Croissants

The important thing to understand about croissants is that they're fundamentally breads, not pastries. They're made with yeast or some other natural leaven, like breads. The dough is a fermented one, like a baguette. They're kneaded, not beaten. They're the work of a boulanger, a baker, and not a patissier, a pastry chef.

What all this means is that a good croissant tastes like bread as well. Of course, it's buttery (and the taste of the butter is so important). But it is also chewy, substantial. It is bread with butter, not filo dough in crescent shape.

Having said all that, I'm writing to praise DC baker Breadline's pain au chocolat. I had always thought they were the only baker anywhere in this area to capture something of the essence of french bread. Their potent chocolatey croissant, however, is a very close imposter indeed, resplendent with both all the bready qualities I mentioned above as well as with the taste of a rich french butter. I think it's the best $1.97 purchase in the entire city.

Man, I feel better after having eaten something like that. Wow.

The Washington Post is reporting that restaurants are finally beginning to scale back their ridiculous portions. This is undoubtedly good news. I like to eat as much as possible, like most people. This doe snot mean, however, that my steak has to be two pounds, my burder almost half that, or my salad approximately the size of a punch bowl.

The beauty of eating, the beauty of food, is to be found in the excellence of what you cook or what gets placed in front of you at restaurants. The people who say they need all this food to feel full are wrong; the reason they think they need these giant quantities of food is because the food tastes of nothing, and so they are compelled to compensate with way too much of it.

That, at least, is what I think. I know others disagree.

I'm going to try to move this blog forward very soon. Links, more posting, etc. It should move beyond being a personal journal.

M & S Grill

Almost everything I have to say about this restaurant can be summed up in my general comments about Americans and Sandwiches below. Apart from that, let me just say that M & S does a great job of what it tries, despite some sluggish service. Incidentally, this also applies to Pot Belly Sandwich Works, the franchise spreading throughout DC.

Rules of Sandwich Making, to be adopted by all American restaurants trying to make a sandwich.

1. Frying seventy second rate bread in butter does not fix the seventy second rate bread.

2. Piling three pounds of meat on a sandwich does not make uninteresting meat interesting.

3. Trying to disguise bad bread or uninteresting meat with powerful sauces, inhuman mounds of cheese, giant hot peppers, oil, vinegar, mustards, mayo, or any other condiment is not the answer.

Fancy Pants Chips and Dip

In honour of the football season restarting, I decided that I wanted something manly. However, buffalo wings were out of the question given my focus on veggies this week, so I decided to eat some chips. Luckily, Emeril (I can't believe I'm using an Emeril recipe) had this to say to say on the subject just a few days ago.

Get some white russet potatoes. Peel (obviously) and then slice very thinly (again obviously, slicing them with a mandolin is best. But if you have no money, like me, then just get a sharp knife and have at it.) Toss the potato slices in olive oil, sprinkle with salt and black pepper, and then layer them on an oiled sheet of parchment paper, which you've put in a baking tray. Then oil another sheet, put it on top of the potatoes, and crush the chips with another tray on top. (of course, this works best if you've got two identical trays.).

Bake in the oven for 15-30 minutes, until crisp and as brown as you might like. While that's happened, throw some goat cheese in a food processsor with some sour cream, salt, pepper, basil, and lemon juice. Pulse until smooth.

Serve, dipping chips in cheese like substance. Very simple and excellent.

Salad Nicoise


There are as many ways to make salad nicoise as to get into trouble with the federal government, but the follwoing is what I made last week end. Like other summery recipes, this is definitely meant to be eaten outside, preferably on a french beach with cheap beach french fries, but otherwise, outside at least.

Lettuce, hopefully an interesting mix
green beans
1 egg
tomato
tuna (tinned, though real tuna works as well, fiercely seared)
small nicoise olives (available, these days, at most supermarkets)
mustard, oil, vinegar, salt, pepper
perhaps a red onion, though this isn't necessary.


Simmer the egg until done (you're looking hard boiled, of course). Get an ice bath ready, and then throw the green beans in some more boiling water for just a minute or two. You're looking basically to blanch them. Then put them in the ice bath to maintain color and crispness as soon as possible.

Put the lettuce on the place. Then layer other ingredients on. I usually stick the green beans on one corner, some slices of tomato on another quarter, slices of eggs in the two remaining corners, then tuna on top, olives on top of them, and a few slices of red onion on top of that.

Then make a sauce with a little mustard, olive oil, and vinegar. Remember to dissolve the salt in the mustard and vinegar, then add the oil. Douse the dry salad with this sauce, heavily. You need some left over for bread mopping, if you're looking for actual authenticity.

Enjoy.

The trials and tribulations of the suburban virginia sushi muncher never end, it seems. Is this place good? Usually, the answer is no.

But I'm glad to report an exception to the rule, in Blue Ocean Sushi Restaurant. No, it's not quite Kaz Sushi, having neither the elegance nor the quality of the DC hot spot. But it is good, it is pretty authentically Japanese, and the fish is fresh.

Additionally, unlikely so many other Sushi restaurants I've been too, the fellow behind the bar at Blue Ocean is suprisingly generous. Indeed, the sushi deluxe was almost too much for me. Do you understand? Too much. For me. It's like Saddam saying he had murdered too many innocents.

Old Ebbitt Grill

After walking into the Old Ebbit Grill, it's hard to believe that the food is going to be anything more then an afterthought. The restaurant positively oozes Washington at its clubby, political, relationship driven best or worst, depending on how you see it. No herb garden here, let me assure you; but there are lots of politicans, lawyers, and lobbyists, if that kind of thing catches your fancy.

But in reality, Old Ebbit does quite a good job feeding its elite clientelle as well. No, it's no 2941, or other such temple of innovative cooking. It wouldn't want to be. Rather, the staff at the huge DC restaurant serves up simple but high quality American food, carefully calculated to please its steak chomping constituency. It is no surprise, in other words, that they serve a top quality hamburger, or a wide array of oysters.

But I don't think anyone goes to the Grill for the food, honestly. If the food were bad, assuredly, they wouldn't go. But barring that unlikely eventuality, they go to cement relationships, trade countries, sell souls, and all the other things politicans in this city do. And if you want a little theatre with your meal, this is just the place to get it.

DC Coast

I had long meant to eat something at DC Coast, having heard of owner/chef Jeff Tunks' skill with fancified southern food. I finally got the opportunity to do some overly belated troughing just today. Since I don't like to "review" restaurants where I haven't dined multiple times or with a large party (enough for me to get tastes of a wide range of the menu), I'll restrain myself to what I had for lunch.

I have a thing for sandwiches stuffed with fried things, and then served with other fried things. It doesn't have to be as barbaric as all that sounds, though, as DC Coast's shrimp "po boy" demonstrates. Delicately fried cornmeal encrusted shrimp, stuffed generously into an elongated sort of floury bread that the British would call a bap, spicey remoulade, home made ketchup? I'm happy. When all this is accompanied by some good (if not magnificent) handcut french fries (which also found themselves being luxuriously dipped in the remoulade) and you've got a distinctly pleased law student. So what if I need to go out for a long run and eat nothing but a few slices of smoked salmon tonight, in order to make up for the debauchery at lunch? It was worth it.

Monkfish kebabs

Recipe shamelessly stolen from Jamie "I've doctoring my accent to sell more TV shows" Oliver.

Chop monkfish into delicious chunks, and throw in a marinade with rosemary, garlic, and so on. By the way, when you remove the rosemary leaves from the stalks, leave a few leaves right at the top for the next step.

Thread the monkfish onto the rosemary skewers, which you've sharpened by cutting diagonally at the end. Alternate monkfish with a nice smoked bacon, and think slices of courgette, which you can use to envelop the fish.

Throw on a grill for a few minutes, and serve with one of the salads below.

Summery Arugula Salad

I made this yesterday after a trip to the farmer's market. Eat outside with a cool drink and a smug attitude.

Wash some arugula (i.e roquette). Make sure they're dry before using, though, either putting them through a spinner of layering them in a bowl with paper towels.

Slice up some nice summer squashes, and toss with a tablespoon or so of flavorful olive oil and garlic, and also salt and pepper. Throw in a roasting pan with lots of space, and cook for about 10-15 minutes on 350 degrees fahrenheit. Let these folks cool while you get the rest of the salad ready. Also, pan fry some turkey or chicken marinated in some way you like.

Let all the ingredients cool (though the chicken can be slightly warm if you like- the only worry is that the salad might wilt). Toss together, with a generous amount of salt, lemon, pepper, and olive oil (seeing a pattern). Follow instructions for eating above.

Two bean salad

Trim some green beans and salt some boiling water heavily. Boil for two minutes.

Finely slice some shallots, and throw them in the water with the beans. After four minutes or so remove and shock in an ice bath. Pat dry.

Throw some canned cannelini beans in a bowl, and add the shallots and beans.

Make a dressing with sherry vinegar, olive oil, and salt and pepper, perhaps some mustard as well. A standard dressing, with about 2.5 oil to vinegar.

Grilled Veggie Salad

Pulled this off from TV yesterday.

Aubergine (aka eggplant)
courgette (aka zuchini)
fennel root
asparagus
many peppers, red, yellow, orange. Whatever you can find.
little squashes
possibly mushrooms?

Slice all these things into relatively thin slices, unless they're too small. Grill on the barbecue. Only the peppers are slightly tricky- for them, just grill until black all over, and then pull skin off with hands before tearing apart and de-seeding.

While all this is still hot, sprinkle with as much garlic as you like, chopped up finely, and then dress with salt, pepper, and great glugs of top quality olive oil. Finish with some red wine vinegar, and toss while the last tendrils of warmth leave the salad.

I'm looking forward to this with a grilled flank steak.

Blueberry Shortcake

This is really a nice dessert for the summer; simple, light, and delicious.

2.75 cups flour
a little salt
1 cup butter
1/2 cup light (single) cream or half and half (they both work)
1 egg
1 egg white
5 tablespoons granulated sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder

2.5 cups blueberries
1/3 cup sugar
1/3 cup water
tiny amount of lemon.

To make the shortcakes, sift a little salt, all the flour, and the baking powder into a bowl. Add 3 tablespoons of granulated sugar and mix well (make them big tablespoons, incidentally). Freeze the butter, and then grate into the flour using the coarse end of the grater. Quickly work the frozen butter into the flour using your fingers. Crack the egg into the cream and mix well, and then tip the eggy cream into the dry ingredients, bringing the dough together. When this is well done, roll the dough out carefully to a relatively thick 3/4 of an inch, cut out whatever shapes you want, brush the top with an egg white, sprinkle with a little more granulated sugar, and then cook in a pre-heated 325 oven for 10-15 minutes.

As for the blueberry sauce, combine half the berries with all the other ingredients except the lemon. Cook for 10 minutes, bringing to a slow boil. Add the rest of the berries and simmer for another 8 minutes or so; just long enough for the new berries to be soft, but not to have lost their shape. Throw in some lemon for taste, let cool to just warm, and serve on top of the warm shortcakes with a scant scoop of preferably almond ice cream (vanilla, of course, will do).

An interesting sauce for shrimp....

minced garlic, lemon, hot sauce, and sherry. Mix all together..

It's a little spicy, though.

Woh.
One man’s description of how he used to gain 17 pounds in a week at home

Well, for breakfast I’d have two eggs, six biscuits with butter an jelly, half a quart of milk, six sausages, six strips of bacon, and a couple of homemade cinnamon rolls. Then I’d hit Maclean’s Bakery. They have a kind of fried cinnamon roll I love. Maybe I’d have two or three of them. Then , on the way downtown to have lunch, I might stop at Kresge’s and have two chili dogs and couple of root beers. . . Then I’d go to lunch. What I really like for lunch is something like a hot beef sandwich or a hot turkey sandwich. Open faced, loaded with that flour gravy. With mashed potatoes. Then dutch apple pie. . Then sometimes in the afternoon I’d pick up a pie and go to my friend’s house, and we’d cut the pie down the middle and put half in a bowl for each of us, and then take a quart of ice cream and cut that down the middle and put it on top of the pie. We’d wash it down with Pepsi. Then that would be it until I stopped at my sister’s house. She’s very big on crunchy peanut butter. . . .Then for dinner we’d maybe go to Charlie Bryant’s or one of the barbecues out on the highway. At the movies I’d always have a bag of corn and a big Coke and knock off a Payday candy bar. Then we’d always end up at Winstead’s, of course. Two double cheeseburgers with everything but onions, a fresh lime coke, and a frostry malt. It is was before eleven, I’d stop at the Zarda dairy for one of their 49 cent banana splits. Then I’d get home maybe some cherry pie and a 16 ounce pepsi.

From "The Tummy Trilogy" by Calvin Trillin

Damn Hot Peppers

Chop jalapenos into rings, and add at low heat to a sauté pan with lots of green peppers. Fry at low heat until very soft, and fiery hot. In the meantime, chop potatoes into 1 cm cubes, and boil, starting in cold water. When parboiled, remove, and then put immediately into very hot sauté pan with olive oil, and fry till crisp. Add a good amount of tomato puree to the peppers,and continue to cook. When the potatoes are crispy, add them to the peppers. If you want, you can add an egg to the mixture, right on top, and put in oven. Otherwise, you’re done.

The potatoes alone look nice too.

Steak Diane

Smash a steak of some sort to about half an inch thick. Fry it up in a little butter, until medium.

Remove steak. Add chopped shallots, and then either brandy or broth to deglaze. Add English mustard, cream, and parsley, and let it all bubble until reduced. Add to steak, and in my opinion eat with some decent crusty bread.

Peanut Sauce

Chop a challot. Crush garlic. Peel some ginger, and grate. Seed and chop some chilies. Fry all of these until soft in a little vegtable oil. Season with coriander, add crunchy peanut butter and a little water, and bring it to the boil.

I bet this can be used equally well with a sort of noodle dish with maybe some shrimp as well as on chicken kebab things.

Peanut Sauce

Chop a challot. Crush garlic. Peel some ginger, and grate. Seed and chop some chilies. Fry all of these until soft in a little vegtable oil. Season with coriander, add crunchy peanut butter and a little water, and bring it to the boil.

I bet this can be used equally well with a sort of noodle dish with maybe some shrimp as well as on chicken kebab things.