Momofuku cook book

I'm a recent purchaser of David Chang's Momofuku cookbook.  My initial impression is an odd one, given that Chang is known, externally at least, for simple "delicious" (i.e., high fat, high salt) food - the book is really inaccessible to the home cook.  That's because so many of the recipes either rely on somewhat obscure ingredients, but more often, on sous vide cookery, which is a fine thing but difficult to replicate "ghetto" style at home, as Chang puts it.  

Nonetheless, two Changian-slow poached eggs are currently in a hot water bath on my stove, not even simmering at 140 degrees F for 45 minutes.  Let's see if this works. 

Pure Bred Lamb

I'll have more on this later, but a quick rave here for the lamb produced by Pure Bred Farms, of which I purchased half a leg for easter dinner. It's wonderful - unafraid of being lamby, but gentle too. Plus, I'm not sure there is a better cut of meat than leg of lamb, at least for a large group.

EDIT: Here's the more.  The cooking method here is simple.  I made incisions in the 

leg and added sharpened slivers of garlic.  Per Thomas Keller (ad hoc) I m

ade a couple of larger incisions and slipped in full branches of rosemary, and then sprinkled the entire leg with yet more of the herb.  The entire leg was rubbed with oil, and then heavily salted and peppered before being roasted at 350 for about an hour, and rested for almost as long (yes, really - it makes a big difference).   It could easily have been roasted for an

other 25 minutes to a nice, even, medium. 

The Nose v. Partenope

I suppose if one wants to know what kind of person I am, one might judge me by the fact that I found "The Nose" utterly repulsive, and thought the ultra-formal Partenope a work of the most lavish genius imaginable.

Of course the judgment you might make is that whichever of those I liked, I'm a pompous jerk anyway, but if that's true then I've no hope with you.

The feeling in my fingers is returning

The remarkable thing about the last few weeks for me has been the palpable sense that I'm remembering how to cook. I don't mean that I had forgotten taste or flavor or how to make a tomato sauce in the years now where regular cooking has been a thing of memory. Rather, there's a certain economy of movement, a sense of being attuned to small things (Ah, I hear that the chicken in the pan is sizzling differently, better turn it down now), even the routine of washing the dishes after cooking, that one loses when out of the kitchen. It is reassuring to feel it coming back, to realize that as I move towards my next great life transition at the beginning of the summer I'll be able to nestle down again amid my pots with some familiarity. Above all, the feeling is one of comfort, and I am delighted to be returning to it.

Chicken Schnitzel

Pasta with mussels and tomato sauce

I sometimes get ideas for meals from meals I have out in restaurants.  Last night's dinner was a good example:  recently, I've been ordering the squid ink cappellini from midtown's Thalia restaurant at work.  It's tart from the tomatoes, packed full of interesting and quite fresh seafood, and satisfyingly tactile - the mussels and the clams come with shells, and the sauce inevitably nestles itself next to the shellfish to make the whole process of fishing out the delicious meat all the more interesting. 

So last night I made an easier home version.  I just cooked two tomatoes (chopped, natch) with plenty of garlic, cracked red pepper and olive oil, and added a splash of white wine.  At the same time, I boiled squid ink taglietelle until al dente, adding the mussels to the tomato sauce halfway through the pasta's cooking time.  I transfered the pasta to the sauce with plenty of the starch rich water, and cooked together until the sauce clung desperately to the long, midnight black strands of taglietelle.   A squeeze of lemon at the end brightened the finish, and I suspect, had I had any, that some italian parsley would have been nice too. 

Quinoa milk pudding

In an effort to assuage my annoyance at the higher taxes I'll soon be paying, I made Aran's marvelous quinoa rice pudding (using the same recipe, but omitting the heavy cream and using a 2% milk rather than whole). I don't know if I necessary love the taste of quinoa, though I don't mind it, but on the plus side it makes the process of eating dessert seem virtuous when it is not.

In other news, I have to confess to being a little put out by celery root, which I tried to roast this weekend with our Thomas Keller style* prime beef. Roasted, it developed a tough, unappetizing skin, although the softer insides were delicious - a little like mild ouzo scented horseradish injected into a potato.

* Keller's roast beef recipe has the virtue of being ludicrously easy. Toast the fat until slightly brown with a torch (or, like me, just pan fry only the fat side until brown) and then roast in the oven at 275 F until the meat is rare. Rest and slice.

Pasticcio

We were in a blue and white Greek mood this weekend, dining at our local Greek greasy spoon on Friday night (Zorba's, I love your taramsalata and fries) and finishing the weekend with some pasticcio yesterday evening. There's really nothing much to the dish, which is best described to the non-Astorian as the staple Greek lasagne of the neighborhood, but it is fairly work intensive in the sense that you need to make the bechamel, and the tomato sauce. The result of all this work, though, is a satisfying meal with plenty of leftovers. Honestly, is it that far from your mom's cream of mushroom soup casserole? No. But the bechamel and the good tomato sauce elevate it beyond the worst of 70's humdrum.

Tomato Sauce - fry onions and garlic, add lots of meat (we used 99% fat free ground turkey - yes, shame on me for not grinding my own, but it matters less when you cook as throughly as you do in a casserole) add good tomatoes, and simmer with cinammon and nutmeg for an hour.

Bechamel - Basic bechamel. Make a roux with equal parts butter and flour, add cold milk, and cook for half an hour until thick.

Assembly - cook pasta (I don't think the shape matters) and pour half of it into a greased dish. Add the tomato sauce and some parmesan cheese. Add the rest of the pasta, and then pour over bechamel. Add parmesan on top for extra flavor and color, and cook uncovered for about an hour.

Serve with greek salad.

Pictures of NYC at night

I found this interesting collection of pictures of New York city at night. Let us just say that I am extremely familiar with what Worldwide Plaza, the first photo, looks like at night, although usually from inside.

Sullivan Street Bakery

I was stopped on the corner of 10th avenue and 47th street yesterday afternoon with a bag full of quails (for a April Bloomfield-esque salad of pan fried quail, rocket and young pecorino romano, drizzled with the must of muscadel grapes instead of the aged balsamic my wallet resisted) when I noticed an older couple looking at me intently. At least, I assumed they were looking at me, since the only thing behind me was, I think, a bodega. In any case, the staring continued until the wife (presumably) exhaled sharply and walked over. "We saw you with the Citarella bag and thought you might know about food in the area - Do you know where Sullivan Street Bakery is?".

In fact, I was at that moment on my way to Sullivan Street for a round of Jim Lahey's wonderful Pan Integrale to pair with my salad, and I took them past the couple of garages that mark the somewhat dubious looking path towards the far west side bread palace, bought my own loaf, and left them with a stern order not to leave without bombolonis (a yeasty, briochey donut that may be the best fried thing in New York). I thought about giving them a few other recommendations in the area, playing over in my head what I would say - "Do you like fish? Esca is nearby. Or odd sandwiches? Xie Xie! Or maybe you should just go to Burger Joint and then continue along the road to Zibetto. Or maybe you can head down to the flatiron and sneak into the Breslin".

But then I looked at them crunching on their first bites of bread and left them to it.

Yet more non-blogging

I realize I've been engaging yet again in non-blogging. This time I have a good reason. My wife and I were in Puerto Rico, enjoying a little sun. The main determination I was able to make based on the trip is that I enjoy being outside.

We loved Puerto Rico, and enjoyed most of the food. Still, there were a few surprises about the food.

1. Boy, is it heavy. Or, at least, can it be heavy - I assumed that given that the place is an island, people would prefer fishes, grilled simply, sprinkled liberally with some of the truly astonishing local limes. In reality, for some reason, the locals appear to enjoy frying everything, and obscuring some of the most wonderful fish I've ever eaten in strangely clunky sauces. Still, if one gets the opportunity to eat fish in Joyuda, clunky sauces or not, one should take it immediately.

1a. Why on earth would you not drown an otherwise incredible conch salad in glorious citrus? I am deeply puzzled.

2. Traditional Puerto Rican cooks have apparently never met a vegetable they don't want to overcook. Unless they fry it (see, plantains).

3. Mofongo, the fried plantain dish that is a staple of Puerto Rico and (apparently) the Dominican, is really heavy. And yet still delicious.

4. There are a surprising number of stews for such a warm country (including a fantastic one involving rice and lobsters).

5. Puerto Rican food is either not spicy, or Puerto Ricans are terrified of over-spicing the food for the silly Americans. If the latter, please stop.

6. Puerto Ricans, judging from the entire aisle in the Econo supermarket filled with various iterations of frozen fried chicken, and the fact that Church's fried chicken appeared to outnumber McDonald's, really, really love fried chicken. Again, not at all what I expected.

7. I love tostones.

8. Puerto Rican pineapple is only ok (as opposed to Hawaiian pineapple, which tastes like another fruit entirely). But Puerto Rican coconuts and canteloupes? Another story entirely. Wow.

Mistral's brunch

A quick word about the brunch at Mistral Restaurant in Boston, which we blundered into one our recent trip to the "Hub" for a conference. This is one of the best brunches, served with the most cheer, I've ever had. Whether it was the cinnamon bread offered as a sort of amuse, or the extremely generous lump crab omelet or superb Eggs Benedict, I've nothing bad to say. And all that's still leaving out the shared cast iron pot of pommes lyonnaise that arrive upon the order of any entree. Highly recommended.

Blurgh?

Let's stop for a moment and pay some well deserved tribute the single worst home finance columnist writing today* - the Washington Post's Michelle Singletary.

Challenged about her dictim that the husband ought to take the lead in home finance, she came up with this answer during today's chat:

"And yes in this day when so many marriages are failing because there is no order or respect, I do believe my husband is the head of my household but that doesn't mean I'm subservient. We talk about everything. We are a partnership but even in a partnership someone HAS to take the lead. In law firms with many partners there is a lead partner. That's all I'm talking about".

Yes, but why in the name of anything should that leader be the husband? Might each couple not want to pick, say, the person most suited for the job, or something like that? Nope, according to Ms. Singletary. Outdated social norms will do her just fine.

* Anyone who doubts the label I've given Ms. Singletary is welcome to peruse some of her work. She specializes particularly in advice that is mathematically wrong, but it's all choice stuff.

The Breslin

"But avoid the beef shin with polenta and black cabbage at all costs. It’s muddy in flavor, terribly dry", said Sam Sifton, the New York Times food reviewer. And yet that's the dish we enjoyed most on our visit to the Breslin a few weeks ago, an evocation of a Franco-Italian mother's sunday stew, neither muddy or dry. Did Sifton go on an off night? Does he dislike stew? Is his taste not a useful proxy for mine? I'm not yet sure.

To be honest, we were first drawn to The Breslin by the extraordinary coffee at Stumptown Coffee Roasters, which shares the first floor of the Ace Hotel with the Breslin. As an aside, I am now entirely unsure whether the best coffee in Manhattan belongs to Stumptown or to Zibetto, which fueled me twice daily during a 4 month trial in the Southern District of New York I recently completed. I have started to be converted to Stumptown - the staff there has mastered the art of micro-foam to a degree I had not realized possible.

In any case, with the inimitable April Bloomfield at the controls, and a 1 star review from the apparently hard-to-please Sifton, the buzz factor at The Breslin is high. And faux-speak easy decor aside, for once the buzz is well deserved. We snacked on an exquisite smoked salmon, smoked lightly in the kitchen (with lemon butter sauce), enjoyed a crisp brussel sprout and duck salad (with various smoked meats), and finished our meal with a joyful evocation of sticky toffee pudding, the greatest of the British boiled puddings, in my view (soaked, of course, in butterscotch and served with ice cream). As Mr. Sifton says, The Breslin is "10 colors of fat", and on that - unlike on the beef shin - we agree entirely.

Egg fried rice

I forget about fried rice all the time. Somehow, it skirts the edges of my memory, and when I want a quick snack of comforting, white food (flecked with green and yellow) I always think of pasta with yogurt rather than rice. But Bittman reminded me, and I'm thankful he did. I skipped the crispy ginger and garlic, and mixed the scrambled egg throughout the rice as is more traditional, and I think the dish was better for it. Also, the thai jasmine rice I had sitting around was even better than I imagined in its role.

A note:

Greek tsoureki makes excellent french toast: cream, rum, 1 egg, 1 egg yolk and vanilla all beaten together, and the resultant soggy bread fried in butter (warmed until the foam subsides).

EDIT: Another delicious use for tsoureki or brioche or whatever. Grilled cheese! Simply stuff with a good melting cheese (gruyere?), and fry in butter. No, I didn't promise healthy food, and in any case, I'd rather have one good sandwich than three mediocre ones.

Food returns

The project that has made the last four months of my life so difficult is nearing an end, so the last few days I have been able to cook again.

To celebrate a major milestone in my project on January 7th, as well as a significant date of a more personal nature, I served a first course of terrine of foie gras with a red currant coulis, followed by roasted poussins with gremolata butter. The coulis sounds fancier than it was - I simply cooked red currants until soft and passed it through a sieve. I find foie gras overwhelming alone, but the tart and sweet currants offset the richness enough to let me enjoy the pate. As for poussins, I recommend them to anyone who doesn't see the attraction of cornish hens. At once tender and tastier than even free range chicken, we enjoyed them very much with a compound butter of lemon peels, garlic, and parsley shoved generously underneath the skin. Leaving the poussins uncovered in the fridge overnight ensured a crispy skin.

As for wine, I decided to pop open one of our wedding gifts, a 1995 Henriot champagne. One ought not get too used to expensive champagne, I think.

I had foie gras terrine left over, and rather than throw it out, I worked it into a dish of simmered lentils last night. I simply diced carrots and onions, added already cooked lentils (yes, I used pre-prepared lentils) and simmered with my leftover terrine for about 20 minutes. I agree that the preparation is a sort of bastardization of what I really would have liked to cooked (foie gras poached in lentils) but it was delicious nonetheless, the dissolved terrine giving the entire dish an unplaceable richness.

We enjoyed this latter dish with a 2002 Argentinean mendoza, another gift from generous friends.

End of the Year

As you can see, I haven't blogged since Thanksgiving. That's mostly because I haven't cooked much more than a quick meal since thanksgiving at home. Food for me has become a snatched sandwich, made by somebody I don't know, a face made at seeing the same sickly sweet salad for the third time this week, made again by somebody I don't know (and whether the same person or not as the sandwich I have no way to tell) eaten hunched over a table that isn't mine, with people that aren't my family. I've poked despondently at a disgusting steak dinner celebrating something I have no interest in celebrating, woken up knowing that the only good parts of my day are my morning macchiato and the time between 2:10 am and 2:30 am when my wife wakes up to welcome me home. Are these complaints the stuff of tragedy? Obviously not - can anyone imagine a more first world problem than too many steak dinners? But I feel sick and unhealthy and run down, because the sources from which I derive my feelings of health and well-being, exercise and good food wrought from good ingredients by my own hands, have been robbed from me. In any case, enough gloom. Here's to a cheerier, more human, 2010.

Thanksgiving

All the best wishes for Thanksgiving to everyone. Ours passed by well, although I am buried in work. I made a pumpkin pie and an apple cake, both following the King Arthur cookbook. The former was good and the latter not (it tasted fine, but this recipe attracts moisture like a sponge, and unless eaten immediately apparently inevitably turns into a sodden mess), but I am so discouraged in general about things (nothing all too serious - I am just tired of doing nothing but work and sleep) that I couldn't muster up the energy to be too angry about it.

Alas.

Things I've learned about Coffee (to be amended)

Because I've gotten back to to my old 16 hour work days for the time being, the most I've been able to do in terms of food is to learn about coffee. Pleasure and function combined. Below are things I think I've learned.

1. Grinders are important. Blade grinders heat the coffee and grind unevenly, so there is now a Gaggia MDF sitting in our kitchen. (Available at Peet's coffee for $100 less due to some kind of market imperfection I haven't yet figured out).

2. The sky is the limit on spending for grinders.

2a. The stratosphere is the limit for spending on espresso machines.

3. Crema is a big deal.

4. The temparature at which espresso (and indeed all coffee) is brewed is of tremendous importance. I so far enjoy 175 degrees with my new Aerobie Aeropress.

5. The Aerobie Aeropress is a remarkable, remarkable, machine for $29.

6. There are more ways of brewing coffee than I was aware of. Mokapot, espresso, Toddy, Aeropress, Chemex, filter, french press, Turkish, and others I am now forgetting.

7. Manual espresso machines exist.

8. They appeal strongly to my anachronistic side.

9. They appear almost impossible to reliably use.

10. Almost everyone who eventually graduates to the super-espresso machines started with a Rancilio Silva.

More to come.