Hashbrowns

What I've learned thus far from Thomas Keller's Ad Hoc is that the man responsible for Per Se and the French Laundry is obsessed with, and uniquely thoughtful about, little details that make big differences. So, for example, his prime rib is torched briefly with propane to ensure caramelization even at 275 degrees. And his potato pancakes (which I think of as hashbrowns) are grated, washed, dried, and then tossed with cornstarch to get the proper internal texture. I loved this technique, and the results, even if I became inpatient and pulled them off before the thick crust I initially wanted.

A better weekend: pumpkin bread

Breakfast sunday morning was pumpkin bread, as below. The recipe is the recipe for pumpkin bread found in the King Arthur cookbook, which I recommend extremely highly. The only thing to note is that it is very forgiving (I could not find my scale, and just sort of winged the 13.5 ounces of flour) and really needs the entire hour to bake at the proscribed 375. Also, I omitted the chocolate chips as irrelevant.

A better weekend: butter poached radishes and brussels

I've been having a better weekend in terms of work, and as anyone who knows me might expect, I've filled it with food. First up is a side dish I cribbed from Keller's (excellent) Ad Hoc cookbook, radishes simmered in a mixture of butter and stock to glaze, along with brussel sprouts first shocked to preserve their color and then added to the radishes. This was really a surprisingly delicious dish, helped by the fact that we picked up the radishes at a farmer's market outside Lincoln Center yesterday afternoon. They were sweet and mild, with only a slight tang to remind us of what happens to radishes gone bad.

The wine you can see in the background I picked to go with our main dish, prime rib. I might write about this a little more, but I wonder why prime rib has fallen out of favor (or so I perceive) in favor of steak. Good prime rib (and the prime rib we bought was very good - Citarella does an excellent job here in New York with meat) tastes like marrow rubbed on protein - even more tender than the usually insipid filet mignon, but tasting of nothing but beef. In any case, the wine is a grand bordeaux, but of the second rank of grand bordeauxs. We detected what we called "citrus" (apparently, this is called "acidity" in wine speak) and various fruits. But what struck us both as more interesting was the extent to which the bordeaux reacted to beef, becoming milder, sweeter, and somehow more fragrant.