Brioche
Make a dough starter as below,but with 2 tablespoons of water, 1 of sugar, and only 1 egg and 1/2 cup of flour. Let this sit for a day and a night.
Add 1 cup of flour, 2 TB of sugar, some more yeast, 2 large eggs, cold, and 8 tablespoons (113 grams) of very soft butter. (you can go up to 200 grams of butter with no problem, though I think this is overkill). Combine it all at once by hand, making sure everything is well incorporated, and beat with a spoon until smooth. You're not going to be able to knead this dough, because it will be very soft, so you'll have to just beat it until the glutens are developed. Let rise for two hours, deflate, and put in the fridge for another hour. Deflate again, and bag it in an oiled bag, and age for 6 hours to 2 days, to develop more flavor. Deflate again, shape into whatever form you like (I like braids on these things) and bake in an oven at 350 for as long as the challah. Make sure the brioche is glazed with egg beforehand.
(both challah and brioche recipes are from Beranbaum's "The Bread Bible"
3/22/2004
Challah
Make a dough starter with 1 cup of flour, 1 teaspoon of yeast, water, 2 tablespoons of honey, and three large eggs. Mix all these together leave for a day and night in the fridge. It should look like very thick batter - not dough.
The next day, combine 4 2/3 cups of flour, more instant yeast, salt, 2 large eggs, 1/3 cup corn oil, 6 tablespoons honey, an 1 tablespoon cider vinegar, as well as the dough starter. Knead for about five minutes, and let rest for 20 minutes, so that it becomes easier to handle. Knead for five more minutes until the dough is almost rubber like.
Let the dough rise once. Deflate, and let it rise again. Deflate again, and shape into three long ropes. Braid the ropes, and glaze the whole thing with lightly beaten egg. Let rise this way for an hour, preheat the oven to 350, and bake the challah for about 50 minutes, with the last half hour protected by a tent of foil to keep it from burning. Make sure to glaze again before putting in the oven.
Make a dough starter with 1 cup of flour, 1 teaspoon of yeast, water, 2 tablespoons of honey, and three large eggs. Mix all these together leave for a day and night in the fridge. It should look like very thick batter - not dough.
The next day, combine 4 2/3 cups of flour, more instant yeast, salt, 2 large eggs, 1/3 cup corn oil, 6 tablespoons honey, an 1 tablespoon cider vinegar, as well as the dough starter. Knead for about five minutes, and let rest for 20 minutes, so that it becomes easier to handle. Knead for five more minutes until the dough is almost rubber like.
Let the dough rise once. Deflate, and let it rise again. Deflate again, and shape into three long ropes. Braid the ropes, and glaze the whole thing with lightly beaten egg. Let rise this way for an hour, preheat the oven to 350, and bake the challah for about 50 minutes, with the last half hour protected by a tent of foil to keep it from burning. Make sure to glaze again before putting in the oven.
3/21/2004
Date and Walnut Bread
2 cups whole wheat flour
2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground cloves
pinch of salt
6 tbs butter
1/2 cup dark brown sugar (again, the raw cane variety that's still full
of molasses)
2 eggs, beaten
1/2 cup milk
1 cup chopped dates
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
2 tsp orange zest
Sift together the flour, baking powder and spices. Beat the butter with
the sugar, then add the eggs. Gradually add flour and milk. Mix in nuts
and orange zest. Pour into a buttered and floured cake tin and bake at
160 Celsius for 60-75 minutes (depends on your oven). You can eat it
plain or with butter (or peanut butter), and you can even toast it if
you have any left over that's getting stale.
2 cups whole wheat flour
2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground cloves
pinch of salt
6 tbs butter
1/2 cup dark brown sugar (again, the raw cane variety that's still full
of molasses)
2 eggs, beaten
1/2 cup milk
1 cup chopped dates
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
2 tsp orange zest
Sift together the flour, baking powder and spices. Beat the butter with
the sugar, then add the eggs. Gradually add flour and milk. Mix in nuts
and orange zest. Pour into a buttered and floured cake tin and bake at
160 Celsius for 60-75 minutes (depends on your oven). You can eat it
plain or with butter (or peanut butter), and you can even toast it if
you have any left over that's getting stale.
Pumpkin and Orange Breakfast Cake with a Fresh Orange Syrup
Recipe courtesy of Regan Daley's In the Sweet Kitchen (Artisan, 2001)
Cake:
1 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup granulated sugar
2 tablespoons finely grated orange zest
3 large eggs, 2 of them separated, all at room temperature
1 cup pumpkin puree, homemade or pure canned solid-pack pumpkin (not
"pumpkin pie filling")
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup cake flour (not self-rising)
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
Syrup:
Juice of 1 large juice orange, such as Seville
1/2 cup granulated sugar
Additional unsalted butter, at room temperature, for greasing the
pan
Thick vanilla yogurt or vanilla ice cream, to serve
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Butter a 9-inch fluted tube pan
and set it aside. Cream the butter, sugar, and orange
zest together until light and fluffy. Add the whole egg and the two
egg yolks, one at a time, beating well and scraping
down the sides of the bowl between each addition. Beat in the
pumpkin puree.
Sift together the flours, baking powder, and salt. Add to the
pumpkin batter in three or four stages, blending gently but
thoroughly after each. Stir in the final addition of dry ingredients
by hand if you have been using a mixer, so as not to
overwork the batter. In a clean small bowl, whip the egg whites
until they hold soft peaks. Fold into the batter, then
scrape the batter into the prepared pan and smooth the surface. Bake
in the center of the oven for 50 to 60 minutes, or
until the top of the cake is springy when lightly touched, the sides
are beginning to pull away from the sides of the pan
and a wooden skewer inserted in the center of the cake comes out
clean. Cool in the pan for 10 minutes, then invert
onto a wire rack and cool completely. This cake keeps very well for
several days, well wrapped, and it freezes
beautifully for up to 2 months.
For the syrup, combine the orange juice and sugar in a small
saucepan over low heat and stir until the sugar has
dissolved. Increase the heat, bringing the syrup to a boil. Boil
without stirring for 2 minutes, then use immediately, or
allow to cool and refrigerate for up to 3 days (reheat gently).
To serve, place one slice of the pumpkin orange cake on each plate.
Spoon a few tablespoons of the warm syrup over
each piece, and accompany with a scoop of thick vanilla yogurt (for
breakfast) or ice cream (for dessert).
Yield: Makes 10 servings
Recipe courtesy of Regan Daley's In the Sweet Kitchen (Artisan, 2001)
Cake:
1 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup granulated sugar
2 tablespoons finely grated orange zest
3 large eggs, 2 of them separated, all at room temperature
1 cup pumpkin puree, homemade or pure canned solid-pack pumpkin (not
"pumpkin pie filling")
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup cake flour (not self-rising)
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
Syrup:
Juice of 1 large juice orange, such as Seville
1/2 cup granulated sugar
Additional unsalted butter, at room temperature, for greasing the
pan
Thick vanilla yogurt or vanilla ice cream, to serve
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Butter a 9-inch fluted tube pan
and set it aside. Cream the butter, sugar, and orange
zest together until light and fluffy. Add the whole egg and the two
egg yolks, one at a time, beating well and scraping
down the sides of the bowl between each addition. Beat in the
pumpkin puree.
Sift together the flours, baking powder, and salt. Add to the
pumpkin batter in three or four stages, blending gently but
thoroughly after each. Stir in the final addition of dry ingredients
by hand if you have been using a mixer, so as not to
overwork the batter. In a clean small bowl, whip the egg whites
until they hold soft peaks. Fold into the batter, then
scrape the batter into the prepared pan and smooth the surface. Bake
in the center of the oven for 50 to 60 minutes, or
until the top of the cake is springy when lightly touched, the sides
are beginning to pull away from the sides of the pan
and a wooden skewer inserted in the center of the cake comes out
clean. Cool in the pan for 10 minutes, then invert
onto a wire rack and cool completely. This cake keeps very well for
several days, well wrapped, and it freezes
beautifully for up to 2 months.
For the syrup, combine the orange juice and sugar in a small
saucepan over low heat and stir until the sugar has
dissolved. Increase the heat, bringing the syrup to a boil. Boil
without stirring for 2 minutes, then use immediately, or
allow to cool and refrigerate for up to 3 days (reheat gently).
To serve, place one slice of the pumpkin orange cake on each plate.
Spoon a few tablespoons of the warm syrup over
each piece, and accompany with a scoop of thick vanilla yogurt (for
breakfast) or ice cream (for dessert).
Yield: Makes 10 servings
Kedgeree
2 hard boiled eggs eggs
680 undyed smoked haddock
2 fresh bay leaves
170 g long grain or basmati rice
110 g butter or ghee
ginger
1 medium onion
1 clove garlic
2 tablespoons curry powder, or a tiny bit of saffron, or turmeric
1 tablespoon mustard seeds
2 tomatoes, deseeded and chopped
juice of 2 lemons
coriander
1 red chili.
The fish should be boiled for a few minutes with the bay leaves in a little water - when it cools, just pull the meat off the fish and flake into chunks. Cook the rice however you like, though I prefer to boil quickly in salted water, and then let steam in a closed pot for twenty minutes. If you're using the saffron or the turmeric, throw it in with the rice. Then melt the butter or ghee in a pan, sofften the ginger, onion, and harlic, and add the mustard seeds and curry powder. For for a few more minutes, and add the tomatoes and lemon juice. Add the quarter eggs, fish meat, and rice to the pan, toss, and eat with the chopped coriander.
2 hard boiled eggs eggs
680 undyed smoked haddock
2 fresh bay leaves
170 g long grain or basmati rice
110 g butter or ghee
ginger
1 medium onion
1 clove garlic
2 tablespoons curry powder, or a tiny bit of saffron, or turmeric
1 tablespoon mustard seeds
2 tomatoes, deseeded and chopped
juice of 2 lemons
coriander
1 red chili.
The fish should be boiled for a few minutes with the bay leaves in a little water - when it cools, just pull the meat off the fish and flake into chunks. Cook the rice however you like, though I prefer to boil quickly in salted water, and then let steam in a closed pot for twenty minutes. If you're using the saffron or the turmeric, throw it in with the rice. Then melt the butter or ghee in a pan, sofften the ginger, onion, and harlic, and add the mustard seeds and curry powder. For for a few more minutes, and add the tomatoes and lemon juice. Add the quarter eggs, fish meat, and rice to the pan, toss, and eat with the chopped coriander.
3/14/2004
Professor Bainbridge has this intriguing recipe for lamb in puff pastry. I should note that replacing the lamb with beef would yield the much maligned Beef Wellington, which I actually enjoy very much. Maybe this is the Professor's sneaky attempt to rehabilitate the old stalwart.
Cooking for one is a real challenge. More accurately, it's a challenge if you care at all about being efficient. If cooking 5 separate meals per work week doesn't bother you, then cooking for one is theoretically simple - you find five meals you're interested in eating, and cook them in turn. However, it's clear that cooking in this kind of ad hoc way presents several problems. You end up buying too much food, it's hard to think of five discrete meals every single week, and it takes a lot of time. Unless you happen to be home all day, and few people who are cooking for one can afford to do that, there has to be a better answer. Otherwise, it's all to easy to stumble out of your front door in the direction of the nearest pizza joint, which for me happens to be exactly 5 yards due west of my apartment.
I organize my cooking around a theme dish or ingredient every week. Quite often, it's a recipe I've just learned, or a recipe I've recently read something interesting about. Other times, I chose an old favorite, a food I know backwards and forwards. In keeping with a few recent posts, a common "week centerpiece" for me is a roast chicken. Indeed, a chicken is one of the most versatile of core ingredients. Well stuffed with thyme, and rubbed with olive oil, salt, pepper, and lemon, a chicken yields not only a hot, crisp, delicous skin, to be stuffed unceremoniously in my mouth just as the unfortunate bird emerges from the oven, but also a fragrant and considerable flesh, which can be used in sandwiches, pot pies, risotto, rice, pasta, and even pizzas. The roasting juices are almost unholy when used to dress pasta along with pine nuts and raisins in the jewish fashion, or tipped into a pan to roast crispy deeply flavorful fingerling potatoes. The carcass, now stripped clean, should be boiled for a couple of hours along with a carrot, onion, and bouqet of strong herbs, which yields a wonderful stock with which to make your risotto, or provides a particularly tasty base for an invigorating vietnamese style soup, spiked with roughly chopped chilis, ginger, and coriander. Since there ought to be some thyme left over, and since there is probably an extra mushroom or two post risotto, weeks like this usually end for me with a large portabello stuffed generously with thyme butter, roasted for ten minutes, and then jammed into a soft roll lined with spicy mustard and sopped in the buttery mushroom juices left in the oven pan. Of course, the fact that there are some potatoes likely around means that a sort of omlette with diced oil-softened tubers is a back-up possibility on Friday night, if I've run out of other things to eat. The goal, in other words, is to be left with an utterly empty refrigerator by the end of the week, except for a few condiments and other staples.
My menu for this week is not quite so complex, but I think it happens to be equally good. As previous posts have shown, I rather enjoy bread. But man can't live by bread alone, it's been said, and actually I agree that even the best crispy hand made fugasse or baguette can become tiresome if you eat nothing else all week. But a good bread, accompanied by a soup, perhaps, can really be a treat. Of course ,it's even better if the bread is a substantial player itself, especially if you're unable to make a really first class loaf in your home kitchen (I certainy can't). A prosciutto ring, I think (which I much prefer called "lard bread"), is the perfect answer - forgiving, easy, and bold. In a large bowl, just combine 2 cups plus 3 tablespoons of flour, 1 tablespoon of honey, some instant yeast, coarsely ground black pepper to taste, 3/4 teaspoon of salt, and 3/4 cup of prosciutto, the Italian ham. Add about a cup of water and knead the dough aggressively for about ten minutes, until quite elastic. Roll into a long rope, about 18 inches, and shape into a ring (my cookbook says that the ring will be about 7 inches in diameter with a 3 inch hole in the centre, but I never take such measurements seriously). All the bread to rise for an hour, and glaze with four teaspoons of bacon fat, which you've acquired by frying two rashers of thick bacon in a pan for a few minutes. Put in a preheated oven, and bake for about about 30 minutes, monitoring the heat to make sure it isn't burning. Once you pull the beautiful ring out of the oven, glaze it again with fat, and leave to cool entirely.
The main part of the week's food made, it's now important to pair this with the right things. Of course, you should make a BLT with the bacon you rendered: no one else in your workplace or school will have such a nice lunch, and you're saved from wasting perfectly good food. To go with the ring, however, I'd think you need to think hard about the prosciutto and the bacon - you need soups that work with those ingredients. Thankfully, there are dozens. My favorite, though, is a shocking bright green pea soup, best made with frozen petit pois, chicken stock, a head of garlic roasted in the oven for an hour with oil, and maybe half a pint of cream or half and half, all cooked together for about ten minutes and then processed in either a machine or by one of those wonderful hand held puree-ers. While you're at it, of course, the remaining cream can be salvaged by using it to replace the sour cream in the blueberry muffins I've posted just below, for which you should have enough flour from bread leftovers, or simply as a delicious replacement for milk in the morning oatmeal, which of course should be made even better by directing the remaining few berries into the service of a coulis. In case the pea soup isn't enough, though, I've had great success throwing a handful of lentils in a pot with some water, spinach, and lemon juice - as even the French know, the earthiness of lentil is a perfect match for smoked pork, though if lentils aren't your thing a simple tomato soup or gazpacho would work perfectly, especially if you've been clever enough to remember a little basil in your soup.
The really astonishing thing with all this is that it won't cost me more than $40 for the week, and I can make all the food I need in a couple hours on Sunday, supplemented with a few minutes of effort during the week. Sure, I could eat out all the time - but that would be expensive and time consuming, and certainly not healthy. I could also buy ready to eat foods, but I hate spending money on food I can make better myself, if I even could be sure what was in that stuff to begin with. So yes, part of all is comes from the fact that I'm both poor and cheap - but it's also a good idea, I think, especially since the effort required isn't all that much.
I organize my cooking around a theme dish or ingredient every week. Quite often, it's a recipe I've just learned, or a recipe I've recently read something interesting about. Other times, I chose an old favorite, a food I know backwards and forwards. In keeping with a few recent posts, a common "week centerpiece" for me is a roast chicken. Indeed, a chicken is one of the most versatile of core ingredients. Well stuffed with thyme, and rubbed with olive oil, salt, pepper, and lemon, a chicken yields not only a hot, crisp, delicous skin, to be stuffed unceremoniously in my mouth just as the unfortunate bird emerges from the oven, but also a fragrant and considerable flesh, which can be used in sandwiches, pot pies, risotto, rice, pasta, and even pizzas. The roasting juices are almost unholy when used to dress pasta along with pine nuts and raisins in the jewish fashion, or tipped into a pan to roast crispy deeply flavorful fingerling potatoes. The carcass, now stripped clean, should be boiled for a couple of hours along with a carrot, onion, and bouqet of strong herbs, which yields a wonderful stock with which to make your risotto, or provides a particularly tasty base for an invigorating vietnamese style soup, spiked with roughly chopped chilis, ginger, and coriander. Since there ought to be some thyme left over, and since there is probably an extra mushroom or two post risotto, weeks like this usually end for me with a large portabello stuffed generously with thyme butter, roasted for ten minutes, and then jammed into a soft roll lined with spicy mustard and sopped in the buttery mushroom juices left in the oven pan. Of course, the fact that there are some potatoes likely around means that a sort of omlette with diced oil-softened tubers is a back-up possibility on Friday night, if I've run out of other things to eat. The goal, in other words, is to be left with an utterly empty refrigerator by the end of the week, except for a few condiments and other staples.
My menu for this week is not quite so complex, but I think it happens to be equally good. As previous posts have shown, I rather enjoy bread. But man can't live by bread alone, it's been said, and actually I agree that even the best crispy hand made fugasse or baguette can become tiresome if you eat nothing else all week. But a good bread, accompanied by a soup, perhaps, can really be a treat. Of course ,it's even better if the bread is a substantial player itself, especially if you're unable to make a really first class loaf in your home kitchen (I certainy can't). A prosciutto ring, I think (which I much prefer called "lard bread"), is the perfect answer - forgiving, easy, and bold. In a large bowl, just combine 2 cups plus 3 tablespoons of flour, 1 tablespoon of honey, some instant yeast, coarsely ground black pepper to taste, 3/4 teaspoon of salt, and 3/4 cup of prosciutto, the Italian ham. Add about a cup of water and knead the dough aggressively for about ten minutes, until quite elastic. Roll into a long rope, about 18 inches, and shape into a ring (my cookbook says that the ring will be about 7 inches in diameter with a 3 inch hole in the centre, but I never take such measurements seriously). All the bread to rise for an hour, and glaze with four teaspoons of bacon fat, which you've acquired by frying two rashers of thick bacon in a pan for a few minutes. Put in a preheated oven, and bake for about about 30 minutes, monitoring the heat to make sure it isn't burning. Once you pull the beautiful ring out of the oven, glaze it again with fat, and leave to cool entirely.
The main part of the week's food made, it's now important to pair this with the right things. Of course, you should make a BLT with the bacon you rendered: no one else in your workplace or school will have such a nice lunch, and you're saved from wasting perfectly good food. To go with the ring, however, I'd think you need to think hard about the prosciutto and the bacon - you need soups that work with those ingredients. Thankfully, there are dozens. My favorite, though, is a shocking bright green pea soup, best made with frozen petit pois, chicken stock, a head of garlic roasted in the oven for an hour with oil, and maybe half a pint of cream or half and half, all cooked together for about ten minutes and then processed in either a machine or by one of those wonderful hand held puree-ers. While you're at it, of course, the remaining cream can be salvaged by using it to replace the sour cream in the blueberry muffins I've posted just below, for which you should have enough flour from bread leftovers, or simply as a delicious replacement for milk in the morning oatmeal, which of course should be made even better by directing the remaining few berries into the service of a coulis. In case the pea soup isn't enough, though, I've had great success throwing a handful of lentils in a pot with some water, spinach, and lemon juice - as even the French know, the earthiness of lentil is a perfect match for smoked pork, though if lentils aren't your thing a simple tomato soup or gazpacho would work perfectly, especially if you've been clever enough to remember a little basil in your soup.
The really astonishing thing with all this is that it won't cost me more than $40 for the week, and I can make all the food I need in a couple hours on Sunday, supplemented with a few minutes of effort during the week. Sure, I could eat out all the time - but that would be expensive and time consuming, and certainly not healthy. I could also buy ready to eat foods, but I hate spending money on food I can make better myself, if I even could be sure what was in that stuff to begin with. So yes, part of all is comes from the fact that I'm both poor and cheap - but it's also a good idea, I think, especially since the effort required isn't all that much.
3/07/2004
A Leavened Life
I really hate the Atkins diet. In all honesty, I dislike all diets that rely on a gimmick. To me, there’s just something terribly myopic about cutting entire swathes of food out of your life because you blame them for your own fatness. Of course, when your health has got so bad that the cabbage soup diet represents a choice between life and death, you might be forced to comply, but in the general case I much prefer moderation to abstention. The Atkins Diet, however, is one of my particular enemies. I don’t have any problem with eating lots of meat – I do it myself, occasionally. But how far have we sunk that the supposed path to health is to cut out breads, pastas, grains and rice, and honeys and sugars from our lives? These are not just good foods – they’re the universal foods. They are the foods upon which human society has been painstakingly built for thousands of years, which are eaten in every part of the world, which represent, to my mind, the very foundations of civilization. Bread especially is how we know we’re civilized, I think – as others have noted, there’s just something special about the very idea of mixing some wheat with water and getting bread.
Having said all that, I think it’s all our duty to fight the Atkins craze until it’s gone the way of all the other crazes of times past. One way to do this is to really understand the astonishing versatility of a loaf. Many people just see bread as something you use in a sandwich, or, sometimes even more depressingly, as merely a way to convey meat and cheese to their mouths (Subway corporation, I’m looking at you!). But a good loaf – a loaf made with real yeast, and good flour, and a little salt, and clean water and nothing else, is something special in of itself. It has a lifespan. It changes over the days. And its uses change too.
So next time you get your hands on a decent loaf of bread (and they’re getting easier and easier to get hold of these days), don’t worry about it slowly going stale. There are uses for it still. On the first day, when it’s still fresh and soft, use it for whatever you want. Recently, I’ve been on a kick of roast chicken sandwiches, though, and made properly, I’m not sure there is a lot that’s better. Usually, after roasting the chicken, of course, I make some mayonnaise by slowly drizzling a mixture of olive and vegetable oil into a beaten egg, whisking all the while with a little salt. It take a lot of oil, but the taste is definitely worth it, especially if you’ve been wise and purchased a fresh ( as possible) free range egg. Then I’ll layer the chicken between two enthusiastic slices of bread (and any kind of good bread will do here, whether it’s a crusty French pain de compagne or an American loaf), slather on giant helpings of the homemade mayonnaise, and top with a sliced tomato and small cornichon pickles. A couple of sandwiches later, there’s often not enough bread for the rest of the week.
If there’s any left, though, the inevitable next step is a Welsh rarebit. By the second day, the bread is drying out a bit. It’s not as fresh, and won’t make as good a sandwich. That’s why it needs some help, and the Welsh version of grilled cheese provides plenty. Unfortunately, there are thousands of recipes for rarebit. Most involve making a roux thickened cheese sauce, with beer, locally made cheddar cheese, butter, milk, and hot English mustard, all of which gets piled on the bread and grilled till charred and sizzling. If you’ve not got the time to mess about with rouxs and sauces, though, I’ve found that just mixing the ingredients, with our without the milk, and pouring over the bread before grilling provides almost as good an experience, and many times faster. Sure, the beer might make the bread too soggy, but I’ve found that some moderation with the beer solves that problem neatly.
If it was a particularly big loaf, you’ll have reached the third day. But now, surely there’s no use for the bread, right? It’s dry. Inedible, surely even too stale for rarebit, and thus for life? Nope. Today is when you whip out your milk, cinnamon, eggs, and maple syrup for some French toast, like I had this morning. Again, there are a lot of recipes for French toast, or what the French (minus the maple syrup), call “lost bread” (pain perdu), but I tend towards the simple by combining the milk and egg, dipping the bread in the mixture, frying it in a good bit of oil or butter, followed by a generous slathering with sugar, spices, and syrup. Sure, there’s all sorts of complications you can go through, but in my life French toast is the quick and easy substitute for pancakes, so I hardly want to muck around with ingredients longer than I have to.
By day four, however, we really are getting desperate. I’m not even sure French toast can revive the bread now. Thankfully, though, God invented breadcrumbs and fish. Just whiz some of the bread in a food processor until it becomes a pile of course crumbs. Tip the bread into a bowl, add freshly grated parmesan, a little cheddar, and a tablespoon of oil. If you’re feeling slightly adventuresome, add a few flakes of red chili. Make sure all the crumbs are damp with the oil, and then spread over the flesh side of a fish filet (I would recommend a thinner kind of white fish, like flounder) before tossing in a warmed oven for about ten minutes, or until the crumbs are golden and crispy. Serve with potatoes of some kind – I like to cut a baking potato into thirds and just roast it in about a tablespoon of oil for an hour, in an desperate and increasingly successful effort to get something close to a French fry without all the accompanying fat.
Finally, you’ve probably got just a little nub of bread left. It’s hard and unappetizing. Even the dog might look at it with considerable suspicion. But it’s still bread. If it was honestly made, it’s still healthy and filling. But what can be done with it? Of course, some might recommend a bread and butter pudding. It certainly would work, but I find that you need to layer on a little too much butter and cream to make it really tasty. No, I’ve recently discovered a simple, fitting end to a loaf of bread, drawn inevitably from the countryside of France. The answer is soup; any soup, in fact. Obviously, the most famous is the French onion, made in my book by frying loads of onions in butter slowly for an hour until caramelized, then tipping into a casserole with filled halfway with water. This then simmers for half an hour before being baked for twice as long in a pan layered with very stale bread, gruyere cheese, and the onion soup mixture. But you can also make something much simpler, which takes about five minutes: just boil a little water, throw in chopped spinach, cook for two minutes until the spinach is well wilted, and pour over a large bowl lined with the bread and garlic. Not only is it healthy, but you’ll be reaching back into the very depths of the 19th century for your meal, and for a solution to your bread’s final day.
This clearly is not the only progression possible for bread. Even in this short essay, I’ve noted alternatives, diverging little paths on the road to taste. The point remains, despite these different roads. Don’t give up on bread because a diet book says so. Don’t give up on bread because it looks to have gone stale. And definitely don’t give up on bread if you’ve spent the extra fifty cents and gotten good honorable bread. Bread, to mock the prison bound Ms. Stewart, is a good thing, and it shouldn’t be jettisoned for the sake of a week’s worth of weight loss.
I really hate the Atkins diet. In all honesty, I dislike all diets that rely on a gimmick. To me, there’s just something terribly myopic about cutting entire swathes of food out of your life because you blame them for your own fatness. Of course, when your health has got so bad that the cabbage soup diet represents a choice between life and death, you might be forced to comply, but in the general case I much prefer moderation to abstention. The Atkins Diet, however, is one of my particular enemies. I don’t have any problem with eating lots of meat – I do it myself, occasionally. But how far have we sunk that the supposed path to health is to cut out breads, pastas, grains and rice, and honeys and sugars from our lives? These are not just good foods – they’re the universal foods. They are the foods upon which human society has been painstakingly built for thousands of years, which are eaten in every part of the world, which represent, to my mind, the very foundations of civilization. Bread especially is how we know we’re civilized, I think – as others have noted, there’s just something special about the very idea of mixing some wheat with water and getting bread.
Having said all that, I think it’s all our duty to fight the Atkins craze until it’s gone the way of all the other crazes of times past. One way to do this is to really understand the astonishing versatility of a loaf. Many people just see bread as something you use in a sandwich, or, sometimes even more depressingly, as merely a way to convey meat and cheese to their mouths (Subway corporation, I’m looking at you!). But a good loaf – a loaf made with real yeast, and good flour, and a little salt, and clean water and nothing else, is something special in of itself. It has a lifespan. It changes over the days. And its uses change too.
So next time you get your hands on a decent loaf of bread (and they’re getting easier and easier to get hold of these days), don’t worry about it slowly going stale. There are uses for it still. On the first day, when it’s still fresh and soft, use it for whatever you want. Recently, I’ve been on a kick of roast chicken sandwiches, though, and made properly, I’m not sure there is a lot that’s better. Usually, after roasting the chicken, of course, I make some mayonnaise by slowly drizzling a mixture of olive and vegetable oil into a beaten egg, whisking all the while with a little salt. It take a lot of oil, but the taste is definitely worth it, especially if you’ve been wise and purchased a fresh ( as possible) free range egg. Then I’ll layer the chicken between two enthusiastic slices of bread (and any kind of good bread will do here, whether it’s a crusty French pain de compagne or an American loaf), slather on giant helpings of the homemade mayonnaise, and top with a sliced tomato and small cornichon pickles. A couple of sandwiches later, there’s often not enough bread for the rest of the week.
If there’s any left, though, the inevitable next step is a Welsh rarebit. By the second day, the bread is drying out a bit. It’s not as fresh, and won’t make as good a sandwich. That’s why it needs some help, and the Welsh version of grilled cheese provides plenty. Unfortunately, there are thousands of recipes for rarebit. Most involve making a roux thickened cheese sauce, with beer, locally made cheddar cheese, butter, milk, and hot English mustard, all of which gets piled on the bread and grilled till charred and sizzling. If you’ve not got the time to mess about with rouxs and sauces, though, I’ve found that just mixing the ingredients, with our without the milk, and pouring over the bread before grilling provides almost as good an experience, and many times faster. Sure, the beer might make the bread too soggy, but I’ve found that some moderation with the beer solves that problem neatly.
If it was a particularly big loaf, you’ll have reached the third day. But now, surely there’s no use for the bread, right? It’s dry. Inedible, surely even too stale for rarebit, and thus for life? Nope. Today is when you whip out your milk, cinnamon, eggs, and maple syrup for some French toast, like I had this morning. Again, there are a lot of recipes for French toast, or what the French (minus the maple syrup), call “lost bread” (pain perdu), but I tend towards the simple by combining the milk and egg, dipping the bread in the mixture, frying it in a good bit of oil or butter, followed by a generous slathering with sugar, spices, and syrup. Sure, there’s all sorts of complications you can go through, but in my life French toast is the quick and easy substitute for pancakes, so I hardly want to muck around with ingredients longer than I have to.
By day four, however, we really are getting desperate. I’m not even sure French toast can revive the bread now. Thankfully, though, God invented breadcrumbs and fish. Just whiz some of the bread in a food processor until it becomes a pile of course crumbs. Tip the bread into a bowl, add freshly grated parmesan, a little cheddar, and a tablespoon of oil. If you’re feeling slightly adventuresome, add a few flakes of red chili. Make sure all the crumbs are damp with the oil, and then spread over the flesh side of a fish filet (I would recommend a thinner kind of white fish, like flounder) before tossing in a warmed oven for about ten minutes, or until the crumbs are golden and crispy. Serve with potatoes of some kind – I like to cut a baking potato into thirds and just roast it in about a tablespoon of oil for an hour, in an desperate and increasingly successful effort to get something close to a French fry without all the accompanying fat.
Finally, you’ve probably got just a little nub of bread left. It’s hard and unappetizing. Even the dog might look at it with considerable suspicion. But it’s still bread. If it was honestly made, it’s still healthy and filling. But what can be done with it? Of course, some might recommend a bread and butter pudding. It certainly would work, but I find that you need to layer on a little too much butter and cream to make it really tasty. No, I’ve recently discovered a simple, fitting end to a loaf of bread, drawn inevitably from the countryside of France. The answer is soup; any soup, in fact. Obviously, the most famous is the French onion, made in my book by frying loads of onions in butter slowly for an hour until caramelized, then tipping into a casserole with filled halfway with water. This then simmers for half an hour before being baked for twice as long in a pan layered with very stale bread, gruyere cheese, and the onion soup mixture. But you can also make something much simpler, which takes about five minutes: just boil a little water, throw in chopped spinach, cook for two minutes until the spinach is well wilted, and pour over a large bowl lined with the bread and garlic. Not only is it healthy, but you’ll be reaching back into the very depths of the 19th century for your meal, and for a solution to your bread’s final day.
This clearly is not the only progression possible for bread. Even in this short essay, I’ve noted alternatives, diverging little paths on the road to taste. The point remains, despite these different roads. Don’t give up on bread because a diet book says so. Don’t give up on bread because it looks to have gone stale. And definitely don’t give up on bread if you’ve spent the extra fifty cents and gotten good honorable bread. Bread, to mock the prison bound Ms. Stewart, is a good thing, and it shouldn’t be jettisoned for the sake of a week’s worth of weight loss.
3/02/2004
quick goat cheese tart
Nigel Slater's Real Food is one of my favorite cookbooks. I'm not sure this speaks more to the shabby state of modern binding or to my obsession with his high fat and higher flavor recipes, but my hard copy is beginning to fall apart. Anyway, this is as simple as things get - find yourself a goat cheese crottin, or failing that, a log, sliced into thirds. Place on a square of puff pastry, pull the sides up and pinch together in pleats up the side of the cheese, but not covering the top. Sprinkle a healthy sprigs worth of fresh thyme on top. Give the pastry an egg wash, and put in the oven for about 20 minutes, or until the puff pastry is golden brown. I like to eat this, warm, with either quite an astringent salad, or, alternatively, grapes and nice, fresh, green apple.
Nigel Slater's Real Food is one of my favorite cookbooks. I'm not sure this speaks more to the shabby state of modern binding or to my obsession with his high fat and higher flavor recipes, but my hard copy is beginning to fall apart. Anyway, this is as simple as things get - find yourself a goat cheese crottin, or failing that, a log, sliced into thirds. Place on a square of puff pastry, pull the sides up and pinch together in pleats up the side of the cheese, but not covering the top. Sprinkle a healthy sprigs worth of fresh thyme on top. Give the pastry an egg wash, and put in the oven for about 20 minutes, or until the puff pastry is golden brown. I like to eat this, warm, with either quite an astringent salad, or, alternatively, grapes and nice, fresh, green apple.
2/29/2004
Bean Sausage
The potato waffle is a particular scourge of the university age Briton. I think we've got them in one sort of another here - maybe tater tots are the same kind of thing? In any case, the particular attraction of the waffle seemed to be it's crispy once frozen exterior, which surrounded a soft, creamy filling of potatoes. It was that contrast, I think, that hooked people, and I've got to admit that a plateful of potato waffles laced with generous drippings of cold ketchup was an occasional late night snack.
The bean sausage I describe here provides the same contrasting sensations. I think it's great.
Anyway, if you want to use dried beans, just soak them overnight and cook them until quite soft the next morning. Otherwise, open a tin of cannelinis - it'll do perfectly well for for a quick snack. Once the beans are ready, mash them with some chopped garlic in either a food processor or by hand. Add enough egg until you have a stiffish paste that can be formed into a sausage, salt, pepper, red pepper flakes, and some good parmesan cheese if you have it. Form into the aforementioned sausage, dip in flour, then egg, then roll in breadcrumbs. Deep fry in oil until golden brown, drain, and then eat quickly with lemon and giant generous gobs of mayo.
The potato waffle is a particular scourge of the university age Briton. I think we've got them in one sort of another here - maybe tater tots are the same kind of thing? In any case, the particular attraction of the waffle seemed to be it's crispy once frozen exterior, which surrounded a soft, creamy filling of potatoes. It was that contrast, I think, that hooked people, and I've got to admit that a plateful of potato waffles laced with generous drippings of cold ketchup was an occasional late night snack.
The bean sausage I describe here provides the same contrasting sensations. I think it's great.
Anyway, if you want to use dried beans, just soak them overnight and cook them until quite soft the next morning. Otherwise, open a tin of cannelinis - it'll do perfectly well for for a quick snack. Once the beans are ready, mash them with some chopped garlic in either a food processor or by hand. Add enough egg until you have a stiffish paste that can be formed into a sausage, salt, pepper, red pepper flakes, and some good parmesan cheese if you have it. Form into the aforementioned sausage, dip in flour, then egg, then roll in breadcrumbs. Deep fry in oil until golden brown, drain, and then eat quickly with lemon and giant generous gobs of mayo.
Blueberry Muffins
This is my second recipe from Rose Levy Berenbaum's "The Bread Bible". Her challah was quite excellent, and the blueberry muffins are very good as well. I worry a bit about her obsession with soft buttery breads to the detriment of real thick crusted breads, but it's still a great cookbook. I recommend it heartily.
To make the muffins, cream 4 tablespoons of butter, 100g of sugar, and 2 teaspoons of lemon zest in a large bowl. Beat in one large egg and just a little bit of (hopefully natural) vanilla. Actually, I found that one egg wasn't enough - if you tend to buy smaller eggs, go with two. Finally, add 1 cup of flour, about half a teaspoon of baking soda, and a 1/3 cup of sour cream. The batter should be like pancake batter almost: quite thick. Just add 3/4 of a cup of blueberries*, fold gently, and pour into six muffin cups. Bake for about 30 minutes until golden brown.
I've found that if you dip the blueberries into flour before folding into the batter, the blueberries won't sink to the bottom of the muffin. It really works a lot better.
This is my second recipe from Rose Levy Berenbaum's "The Bread Bible". Her challah was quite excellent, and the blueberry muffins are very good as well. I worry a bit about her obsession with soft buttery breads to the detriment of real thick crusted breads, but it's still a great cookbook. I recommend it heartily.
To make the muffins, cream 4 tablespoons of butter, 100g of sugar, and 2 teaspoons of lemon zest in a large bowl. Beat in one large egg and just a little bit of (hopefully natural) vanilla. Actually, I found that one egg wasn't enough - if you tend to buy smaller eggs, go with two. Finally, add 1 cup of flour, about half a teaspoon of baking soda, and a 1/3 cup of sour cream. The batter should be like pancake batter almost: quite thick. Just add 3/4 of a cup of blueberries*, fold gently, and pour into six muffin cups. Bake for about 30 minutes until golden brown.
I've found that if you dip the blueberries into flour before folding into the batter, the blueberries won't sink to the bottom of the muffin. It really works a lot better.
2/23/2004
Batter Noodles
Mix 1 1/3 cups of flour, salt, 1 tablespoon of olive oil, and 4 eggs. Pour into a zip-loc bag, and boil some salted water. Turn down the heat until it's barely at a simmer, and cut one of the corners of the bag to leave a tiny whole of about a quarter inch. Use the bag to pipe batter into the simmering water, and let poach for about 30 seconds.
After that, you're entirely at liberty to make whatever you want with the noodles. My cookbook recommends a gratin with cream and cheese, or chopped fine herbs, or even with truffles (yeah, right). Tomorrow I'm making it with chicken roasting drippings and small quickly boiled peas, though, and then slathered with parmesan. If you haven't tried this after roasting a chicken, I fully recommend it, especially when the peas replaced with raisins and pine nuts.
Mix 1 1/3 cups of flour, salt, 1 tablespoon of olive oil, and 4 eggs. Pour into a zip-loc bag, and boil some salted water. Turn down the heat until it's barely at a simmer, and cut one of the corners of the bag to leave a tiny whole of about a quarter inch. Use the bag to pipe batter into the simmering water, and let poach for about 30 seconds.
After that, you're entirely at liberty to make whatever you want with the noodles. My cookbook recommends a gratin with cream and cheese, or chopped fine herbs, or even with truffles (yeah, right). Tomorrow I'm making it with chicken roasting drippings and small quickly boiled peas, though, and then slathered with parmesan. If you haven't tried this after roasting a chicken, I fully recommend it, especially when the peas replaced with raisins and pine nuts.
2/22/2004
Moby Dick of Boston
Many a kebab has met its maker gripped tightly in my meaty paws, or torn apart and gobbled uncouthly in my usual gluttonous haste. And they haven't just been American kebabs either -I've tasted kebabs from the street markets of Damascus to the sunny climes of Palo Alto (just once!), stuffed in so many types of breads I can hardly name them all. The point, in other words, is that I know my kebabs. As a result, I was really looking forward to my Kebab at Moby Dick of Boston, just around the corner from the Boston Symphony where I was about to hear Handel's wonderful Apollo e Dafne. A kebab, I thought, would be the perfect appetizer for some nice music.
Before delving into the heart clogging sandwich in question, though, a note about the name of the restaurant. Moby Dick isn't exactly a chain - or rather, the Boston branch isn't exactly a chain. Rather, for some reason I haven't yet been able to identify, Iranian kebab restaurants in the US always call themselves Moby Dick, even if they have nothing to do with each other. The generally quite excellent, cheap, and generous mini-chain of Moby Dicks in DC, for example, are high on my recommended list for people in the Washington area. Other Moby Dicks are not.
Moby Dick of Boston, at least during my one visit there, is unfortunately in the latter category. It's not that the lamb kebab I had was bad, particularly. The lamb was tender, tasty, and reasonably well marinated. The yogurt sauce was strong with garlic, the sandwich wrapped in the requisite paper and foil. But kebabs, to my mind, are dependent on two things. First, they really need to be generous, stuffed healthily with meat and sauce, and salad. You can't make kebabs with a stingy hand, especially when you charge $7.50 for a single sandwich like Moby Dick of Boston. This alone is a fatal flaw. Second, kebabs have to be wrapped in really good bread to be worth their while. It doesn't always have to be hand made in a sort of tandoor, though I've found the best Iranian kebaberies (is that a word?) always oblige, but it does need to be decent, and definitely something other then Moby Dick of Boston's weak supermarket pita.
I thought for a moment of giving them a pass because I went early on a Sunday - but then it occurred to me that if you're open, you should be ready to serve, Sunday or not. And I doubt the prices dropped at all during the week or in the evening either, so unless they made the sandwiches twice as big for everyone except me, I don't think they're out of the dog house. To be honest, I've had much worse kebabs, but not for so much money. What I had at Moby Dick of Boston should probably have cost about three dollars - and for that, they're getting a thumbs down from me.
Many a kebab has met its maker gripped tightly in my meaty paws, or torn apart and gobbled uncouthly in my usual gluttonous haste. And they haven't just been American kebabs either -I've tasted kebabs from the street markets of Damascus to the sunny climes of Palo Alto (just once!), stuffed in so many types of breads I can hardly name them all. The point, in other words, is that I know my kebabs. As a result, I was really looking forward to my Kebab at Moby Dick of Boston, just around the corner from the Boston Symphony where I was about to hear Handel's wonderful Apollo e Dafne. A kebab, I thought, would be the perfect appetizer for some nice music.
Before delving into the heart clogging sandwich in question, though, a note about the name of the restaurant. Moby Dick isn't exactly a chain - or rather, the Boston branch isn't exactly a chain. Rather, for some reason I haven't yet been able to identify, Iranian kebab restaurants in the US always call themselves Moby Dick, even if they have nothing to do with each other. The generally quite excellent, cheap, and generous mini-chain of Moby Dicks in DC, for example, are high on my recommended list for people in the Washington area. Other Moby Dicks are not.
Moby Dick of Boston, at least during my one visit there, is unfortunately in the latter category. It's not that the lamb kebab I had was bad, particularly. The lamb was tender, tasty, and reasonably well marinated. The yogurt sauce was strong with garlic, the sandwich wrapped in the requisite paper and foil. But kebabs, to my mind, are dependent on two things. First, they really need to be generous, stuffed healthily with meat and sauce, and salad. You can't make kebabs with a stingy hand, especially when you charge $7.50 for a single sandwich like Moby Dick of Boston. This alone is a fatal flaw. Second, kebabs have to be wrapped in really good bread to be worth their while. It doesn't always have to be hand made in a sort of tandoor, though I've found the best Iranian kebaberies (is that a word?) always oblige, but it does need to be decent, and definitely something other then Moby Dick of Boston's weak supermarket pita.
I thought for a moment of giving them a pass because I went early on a Sunday - but then it occurred to me that if you're open, you should be ready to serve, Sunday or not. And I doubt the prices dropped at all during the week or in the evening either, so unless they made the sandwiches twice as big for everyone except me, I don't think they're out of the dog house. To be honest, I've had much worse kebabs, but not for so much money. What I had at Moby Dick of Boston should probably have cost about three dollars - and for that, they're getting a thumbs down from me.
2/15/2004
Court Bouillon for poached fish
Poaching, boiling, and braising become important tools when your oven isn't working. That said, I think these methods produce a lot of taste, too, and a texture we're unused to in our age of sauteeing at very high heat. Here, then, is a court bouillon for poaching fish - that is to say, a flavored poaching liquid. When you do slip your cut of fish in here (for about five minutes per half inch of thickness), do remember that poaching isn't boiling. With the thinner fish, you can even heat the bouillon almost to a boil, slip in the fish and turn off the heat, remembering to cover, before retrieving your dinner five minutes later cooked just au point (perfectly done).
Put all the following ingredients except the wine in a pot, and simmer for 15 minutes. Add the wine, and simmer for another 20 minutes. It's now ready to use as described above.
water
salt
3 or 4 cloves garlic, crushed
4 ounces of carrots, thinly sliced
4 ounces onions, thinly slices
herbs (parsley, bay, thyme, fennel, oregano. Whatever you can find).
Leek, thinly sliced
peppercorns
2 cups white wine
nb - don't take the quantities too seriously. They're rough guides.
Poaching, boiling, and braising become important tools when your oven isn't working. That said, I think these methods produce a lot of taste, too, and a texture we're unused to in our age of sauteeing at very high heat. Here, then, is a court bouillon for poaching fish - that is to say, a flavored poaching liquid. When you do slip your cut of fish in here (for about five minutes per half inch of thickness), do remember that poaching isn't boiling. With the thinner fish, you can even heat the bouillon almost to a boil, slip in the fish and turn off the heat, remembering to cover, before retrieving your dinner five minutes later cooked just au point (perfectly done).
Put all the following ingredients except the wine in a pot, and simmer for 15 minutes. Add the wine, and simmer for another 20 minutes. It's now ready to use as described above.
water
salt
3 or 4 cloves garlic, crushed
4 ounces of carrots, thinly sliced
4 ounces onions, thinly slices
herbs (parsley, bay, thyme, fennel, oregano. Whatever you can find).
Leek, thinly sliced
peppercorns
2 cups white wine
nb - don't take the quantities too seriously. They're rough guides.
2/08/2004
Gardiana la Camarge
Take a few pounds of beef and cut into formidable cubes. Pour a bottle of somewhat robust wine (not Beaujolais, in other words) over the beef, add an onion and garlic, and marinade for 24 hours. Drain the marinade into another bowl, and sautee the beef in extremely hot oil until brown and crusty. Add one cup of olives, some sprigs of thyme, bay leaf, and then the onions and garlic from the marinade. Boil gently for one and a half hours or so, at extremely low heat. One bottle of wine isn't that much liquid, and if you boil it too quickly you'll have too little liquid to cook the meat until it's soft enough.
Serve with rice or mashed potatoes, or crusty bread. Wonderful...
Take a few pounds of beef and cut into formidable cubes. Pour a bottle of somewhat robust wine (not Beaujolais, in other words) over the beef, add an onion and garlic, and marinade for 24 hours. Drain the marinade into another bowl, and sautee the beef in extremely hot oil until brown and crusty. Add one cup of olives, some sprigs of thyme, bay leaf, and then the onions and garlic from the marinade. Boil gently for one and a half hours or so, at extremely low heat. One bottle of wine isn't that much liquid, and if you boil it too quickly you'll have too little liquid to cook the meat until it's soft enough.
Serve with rice or mashed potatoes, or crusty bread. Wonderful...
Lesso Misto with Salsa Verde
Yeah, so it's boiled beef. But as the article I cribbed this recipe from notes, boiled beef has got a bad rap over the years. In a world where rare and raw are bywords of quality, cooking things for three hours until they're soft enough to eat with a spoon isn't exactly avante garde. But it tastes good, and since I value taste rather more then fashion, I'm all for Lesso Misto.
It's easy enough, though the recip takes a little time. Just put a piece of beef in a pot with water, chilli, thyme, bay leaf, parsley, a carrot, and onion. Boil it for three hours, at a low simmer. Serve with potatoes and the salsa verde below.
Salsa Verde
I love salsa verde. Sure, I have a really unfortunate obsession with ketchup as well, but salsa verde comes in a close second place (along with mustard, mayo, etc, etc, etc). It's simple to make as well. Chop some parsley and celery tops (if you can find them) together by hand. Grind 4 cloves of garlic in a mortar (or under the blade of your knife) with coarse salt, and grind to a reasonably smooth paste before adding 4 anchovy fillets. Pound this combination as well, and then add small cornichons or pickle, capers, the juice of one lemon, pepper, and all the parsley. Slowly incorporate good olive oil until you've got a viscous, sludgy sort of sauce, and drizzle liberally over the beef (or fish)
Note that you can change this recipe as per taste- I haven't seen a single salsa verde recipe that was identical to another one. Also, I've heard that when you make the sauce for meat, it's more traditional to use some sort of white vinegar, while the lemon version noted here is for fish. But I don't like vinegar as much as lemon, so I'll use lemon for the time being.
Yeah, so it's boiled beef. But as the article I cribbed this recipe from notes, boiled beef has got a bad rap over the years. In a world where rare and raw are bywords of quality, cooking things for three hours until they're soft enough to eat with a spoon isn't exactly avante garde. But it tastes good, and since I value taste rather more then fashion, I'm all for Lesso Misto.
It's easy enough, though the recip takes a little time. Just put a piece of beef in a pot with water, chilli, thyme, bay leaf, parsley, a carrot, and onion. Boil it for three hours, at a low simmer. Serve with potatoes and the salsa verde below.
Salsa Verde
I love salsa verde. Sure, I have a really unfortunate obsession with ketchup as well, but salsa verde comes in a close second place (along with mustard, mayo, etc, etc, etc). It's simple to make as well. Chop some parsley and celery tops (if you can find them) together by hand. Grind 4 cloves of garlic in a mortar (or under the blade of your knife) with coarse salt, and grind to a reasonably smooth paste before adding 4 anchovy fillets. Pound this combination as well, and then add small cornichons or pickle, capers, the juice of one lemon, pepper, and all the parsley. Slowly incorporate good olive oil until you've got a viscous, sludgy sort of sauce, and drizzle liberally over the beef (or fish)
Note that you can change this recipe as per taste- I haven't seen a single salsa verde recipe that was identical to another one. Also, I've heard that when you make the sauce for meat, it's more traditional to use some sort of white vinegar, while the lemon version noted here is for fish. But I don't like vinegar as much as lemon, so I'll use lemon for the time being.
1/29/2004
Clam Chowder
This is a really simple clam chowder, and delicious.
Sautee some chopped onions in a little oil. If you're being unhealthy, actually, what you really ought to do is render some bacon fat, take out the bacon, and fry the onions in that until soft. Add diced potatoes (peeled and raw- they'll boil to a perfect consistency in the time allotted), clams (this can be either tinned or fresh, the latter being preferable, of course) and enough milk to cover everything comfortable. Simmer gently for 20 minutes, salting periodically. Finish with some freshly ground black pepper, and serve with bread or crackers.
This is a really simple clam chowder, and delicious.
Sautee some chopped onions in a little oil. If you're being unhealthy, actually, what you really ought to do is render some bacon fat, take out the bacon, and fry the onions in that until soft. Add diced potatoes (peeled and raw- they'll boil to a perfect consistency in the time allotted), clams (this can be either tinned or fresh, the latter being preferable, of course) and enough milk to cover everything comfortable. Simmer gently for 20 minutes, salting periodically. Finish with some freshly ground black pepper, and serve with bread or crackers.
1/15/2004
Spinach & Ricotta Roll
Everyone likes lasagna, right? But you can't have lasagna all the time. It gets samey, I think, and I actually think there's a big temptation to put too much cheese and sauce on lasagna. But, as I say, you want something that's kind of like it. That's where the Spinach & Ricotta roll come in.
You first need a big sheet of pasta. Of course, it's a lot easier to go buy fresh pasta from an Italian deli, if
1) you happen to have an Italian deli around
2) it happens to sell big sheets of freshly made pasta
Barring both of these, though, you'll need to make your own. No, no. No running away. It's worth the effort, if you can just do it right.
Pasta is actually an amazingly easy thing to make. There are a lot of recipes, but for now I use this one:
Pasta Sheet
Combine 500g/1 lb of strong flour (hopefully the finely ground Italian Type 00, but if not either semolina flour or plain flour will be fine) with five of the freshest eggs you can find. Splurge on the eggs. I don't really care about chickens on a humanitarian basis, but it's a simple fact that more or less happy chickens produce delicious eggs. Dump most of the flour on a surface, poke a considerable well in the centre, and break all the eggs into that well. Break up the yolks with your hands, and slowly incorporate the flour into the eggs. Knead the mixture quite a bit- egg being what it is, it takes a while for the ingredients to really mix. Don't add any more liquid! If it seems too dry, keep mixing. It'll eventually moisterize. When it's smooth and silky, wrap the pasta in cling film and put in the fridge for about an hour. At the end of that time, take out, and either put it through a pasta machine to the thinnest setting, or roll it out by hand as thin as you can get it. Put some cling film on it to avoid drying out, and put aside for a moment.
The filling
The filing is so simple I hardly know what to say. Pour boiling water over half a pound (250g) of spinach. Dry. Dump in a bowl with the same weight of full fat ricotta, if you can find it (otherwise semi skim will do). Mix with salt and pepper, and maybe nutmeg if you like it (I don't understand nutmeg and spinach. I know people like it, but I just don't see the point). There you are. Done.
Construction
Empty contents of bowl onto pasta sheet. Roll up into a long sausage. Roll it all into foil very tightly. I actually used several layers to make sure it was watertight, but if you're less incompetent then me, feel free to use just one.
The cooking
Put the foil sausage into a pot of boiling water for about twenty minutes. Turn off the heat, and let it all cool in the water. Once it's reached a decent temperature, take the foil off, cut the pasta roll into slices, and put into a casserole with some pasta sauce (either stuff you've made or [gack] bought). Cook for about ten minutes until the sauce is bubbling, remove from oven, and serve with liberal doses of good parmesan. It's really quite delightful.
A Tip for the Doofus Chef
Erm. Remember to make the pasta roll small enough so that it fits into your pot. Ahem. I can't imagine who would have made such a mistake.
Everyone likes lasagna, right? But you can't have lasagna all the time. It gets samey, I think, and I actually think there's a big temptation to put too much cheese and sauce on lasagna. But, as I say, you want something that's kind of like it. That's where the Spinach & Ricotta roll come in.
You first need a big sheet of pasta. Of course, it's a lot easier to go buy fresh pasta from an Italian deli, if
1) you happen to have an Italian deli around
2) it happens to sell big sheets of freshly made pasta
Barring both of these, though, you'll need to make your own. No, no. No running away. It's worth the effort, if you can just do it right.
Pasta is actually an amazingly easy thing to make. There are a lot of recipes, but for now I use this one:
Pasta Sheet
Combine 500g/1 lb of strong flour (hopefully the finely ground Italian Type 00, but if not either semolina flour or plain flour will be fine) with five of the freshest eggs you can find. Splurge on the eggs. I don't really care about chickens on a humanitarian basis, but it's a simple fact that more or less happy chickens produce delicious eggs. Dump most of the flour on a surface, poke a considerable well in the centre, and break all the eggs into that well. Break up the yolks with your hands, and slowly incorporate the flour into the eggs. Knead the mixture quite a bit- egg being what it is, it takes a while for the ingredients to really mix. Don't add any more liquid! If it seems too dry, keep mixing. It'll eventually moisterize. When it's smooth and silky, wrap the pasta in cling film and put in the fridge for about an hour. At the end of that time, take out, and either put it through a pasta machine to the thinnest setting, or roll it out by hand as thin as you can get it. Put some cling film on it to avoid drying out, and put aside for a moment.
The filling
The filing is so simple I hardly know what to say. Pour boiling water over half a pound (250g) of spinach. Dry. Dump in a bowl with the same weight of full fat ricotta, if you can find it (otherwise semi skim will do). Mix with salt and pepper, and maybe nutmeg if you like it (I don't understand nutmeg and spinach. I know people like it, but I just don't see the point). There you are. Done.
Construction
Empty contents of bowl onto pasta sheet. Roll up into a long sausage. Roll it all into foil very tightly. I actually used several layers to make sure it was watertight, but if you're less incompetent then me, feel free to use just one.
The cooking
Put the foil sausage into a pot of boiling water for about twenty minutes. Turn off the heat, and let it all cool in the water. Once it's reached a decent temperature, take the foil off, cut the pasta roll into slices, and put into a casserole with some pasta sauce (either stuff you've made or [gack] bought). Cook for about ten minutes until the sauce is bubbling, remove from oven, and serve with liberal doses of good parmesan. It's really quite delightful.
A Tip for the Doofus Chef
Erm. Remember to make the pasta roll small enough so that it fits into your pot. Ahem. I can't imagine who would have made such a mistake.
11/02/2003
Grifone (New York, Midtown East)
Grifone is proof, if any was needed, that spending a lot of money doesn’t mean you’re going to get a good meal. I’ve got to say; I’ve never gotten so little for a $60 lunch before in my life.
Having said that, lovers of stodgy un-inventiveness will be richly rewarded by Grifone. Most of the menu is packed with old style veal parmesan like dishes; I think I counted at least 8 breaded veal chops, another 8 breaded chicken, and a whole host of lamb cutlets, all differentiated only by their overenthusiastic smothering in different poorly executed sauces. The pasta dishes were no more enlightening. I don’t think I’ve ever been told that a $25 entrée was “pasta with meat sauce” before, but the vagueness of the mumbling quasi-Italian waiter’s description was almost Scottish in its incomprehensibility. I wish I could say that the appetizers or desserts saved the show, because I’ve bought better stuff from one of those German discount supermarkets where they don’t have scanners and make you buy your own plastic bags. Still, the opening and ending of the meal (parma ham & figs, and a vaguely interesting pistachio/hazelnut cake) were at least presentable, in marked contrast to the 1950’s era debacle that was the main course.
I suppose there are some people who like this kind of place, what with its mahogany paneling and “grazie-ing” waiters. It’s not for me, though. Nor for anyone who’s eaten Italian food elsewhere in the last three decades. And don’t get me wrong. I don’t mean to say that all traditional Italian-American food is bad. It’s not. I like breaded veal cutlets as much as the next food obsessive. But that point of food particularly needs to be done well, and this just was not. Ah, well, though. It makes for a good story.
White’s (London, The City)
In marked contrast to Grifone, White’s is actually quite a good restaurant. The brainchild of oft-berated super-chef Marco Pierre White, it lives up to its promise of pricey French sophistication. It really isn’t hard to see the differences in quality between this place and some of the other places I visited on my trip, honestly. Makes you wonder how hard the professional reviewer’s job actually is.
For example, I’m a complete sucker for amuses bouches, those little snacks you get before you order at more enterprising restaurants. They remind me of the tasting menus I can’t afford in both scale and surprise. What better way to eat then to be left in the hands of the kitchen? Anyway, White’s amuse bouche was perfect for the restaurant and the season, as exemplified by the mild chill outside. Served in a small expresso glass, I’ve seldom had a pumpkin soup of that depth or interest. Of course, I’ve rarely had a pumpkin soup made predominantly of cream and butter either, but that’s besides the point. You can’t just dump butter into a pan with pumpkin puree and expect it to taste good automatically. Cooking is about balance and artistry, and you can see it most clearly in the simplest dishes.
This isn’t to say that the other dishes lacked skill. Far from it. The starter I chose, a tarte tatin layered with delicate slices of sea scallop, was simply brilliant, featuring delicately charred pastry and yet still quivering mollusk lying over a mound of thinly sliced and sautéed leek. Nor did my main course disappoint, despite ample opportunity. You see, one of my other obsessions is coq au vin, that is to say, chicken stew with wine. I like both the red and the white kind, with cream and without. Actually, my only requirement is that the chicken be good and the stew include interesting (preferably wild) mushrooms. White’s poulet noir stew with freshly picked wild morels in a white wine and cream sauce, then, really had a head start with me, but even so, I doubt it would have disappointed anyone. The only negative I can imagine, actually, is that every bite was a reminder of the kind of chicken you can’t get over here in the US, except by occasionally paying some extortionate price for a top of the line free range monstrosity.
If left to my own devices, I would probably say that dessert was the weakest part of White’s efforts on my visit. Lemon tart is certainly a favorite dessert of mine, and this one was quite good, but I actually expected the traditional kind of lemon tart (that is to say, a circular sweet shortcrust filled with uncreamed lemon filling) rather then the slice of a larger tart filled with creamy curd that I did get. I’m not complaining, though. It was still excellent, and finishing off my slice the rapt gazes of my co-diners probably changed my mind about the tart.
In any case, White’s is a definite go in my book. I’d even pay for it myself.
Wagamama (London, Canary Wharf and elsewhere)
Not quite in the august category, either in price or quality, of the restaurants above, Wagamama is actually a chain operating throughout London, purporting to serve noodles in a relaxed and efficient atmosphere suitable for the lunchtime business diner. This commitment is well demonstrated by the super modern service, which included the relaying of your order back to the kitchen via palm pilot.
Just as an interlude, I’m still a little baffled why I was taken to this restaurant during a job interview, for one rather obvious reason. Asian noodles bars are not the best places for an incompetent eater wearing a suit. I mean, no kind of noodle is great for the clumsy suit wearer, but the multicoloured efforts of the East make it particularly embarrassing, especially when the final interview happens to be the hiring partner of the entire firm.
Anyway, giant splotches of yellow on my shirt aside, Wagamama is actually a great example of what it purports to be. My dumpling like gyoza (or in fact, my gyoza dumplings) were hot, fresh and each stuffed with a formidable prawn, while the aforementioned noodles, floating in a sharply flavoured curry amid grilled chicken managed to be both original and tasty at the same time. I wouldn’t particularly recommend Wagamama for a formal business meeting then, especially given the slightly brusqye service and almost shared benches/tables, but I rather appreciated the complete lack of pretension displayed by both the restaurant and the firm taking me there. This place is a go for me too, and paying my own way wouldn’t even be that painful.
Angelo’s (New York, Midtown East)
I don’t think it’s right to leave New York without having pizza at least once, so I stopped at the Barnes & Noble closest my hotel to leaf through the the restaurant guides for a pizza place in proximity. What I found was Angelo’s, not at all an outrageous hoof from my place over on Second Avenue.
There isn’t much to say about pizza, is there? Especially when you insist, as I tend to do, on the most basic of pizzas, topped with only tomato sauce, basil, and cheese. (don’t you hate people who call pizzas “pies”? Drives me nuts for some reason). But Angelo’s is good. Really good. Aside from what I thought was a slight oversweetness in the sauce , in fact, I thought it was almost perfect. A crunchy and chewy thin crust, that doesn’t get soggy after fifteen seconds? Check. Judiciously spread sweet globs of delicious mozzarella? Check. Large blatantly fresh leaves of basil? Check also. All in all, a great place to eat. I’ve got envy New York that one, at least.
Buttercup Bakery & Ess-a-Bagel (New York, Mid-town East)
I’m dealing with these two together because they demonstrate precisely the problems and glories of American baking. First, as I keep saying, no one in this country can bake cakes of any real sophistication. Sure, the brownies at Buttercup tasted good. So what? I can bake perfectly nice brownies at home. What I want at a bakery is something beyond what I can do at home, something that only training and skill (neither of which I have) can produce. So by all means, eat their 7 dollars lime pies or equally banal chocolate frosted cupcakes. I’ll save my money from now on.
But Ess-a-bagel presents exactly the opposite impression. Bagels, obviously, are something Americans can do very well, with years of tradition and authenticity behind them. Nor can I really make them at home. I mean, sure I could make my usual bread dough, converted to whatever dough it is that bagels need, and then I could boil the yeasty rings and then throw them in an oven to firm up, but it’s really a bother I don’t have much time for. This is especially true when you can get such astonishing bagels for just $.75 over at Ess-a-bagel: crunchy outside, and in fact almost recalcitrant in their toughness, but moist and airy within. I’ve now had multiple bagels from the famed H+H (at their Upper West Side location) and from Ess-a-bagel. I’m hard pressed to say which is better, other then to note that they certainly are different in both texture and taste.
Grifone is proof, if any was needed, that spending a lot of money doesn’t mean you’re going to get a good meal. I’ve got to say; I’ve never gotten so little for a $60 lunch before in my life.
Having said that, lovers of stodgy un-inventiveness will be richly rewarded by Grifone. Most of the menu is packed with old style veal parmesan like dishes; I think I counted at least 8 breaded veal chops, another 8 breaded chicken, and a whole host of lamb cutlets, all differentiated only by their overenthusiastic smothering in different poorly executed sauces. The pasta dishes were no more enlightening. I don’t think I’ve ever been told that a $25 entrée was “pasta with meat sauce” before, but the vagueness of the mumbling quasi-Italian waiter’s description was almost Scottish in its incomprehensibility. I wish I could say that the appetizers or desserts saved the show, because I’ve bought better stuff from one of those German discount supermarkets where they don’t have scanners and make you buy your own plastic bags. Still, the opening and ending of the meal (parma ham & figs, and a vaguely interesting pistachio/hazelnut cake) were at least presentable, in marked contrast to the 1950’s era debacle that was the main course.
I suppose there are some people who like this kind of place, what with its mahogany paneling and “grazie-ing” waiters. It’s not for me, though. Nor for anyone who’s eaten Italian food elsewhere in the last three decades. And don’t get me wrong. I don’t mean to say that all traditional Italian-American food is bad. It’s not. I like breaded veal cutlets as much as the next food obsessive. But that point of food particularly needs to be done well, and this just was not. Ah, well, though. It makes for a good story.
White’s (London, The City)
In marked contrast to Grifone, White’s is actually quite a good restaurant. The brainchild of oft-berated super-chef Marco Pierre White, it lives up to its promise of pricey French sophistication. It really isn’t hard to see the differences in quality between this place and some of the other places I visited on my trip, honestly. Makes you wonder how hard the professional reviewer’s job actually is.
For example, I’m a complete sucker for amuses bouches, those little snacks you get before you order at more enterprising restaurants. They remind me of the tasting menus I can’t afford in both scale and surprise. What better way to eat then to be left in the hands of the kitchen? Anyway, White’s amuse bouche was perfect for the restaurant and the season, as exemplified by the mild chill outside. Served in a small expresso glass, I’ve seldom had a pumpkin soup of that depth or interest. Of course, I’ve rarely had a pumpkin soup made predominantly of cream and butter either, but that’s besides the point. You can’t just dump butter into a pan with pumpkin puree and expect it to taste good automatically. Cooking is about balance and artistry, and you can see it most clearly in the simplest dishes.
This isn’t to say that the other dishes lacked skill. Far from it. The starter I chose, a tarte tatin layered with delicate slices of sea scallop, was simply brilliant, featuring delicately charred pastry and yet still quivering mollusk lying over a mound of thinly sliced and sautéed leek. Nor did my main course disappoint, despite ample opportunity. You see, one of my other obsessions is coq au vin, that is to say, chicken stew with wine. I like both the red and the white kind, with cream and without. Actually, my only requirement is that the chicken be good and the stew include interesting (preferably wild) mushrooms. White’s poulet noir stew with freshly picked wild morels in a white wine and cream sauce, then, really had a head start with me, but even so, I doubt it would have disappointed anyone. The only negative I can imagine, actually, is that every bite was a reminder of the kind of chicken you can’t get over here in the US, except by occasionally paying some extortionate price for a top of the line free range monstrosity.
If left to my own devices, I would probably say that dessert was the weakest part of White’s efforts on my visit. Lemon tart is certainly a favorite dessert of mine, and this one was quite good, but I actually expected the traditional kind of lemon tart (that is to say, a circular sweet shortcrust filled with uncreamed lemon filling) rather then the slice of a larger tart filled with creamy curd that I did get. I’m not complaining, though. It was still excellent, and finishing off my slice the rapt gazes of my co-diners probably changed my mind about the tart.
In any case, White’s is a definite go in my book. I’d even pay for it myself.
Wagamama (London, Canary Wharf and elsewhere)
Not quite in the august category, either in price or quality, of the restaurants above, Wagamama is actually a chain operating throughout London, purporting to serve noodles in a relaxed and efficient atmosphere suitable for the lunchtime business diner. This commitment is well demonstrated by the super modern service, which included the relaying of your order back to the kitchen via palm pilot.
Just as an interlude, I’m still a little baffled why I was taken to this restaurant during a job interview, for one rather obvious reason. Asian noodles bars are not the best places for an incompetent eater wearing a suit. I mean, no kind of noodle is great for the clumsy suit wearer, but the multicoloured efforts of the East make it particularly embarrassing, especially when the final interview happens to be the hiring partner of the entire firm.
Anyway, giant splotches of yellow on my shirt aside, Wagamama is actually a great example of what it purports to be. My dumpling like gyoza (or in fact, my gyoza dumplings) were hot, fresh and each stuffed with a formidable prawn, while the aforementioned noodles, floating in a sharply flavoured curry amid grilled chicken managed to be both original and tasty at the same time. I wouldn’t particularly recommend Wagamama for a formal business meeting then, especially given the slightly brusqye service and almost shared benches/tables, but I rather appreciated the complete lack of pretension displayed by both the restaurant and the firm taking me there. This place is a go for me too, and paying my own way wouldn’t even be that painful.
Angelo’s (New York, Midtown East)
I don’t think it’s right to leave New York without having pizza at least once, so I stopped at the Barnes & Noble closest my hotel to leaf through the the restaurant guides for a pizza place in proximity. What I found was Angelo’s, not at all an outrageous hoof from my place over on Second Avenue.
There isn’t much to say about pizza, is there? Especially when you insist, as I tend to do, on the most basic of pizzas, topped with only tomato sauce, basil, and cheese. (don’t you hate people who call pizzas “pies”? Drives me nuts for some reason). But Angelo’s is good. Really good. Aside from what I thought was a slight oversweetness in the sauce , in fact, I thought it was almost perfect. A crunchy and chewy thin crust, that doesn’t get soggy after fifteen seconds? Check. Judiciously spread sweet globs of delicious mozzarella? Check. Large blatantly fresh leaves of basil? Check also. All in all, a great place to eat. I’ve got envy New York that one, at least.
Buttercup Bakery & Ess-a-Bagel (New York, Mid-town East)
I’m dealing with these two together because they demonstrate precisely the problems and glories of American baking. First, as I keep saying, no one in this country can bake cakes of any real sophistication. Sure, the brownies at Buttercup tasted good. So what? I can bake perfectly nice brownies at home. What I want at a bakery is something beyond what I can do at home, something that only training and skill (neither of which I have) can produce. So by all means, eat their 7 dollars lime pies or equally banal chocolate frosted cupcakes. I’ll save my money from now on.
But Ess-a-bagel presents exactly the opposite impression. Bagels, obviously, are something Americans can do very well, with years of tradition and authenticity behind them. Nor can I really make them at home. I mean, sure I could make my usual bread dough, converted to whatever dough it is that bagels need, and then I could boil the yeasty rings and then throw them in an oven to firm up, but it’s really a bother I don’t have much time for. This is especially true when you can get such astonishing bagels for just $.75 over at Ess-a-bagel: crunchy outside, and in fact almost recalcitrant in their toughness, but moist and airy within. I’ve now had multiple bagels from the famed H+H (at their Upper West Side location) and from Ess-a-bagel. I’m hard pressed to say which is better, other then to note that they certainly are different in both texture and taste.
10/26/2003
La Fromagerie
I can't say enough about this little shop in Highbury/Islington, just north of city centre london. I went in today and just put myself in what I assume was the owner's hands. I'm a student, I said. I live in America. We don't have decent cheese, and I've had nothing but over expensive Roquefort and refrigerated cream cheese impersonating brie for almost two years. Help me.
Help me he did, with a completely astonishing round of St. Felicia, a cheese whose origin I haven't yet worked out, but was so runny, so perfectly ripe, so exceptional, that he had to tip the whole thing into a small plate for me to take home. Balanced delicately on a crunchy, crusty slab of bread (made by the newly arrived in Britain Poulaine bakery of Paris), I ran it to my hotel through three changes of the underground before devouring it completely. Yeah, I'm greedy, but when the cheese is this good, what else can you do?
Funnily enough, La Fromgerie supplies the cheese for the restaurant of the hotel I'm staying at. More funnily, a small piece of the same cheese I bought for 4.10 pounds sells for 11 as a dessert. I'll take the shop, thank you.
I can't say enough about this little shop in Highbury/Islington, just north of city centre london. I went in today and just put myself in what I assume was the owner's hands. I'm a student, I said. I live in America. We don't have decent cheese, and I've had nothing but over expensive Roquefort and refrigerated cream cheese impersonating brie for almost two years. Help me.
Help me he did, with a completely astonishing round of St. Felicia, a cheese whose origin I haven't yet worked out, but was so runny, so perfectly ripe, so exceptional, that he had to tip the whole thing into a small plate for me to take home. Balanced delicately on a crunchy, crusty slab of bread (made by the newly arrived in Britain Poulaine bakery of Paris), I ran it to my hotel through three changes of the underground before devouring it completely. Yeah, I'm greedy, but when the cheese is this good, what else can you do?
Funnily enough, La Fromgerie supplies the cheese for the restaurant of the hotel I'm staying at. More funnily, a small piece of the same cheese I bought for 4.10 pounds sells for 11 as a dessert. I'll take the shop, thank you.
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