night for the first time in a while--it was fantastic as always; and am going to 26 seats tonight. I'm excited about a little pissaladiere and sub $15 dollar entrees, a true rarity in this city.

• The Annotated Dish feature on Grub Street. This is more of a constant like for me, but I thought I'd mention it here anyway for those not in the know. I really enjoy seeing all the components of the featured dishes although I do think that the chefs probably make these dishes seem more complicated than they really are
  

• Old food magazines. My wonderful neighbors recently decided to get rid of all of their old food magazines (there were a lot) and instead of throwing them out, they gave them to me. While the articles in food magazines might be dated, the real meat of the magazines, the ideas and recipes are always fun for me to look at. I never really follow the recipes, but I still find that having access to ideas can help me grow as a cook. It's also fun to see features from 2001 magazines (about 4 years before my food obsession began to take hold) and see features on Giada de Laurentiis as a home chef and Wylie Dufresne of WD-50 (one of my favorites) as a rising star chef.
  

• I'm also excited about cooking a belated father's day dinner (they were in Sweden) for my dad and mom on Sunday and using it as an excuse to drink his very good bottle of Amarone.
  

Hope everyone has a great weekend and is able to take advantage of restaurant week next week!

Ever since seeing Ratatouille about a week and a half ago I’ve been in full on cooking mode. The day after seeing the movie we had our sausage BBQ where we cooked at least seven different kinds of sausage (the duck, duck liver and pork from Dean & Deluca and the lamb and sage from the Union Square Farmer’s Market being the favorites.) After the BBQ I had a couple of friends suggest to me that I should throw another dinner party, something I had not really wanted to do during the summer. The appetite reducing heat and the fact that most people have plans on summer weekends were two factors contributing to my apprehension. However, my enthusiasm for eating and cooking won out and I decided to press on.

My challenge now is to create some dishes that incorporate summer ingredients and be light enough so that guests don’t feel gross after a big meal. Here are a couple of pictures of things I’ve made in the last week that I might or might not use later on.

Seared Sockeye Salmon with crispy Bluefoot mushrooms, milk braised baby zucchini, microgreens and truffle oil. This was a fairly simple dish and tasted good (mostly thanks to the quality of the salmon) but not great. I thought the Bluefoot mushrooms were a nice accompaniment and microgreens always make a plate look nice but the braised baby zucchini was a pretty big miscalculation on my part. I thought braising it in milk would give it a creamy flavor to go with the creamy texture of the salmon but instead the zucchini was just plain bad. I will never braise baby zucchini's in milk ever again. I liked the dish (minus the zucchini) but its not one I would serve if I was trying to impress people.

Crispy soft shell crabs with fennel apple salad, fennel pollen, sweet and sour pickled ramps and sweet and sour reduction. This was the first time I had ever cooked a soft shell crab. It was really easy to do and pretty fantastic tasting. I love the flavor of crab and the contrast of the crispy shell to the soft interior is amazing. I was happy with the fennel apple combination although I might lightly pickle the fennel to ease the texture a little. I also really enjoyed the pickled ramps (which I was excited to even be able to use in something) and the sauce that resulted from using the pickling liquid. If i served this as part of a menu i would probably count on two people splitting one crab and serving them on a platter. I'm still not completely sure how to plate soft shell crabs but I'm sure I'll figure it out.


Tuna Sashimi with pickled jalapeno, Chilean Carica and black Hawaiian sea salt. I liked some of the aspects of this dish but thought that they didn't really come together as a whole. I liked the Carica, a fruit that I found while perusing the jarred luxury items at Murray's Cheeses. It has the flavor profile of a peach crossed with a pineapple and a texture that's a cross between a canned peach and a poached pear. I just thought it didn't pair particularly well with the tuna. I also love to use sea salt with fish as well as peppers--I feel that the salt brings out the flavors of the fish while the heat from the peppers gets the mouth watering. The jalapenos were probably a little too distinct and didn't mesh well with the tuna, I think they probably need to be involved with more complex preparation involving a whiter fish so that they don't dominate as much.





Lamb loin chops with yellow bean, sugar snaps, golden raisins topped with a salad of mint, summer savory and lemon thyme. I sauteed the yellow beans and sugar snaps and then added the golden raisins and tossed the mixture with hot pepper flakes and parmigiano reggiano. The salad was simply shredded herbs briefly sauteed in butter to make them crispy. The lamb chop was simply crusted in salt and pepper and seared (because I have no grill.) I was pleased with the flavors of the dish and i thought that the spiciness of the vegetables brought out some of the flavor of the lamb and the herb salad helped cool down the spice a little (the mint) and complimented the lamb chop texturally. Sadly the price of lamb chops keeps me from buying 16 again to cook for people but I'll store this one in the memory bank.

There are also a couple of other things that I made on Sunday night but in the interests of your time, I'll write about them later.

Grilling

I spent the second half of my weekend visiting my friend in medical
school in Philadelphia. While part of the reason I went down was to see
my friend, the other part was that he had a grill and I would have the
opportunity to do some cooking. I love grilling, but living in
Manhattan, the opportunities to BBQ are few and far between. Whenever
someone mentions the word grilling to me I start to salivate and
instantly make plans to be wherever it is said grill might be. I even
got on the Amtrak train this past Friday with a backpack full of frozen
meat and zucchini purchased at the Union Square farmer’s market

Our medical school BBQ included one farmer’s market porterhouse, a pack of bacon, one pack of green onion sausages, one pack of beef sausages, two packs of hot dogs, 3 kinds of zucchini, grilled corn, and hand made hamburgers.


Here are some pictures of the porterhouse I
bought at the farmer’s market. I coated it generously with salt and
pepper and grilled it over high heat for 6-7 minutes until it was
slightly charred on both sides and let sit for another 8-10 minutes so
that it could cook a little more. The result was a perfectly medium
rare steak that went fantastically well with our Columbia Valley
Cabernet.

I have also noticed that people at the last couple of barbeques I’ve been at really enjoy my burgers so I thought I’d provide an outline of how I go about making them.

Ingredients:

Worcestershire sauce
Coarse grain mustard
A little ketchup
Onion chopped very fine
Garlic chopped very fine
A little bit of Jack Daniels

I dip lumps of meat in the marinade then form the burgers and let them
sit in the fridge for a couple of hours before throwing them on the
grill so that they are less likely to fall apart. You can vary the
proportions of ingredients however you want but definitely do not add
too much whiskey. I once made that mistake and had burgers that tasted
like JD they were not enjoyable. Happy eating!

Greenmarketing

Shopping at the Union Square Greenmarket recently has been more fun than ever. I started seriously cooking about a year ago and for the most part didn’t really know what I was doing. Since then however my knowledge of food has grown by leaps and bounds and now, I can actually think of ways to use many of the Greenmarket ingredients that I see. I don’t even have to go in with a plan or shopping list anymore. I feel like a kid in a toy store if the toy store had lots of perfect food products that can be eaten.

I guess I’m writing about the Greenmarket because I actually found myself there twice this weekend and I might even go again on Monday morning. I went on Friday because this past Thursday night I made the impromptu decision to have people over for dinner on Friday night. I wanted to make something with mostly Greenmarket ingredients that would be light and simple—its starting to get too warm for multi-course tastings.

I came up with these—


This is a salad of mixed greens, frisee and sorrel with toasted hazelnuts, honey chevre croutons (The honey chevre people are there on Fridays and the honey chevre is extraordinarily good) and a raspberry/mustard vinaigrette.



This is Sea Bass with caramelized lemon served over sugar snaps, baby carrots, and red and green tomatoes all tossed with lemon oil and Muscat vinegar.




We then finished the meal eating wild strawberries dipped in chocolate sauce and leftover calvados ice cream.

Calvados Ice Cream

With this post I'll admit that I probably have no idea what I'm talking about. The ice cream however did taste very good and I was hoping to share the idea.

Whenever the weather is nice I try as hard as I can to go grocery shopping at the Union Square Green Market. Several weeks ago as I was shopping I took the time to taste some of Eve’s Cidery wine. The wine I tasted was their apple ice wine and I thought it tasted fantastic. Granted I don’t know that much about wine made out of fruits or even ice wine in general but I thought this wine was delicate and not too pressing. Sweet, but not too sweet and palatable at the same time. My next thought was ‘what dessert can I pair this with?’. I really wanted to serve apple ice wine as a dessert pairing at a dinner party buy my dessert repertoire was fairly limited and I had no idea what to make.

I started thinking that I had to make some kind of apple crumble to go with the apple wine and an ice cream to go with it. I couldn’t merely make a plain vanilla ice cream so I tired to think of an ice cream that might capture the essence of apples but not be too appley. I then thought that Calvados (an apple liqueur that they used to put on my crepes in France and light on fire) ice cream seemed like a good idea.

Then I got to work. First I bought some Calvados (not particularly cheap) and then I tried to figure how to use it. I looked online for calvados ice cream recipes and possibly some inspiration but found absolutely none. I was on my own. Luckily I had a faint knowledge of making ice cream and a really crappy ice cream maker (I am now certain that its not necessary to own an ice cream make in order to make ice cream.) I made the base by mixing 6 egg yolks with sugar in a bowl and then in a sauce pan mixing 1 ½ cups of cream and 1 ½ cups of half and half with 4 tablespoons calvados, one tablespoon star anise, one half teaspoon almond extract and a splash of cinnamon. One the mixture started bubbling I took it off the heat and mixed it with the egg yolks and sugar. Once fully incorporated I returned the mixture to the saucepan until it thickened so that I could run a clear line with my finger over the back of a spoon covered in the mixture—it didn’t take very long. I then cooled the mixture in my refrigerator. The next day I ran the mixture through my crappy ice cream maker for about 15 minutes. When not much happened I placed the mixture in some Tupperware and left it in the freezer. Later on I was rewarded with calvados (possibly also star anise) ice cream. It’s a little heavy but very flavorful and does go well with Eve’s Cidery apple ice wine.

Short Ribs

(This post has lots of pictures of short ribs)











I love short ribs. I’ve served them at my last couple of dinner parties and my mom has been making them for me for years (She finally conceded yesterday that my short ribs are the best.) The only problem with short ribs is that they are an ugly cheap cut of meat. The cheap part isn’t a problem because short ribs are meant to be braised for hours and hours so they fall off the bone and melt when you bite into them. The ugly part is difficult for someone like me—a person with no culinary training who likes to try to make food look good.

For those of you who don’t know how to prepare short ribs, they’re easy. Here’s a quick briefing:

Season short ribs with salt and pepper and brown on both sides in a heavy stock pot

Sauté vegetables, I use celery carrots onions and garlic in the juices of the short ribs

Add fluids for braising. These will largely determine the nuances in the flavor of the short ribs. I use red wine, balsamic vinegar, and a stock I made from marrow bones and pig’s feet (any stock will do as long as it’s not cheap and bad)

Add other spices and aromatics and anything else you want. I use rosemary thyme and plum tomatoes

Add the seared short ribs

Bring the pot to a boil and place in a 250-300 degree oven and forget about the ribs for 4-8 hours. They will come out tasting fantastic.

As for serving short ribs…They are fairly unsightly pieces of meat. They taste great but are really not nearly as nice to look at as say, a charred steak. I’ve served short ribs on a plate over risotto with its own braising liquids and what I got was a big unshapely piece of brown meat surrounded by a brown viscous liquid. Not the aesthetic I was looking for.

The next time I served short ribs at a party they were over a puree of basil peas and potatoes but looked weird again. Something about the colors brown and green didn’t quite click (I probably should've had that one figured out ahead of time.)

Which brings me to my reason for posting today—I think I’ve finally found a way to serve short ribs so that they look AND taste good.

Here are short ribs with a beet potato puree, roasted carrots, chive flowers, pink beauty radishes, icicle radishes, pea greens and purple (I don’t remember the vegetable) greens.



I also recently received the suggestion to serve the short ribs in a bowl surrounded by their juices and whatever else I might add, (it’s a shame to waste the juices) one that I’ll have to try out some time. Just another excuse to eat delicious short ribs.