Fri - February 18, 2005
Pink Vodka Sauce
When it comes to cravings, pregnant women have nothing
on me. On Wednesdays, for example, I like to peruse various dining sections
from on-line newspapers. My plans for dinner change with every article I read.
Sometimes a memory or smell will set me off, and suddenly I must have a certain
item. Some cravings are repeat offenders: pickles, sushi, and lobster are all
common, as are the Best Recipe’s chewy chocolate chip cookies. Yesterday
Lisa mentioned that her husband had made a killer pink vodka sauce the night
before. That was all it took.
I had made
a simple pink vodka sauce once before – some of you may remember it from
the great gnocchi debacle of 2004. Sautéed garlic and red pepper, a 28
ounce can of tomatoes, a half cup vodka, seasonings and cream, and I had arrived
at one of life’s great pleasures. At the time, I was sure I would make it
again and again, but days pass, and there are always new cravings to sate. I
was shocked to realize that it has been well over a year since my last encounter
with PVS.
I can’t say the same
about vodka itself. Like many Americans, vodka is my spirit of choice. Its
purity makes it ultimately adaptable to any cocktail; I myself am equally
partial to a dirty martini, a cape codder, or a bloody mary. For the last
several years, I’ve become somewhat of a vodka snob, faithful to Kettle
One except for the occasional dalliance with other top shelf brands. Imagine my
surprise when a recent New York Times taste test ranked Smirnoff at the top of
the list for quality, purity and value. Belvedere also scored high marks, but
costs four times as much.
In terms of
distilled spirits, vodka is a relative newcomer. According to Harold
McGee’s “On Food and Cooking,” Mesopotamians were distilling
aromatic plants 5,000 years ago, and alcohol became a commercial product as
early as the 13th century. Up until that time, it was used for
medicinal purposes, but soon the only thing it was curing was thirst. Vodka
didn’t come on the scene until the 16th century in Russia. Its
name means “little water,” reflecting its 95% alcohol concentration.
Bourbon, for contrast, is about 65%.
Vodka can be distilled from almost
anything, including potatoes, grains, fruits and malted barley. Since it is so
stringently distilled and filtered, very few characteristics and aromatics from
the source material come through in the final product. A good vodka is prized
for its absence of taste and smell. What vodka retains is harder to describe.
For me it feels soft and smooth, but has a quality akin to pepper – a
distinctive sharpness and warmth that coats your insides. Ice cold vodka has
that luxurious viscosity – like not-set
gelatin.
It’s vodka’s sharp
heat that makes PVS brilliant. The suggestion of pepper in the vodka emphasizes
the red and black pepper in the sauce - they create a lively dance on the
palate. This is tempered just slightly by the addition of cream, which gives
the sauce a luscious consistency. Over penne and grilled chicken, it warms and
energizes on stormy winter nights.
Posted at 04:26 PM
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Fri - January 28, 2005
Lobster
All you foodies out there have probably drooled as
often as I have over all those mouth-watering descriptions of Thomas
Keller’s butter-poached lobster. Articles on it have peppered food
magazines, internet sites and newspapers over the past year: I’d hazard
that it’s one of the most lauded and highly publicized recipes in recent
memory. This signature dish at Keller’s French Laundry restaurant in
California holds almost mythical stature as the most tender, most luscious, most
succulent, most sensuous lobster known to man. It was a decisive factor in
helping French Laundry land “Best Restaurant in the World” according
to Restaurant
Magazine, where it was selected by an
international panel of more than 300 hard-to-please restaurateurs, chefs and
critics. Needless to say, I’ve been dying to try
it.
Sadly, pigs will fly through an icy
hell before I score a reservation at the French Laundry. Even if I could get
in, I’d have to promise my first-born to cover the tab, and this is not
something I’m likely to do -- not even for lobster. I decided to make it
at home instead.
To start, I picked out
two small but feisty looking lobsters at the fish market. They flexed all ten
legs and two antennae at me and flicked their tails a couple of times. I
don’t think they were particularly pleased about going home with me, but
(just to set the record straight) lobsters can’t be pleased about
anything. They’re also incapable of feeling pain, due to the fact that
they lack a brain.
People often feel
bad about cooking lobsters alive, but it’s very important since digestive
enzymes begin to destroy the lobster’s flesh as soon as it dies. If
you’re squeamish about the process, the best tip I’ve heard is to
put lobsters on ice for a half hour before cooking them. This dulls their
automatic response to heat. “Hypnotizing,” slow heating, and
steaming all increase the lobster’s activity during cooking. Personally,
I’m not disturbed. The way I think about it, lobsters have been around
for close to 200 million years, and they’ll outlive us by a long shot. We
might as well enjoy them while we’re around.
Thomas Keller believes that when you
cook lobster in rapidly boiling water, the meat seizes up and becomes tough,
preventing you from getting any flavor into it. Borrowing his alternative
technique, I flash boiled the lobsters in acidulated water (just a splash of
white vinegar in the pot) just long enough to make it easy to remove the meat
from the shells without actually cooking it. I then slid it gently into beurre
monté where it poached happily for eight minutes until it was cooked
through. Beurre monté is a simple sauce made by whisking water into
melted butter. It makes a great poaching medium thanks to the relatively low
heat conductivity and heat capacity of the fat compared to water. This allows
it to cook foods more gradually, helping them retain their delicate textures.
In this case, it also infuses the lobster with butter, creating the most
marvelously luxuriant flavor and texture in an already delectable
meat.
We ate it over linguine, so that we
could indulge in as much of the beurre monté as possible. Every bite was
a
splurge.
Posted at 06:11 PM
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Fri - January 7, 2005
Turkey
I have been inordinately sleepy all week. Getting out
of bed in the morning has been a supreme labor. My eyes are so weary I need
sunglasses just to look at the computer screen. Exercise? Laughable. Some
people think I must be fighting a bug. Others suggest that it’s letdown
from our happy but hectic holiday season. I suspect it has something to do with
the turkey.
Mom was given a fresh
turkey for Christmas, which, she having been a vegetarian for 30 some odd years,
she passed off to me. It was a hefty bird – over 15 pounds – and a
good one. I roasted it last Sunday, and have eaten it noon and night pretty
much every day since. I have been napping a
lot.
Turkey itself isn’t a sleep
aid. It won’t put you out like Nyquil. But it does contain an important
component which sets off the complex chain of chemical reactions that end in a
yawn. This precursor to drowsiness is tryptophan. An essential amino acid,
tryptophan cannot be manufactured in the body, but must be obtained from food.
Tryptophan helps the body produce the B-vitamin, which in turn, helps produce
serotonin, a remarkable chemical that (among other things) acts as a calming
agent in the brain and in effect, puts you to sleep.
As far as amino acids go, tryptophan
isn’t that strong. It can be diluted pretty easily by other foods -- say
for example, mashed potatoes and stuffing. The fatigue we all feel after a
hearty Thanksgiving feast is far more likely due to the overabundance of
carbohydrates in our bellies than turkey. But if you’re snacking on
slices of turkey alone, or putting them in a sandwich with some fresh veggies,
tryptophan is liable to go to work, and you are liable to go to
sleep.
At least you will sleep happy.
Both delectable and sustaining, turkey is the foundation of many a scrumptious
meal – several of which I would have been more than happy to cook this
week if Jacob were not so completely obsessed with the turkey club. Is it a
tasty sandwich - the combination of toasted bread, a scrape of mayo, juicy
tomato and crisp lettuce, mouth watering bacon and sliced turkey breast is hard
to beat. In fact, I’m having one right now and it is
divine.
In light of all this sleepy
deliciousness, it’s a shame to think about turkey’s historic fall
from grace. Our modern connotations of turkey include such unflattering terms
as silly, foolish, and idiotic, as in “don’t be such a
turkey!” The domesticated bird, its breast so oversized that it can
barely stand up, is all of those things. But the true American turkey, before
we tamed and sedated it, was “wild and wary to the point of genius,”
according to author G. T. Klein.
Our
founding father Benjamin Franklin thought that the turkey -- and not the bald
eagle -- should be our national bird. He wrote in a 1784 letter to his
daughter:
“For my own part I wish
the Bald Eagle had not been chosen the Representative of our Country. He is a
Bird of bad moral Character. He does not get his Living honestly. You may have
seen him perched on some dead Tree near the River, where, too lazy to fish for
himself, he watches the Labour of the Fishing Hawk; and when that diligent Bird
has at length taken a Fish, and is bearing it to his Nest for the Support of his
Mate and young Ones, the Bald Eagle pursues him and takes it from him... Besides
he is a rank Coward: The little King Bird not bigger than a Sparrow attacks him
boldly and drives him out of the District. He is therefore by no means a proper
Emblem for the brave and honest Americans who have driven all the King birds
from our Country... In Truth the Turkey is in Comparison a much more
respectable Bird, and withal a true original Native of America... He is besides,
though a little vain & silly, a Bird of Courage, and would not hesitate to
attack a Grenadier of the British Guards who should presume to invade his Farm
Yard with a red Coat
on.”
•
Ben
Franklin would be pleased to know that wild turkeys still live in abundance
throughout America. After a dangerous period of near extinction, they rebounded
and now abide in every state in the Union except for Alaska. Domesticated
turkeys reside mostly the South. In effect, thanks to our tremendous appetite
for the bird, there are now two races of turkey, and while I delight in the fact
that wild turkeys roam the land just as they have for thousands of years, I am
not a bit sorry that domesticated turkeys are about as well, living large,
acting ridiculous and finally gracing my table. Food for thought. I’ll
leave you to muse on it for a while. I myself am off to catch forty
winks.
Posted at 01:28 PM
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Fri - December
24, 2004
Gingerbread
I’m toying with the idea of moving to Germany to
become a Lebkuchler. I’m already well on my way. For many Christmases
now, my family and I have dedicated countless hours to the creation of
spectacular Lebkuchenhaeusel, or for my fellow non-German speakers, gingerbread
houses. Each year brings a different design: a block of New York City
brownstones, a Cape Cod lighthouse, a replica of our home in England, complete
with its Beatles’ Yellow Submarine theme, and last year’s
Noah’s Ark, which featured an edible stained glass rainbow soaring over
top. In our country, the art of gingerbreading is some thing of an oddity,
relegated to esoteric documentaries on PBS. But in Nuremberg, it is an ancient
and highly venerated trade, marked by the exclusive guild of master bakers, the
Lebkuchler, to which I aspire.
The
gingerbread tradition found its home in Nuremberg because the city sat at an
early crossroads of trade. For centuries, spices were notoriously rare and
expensive across Europe. But trade routes from Hungary in the east and Venice
and the Mediterranean in the south put Nuremberg at a critical junction, and all
kinds of spices were commonplace there, including cardamom, cloves, cinnamon,
white pepper, anise and ginger. Nuremberg merchants were so well known for
their spices that they had the nickname “pepper sacks.” In
addition, though sugar was a precious commodity elsewhere, honey flowed in
abundance through Nuremberg thanks to groups of beekeepers who happened to
settle in the woods surrounding the city. Honey was for many years an essential
gingerbread ingredient; in medieval times making gingerbread was known as
honey-craft.
Nuremberg attracted and
motivated a class of master craftspeople who wanted to be where they could get
raw materials in exchange for their finished products. Gingerbread was no
exception. The gingerbread craft became the elite preserve of the Lebkucker,
and except at Christmas and Easter, no one else was even allowed to make it.
Can you imagine all the poor unqualified fraulines, yearning for gingerbread but
driven to secrecy lest they be charged with conspiracy to bake?!? The horror.
Yet some good did come out of this stern German discipline. The Lebkuchler
teamed with master sculptors, painters, woodcarvers and goldsmiths to create the
most beautiful gingerbread cakes in Europe, and out of this alliance were born
Lebkuchenhaeusel, or “houses for nibbling at.”
Both the building and the nibbling are
echoed at our house every year. Just as the German craftsmen bring their
distinct skills to the table, so do each of us. Sally makes the gingerbread,
using a slightly amended and well-loved recipe from the Fannie Farmer cookbook
which calls for boiling molasses with sugar and butter before adding the flour
and spices. I’m pretty sure it’s the most worn page in the book.
Though I have emerged as the head architect, she and Dad both consult on the
engineering, particularly the mathematical calculations, such as roof pitch.
Betsy is a master at creating our stained glass warehouse, ie: crushing the heck
out of hard candy to form colorful powder, which then melts beautifully into our
window frames to form stained glass. Jacob is new on the scene, but
distinguished himself last year by creating the most exquisite pairs of
gingerbread creatures every to step foot off an ark. Everyone contributes to
the final assembly, bracing walls in place with hands intertwined like a mini
game of Twister as the icing hardens to hold the structure
together.
This year, we chose to build a
boat house. I loved the idea because it presented a few notable challenges,
like merging roofs and creating a river. It also offered interesting
opportunities for design and décor, like rowers in various states of
practice, coxswains, and a coach. The main structure consisted of two houses:
a boat bay and a boat house. The bay was longer and wider than the house, and
featured stained glass on all four walls. The front of the bay had a garage
door with a grid of twelve tiny square windows. In my original concept, the
door swung open on a pivot, but this idea proved a tad too ambitious. The
house, which shared one wall with the bay, was not lit from within. Instead, it
had crossed gingerbread oars suspended over the door, and frosting banners on
its other walls which read “Can’t catch us – we’re the
gingerbread men!”
These houses sat
on a raised platform down from which ran a ramp. Red licorice strings were laid
horizontally to protect gingerbread feet from slipping. The ramp led to a long
dock resting on a glassy turquoise blue expanse of water. We made the river by
melting large quantities of blue and green mints on parchment paper until it
formed a thin sheet of blue. It was lovely – particularly when the
colorful light from the stained glass windows reflected off its surface.
No boat house would be complete without
rowers. We had an angel cookie cutter with outstretched wings, and Dad was
inspired to transform the angels into rowers with their arms over their heads
– lifting a boat as if they were about to put it in the water. I painted
different colored unisuits on each of them – including, as requested by
Sally, one with a big red W for Wisconsin. The boats presented a challenge in
and of themselves. We ended up trying a new technique that emerged as a huge
success. We made a tinfoil form and gently molded a sheet of gingerbread over
it to produce a unified hull. Once baked, we could remove the tinfoil and leave
only a gingerbread shell. It was inspired.
In addition to the boat on the dock,
there was another boat rowing away down the river. This was a double, powered
by the “Dynamic Dewing Duo” as Betsy and I were dubbed during our
illustrious season rowing together during the summer of 1998. I gave us blue
and green uni’s, yellow sweatbands, and oars emblazoned with G’s and
B’s.
Even after years of
practice, our skills are certainly not up to par with those of the Lebkuchler.
Our gingerbread houses are charming, not exact. You can see plenty of icing
dripping down the wall seams, some of the gingerbread shows cracks and
blemishes, and the decor is spotty at best. But despite all of these
imperfections you can also see the love and delight poured into each creation.
Even more importantly, you can taste it, and we relish the nibbling far into the
New Year.
Posted at 11:59 AM
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Fri - November 26, 2004
Green Bean Salad
The big problem with Thanksgiving dinner is texture,
or more specifically, lack there of. While turkey, mashed potatoes, sweet
potatoes, stuffing and gravy are all inarguably yummy, they offer nothing but
the same monotonous consistency. “Mushy” is a word that comes to
mind. Thanksgiving is an event that requires hungry mouths, but teeth need not
apply.
Our resourceful clan has oft
sought ways to address the situation. Last year we had turkey three ways, but
didn’t manage to add any crunch. Cranberry sauce contributes a merry acid
note a zesty flavor contrast to the classic trimmings, and we feature at least
one new cranberry presentation each year. Unfortunately, lumpy is about as
close as any of them have come to texture. The traditional green bean casserole
sounds promising, but defeats itself along the way. Drenched in cream of
mushroom soup, blanketed in bread crumbs and baked within an inch of its life,
these beans require little to no mastication. I mean really.
Enter the green bean salad.
Dressed in a lively vinaigrette, tossed
with crisp slices of bright red and yellow peppers, crunchy toasted almonds,
piquant shreds of gruyere, and salty kalamata olives, green bean salad offers
the perfect foil for the Thanksgiving mush fest. It is without fail the hit of
our table. Every year.
I’ve
printed few recipes in this column, but feel compelled to share this one.
Everyone should know the joys of green bean salad, and I hope that you will make
it a part of your Thanksgiving feast in years to come. When you play the
obligatory round of what-are-we-thankful-for-THIS-year, this recipe is bound to
top the list.
For the
dressing:
2 large cloves garlic, finely minced or
pressed
¼ cup extra virgin olive oil
2 tsp. Dijon mustard
4 tbs. Fresh lemon juice
1 or 2 tbs. red wine vinegar
1 tsp. salt
black pepper to taste
2 tsp. fresh parsley
1 tsp. dried tarragon, if
desired
For the salad:
1 ½ lbs. Fresh green beans
1 red pepper, sliced thin
1 yellow pepper, sliced thin
½ cup grated swiss cheese
½ cup slivered almonds
½ cup sliced kalamata
olives
Directions:
Steam
beans until just tender
While beans cool, make
dressing: combine all ingredients and whisk until well-incorporated
Toast almonds: spread in a single layer on a
cookie sheet and toast in a 450 degree oven for two or three minutes, until
golden brown
If serving immediately, pour
dressing over all ingredients and toss to coat. If serving the next day,
combine beans, peppers, olives and dressing. Add toasted almonds and cheese
about 30 minutes before serving.
Posted at 06:15 PM
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Fri - November 19, 2004
Red Velvet
We had a little birthday party last night. It was one
year ago this week that I felt the urge to make sweet potatoes, and the next
day, during an inspired (but slow) day at the office, Dinner Last Night was
born. I thought it fitting to honor its first anniversary with a celebration,
so I baked it a cake – a red velvet
one.
Cakes are normally too fussy for my
laissez-faire M.O., requiring me to use, of all things, measuring cups. I do,
however, relish the image of a cake dome gleaming on a sunny kitchen counter,
holding a few leftover slices of some scrumptious creation. It fuels the
50’s home-maker fantasy I secretly aspire to, in which I, in an A-line
dress and pumps, greet my husband at five thirty with a perfect martini. On
very special occasions therefore, I give in and bake a cake: I calibrate my
oven thermometer, refresh my supply of baking powder and dust off the beautiful
flour sifter Chris and Jill picked up for me at an antiques shop in Orleans. I
tie on an apron to make it
official.
Though Krista’s toasted
coconut cake, boca negra cake (made with chocolate and chilies), and chocolate
cherry cake were equally compelling, I opted to make a red velvet cake for
Dinner Last Night’s first birthday. I’d never had one before, but
had always been drawn to its hidden allure. From the outside, you’d never
guess it was anything more than a plain old layer cake, bland, white and
innocent – but one single slice reveals its startling scarlet interior,
and you know you’ve found something
special.
I should tell you that Red
Velvet is just an alias for the cake’s original descriptor: Devil's Food.
The same cake has also been known through the years as Demon Cake, Red
Devil’s Food, Satan Cake, Black Midnight Cake, Oxblood Cake, and
Devil’s Delight. While I admit that it can be a sinful temptation, I sort
of hate to link Red Velvet with the Devil. It can’t help it if it has a
luxurious velvet texture and moist, crimson crumb – it’s just its
nature.
Seriously, all diabolic
associations aside, the first cause of Red Velvet’s ruddy hue was a
chemical one. Cocoa contains small amounts of anthocyanins that become red in
the presence of acids (such as the buttermilk and vinegar characteristic of this
cake). When the more alkaline Dutch-processed cocoa arrived on the scene, the
reaction was muted and so was the color. Although bakers preferred the
chocolately taste of the new cocoa, they longed for the Red Velvet their mothers
had made, and added red food coloring to the batter. In WWII, when sugar
rations were a concern, some bakers turned to beets for sweetness. They too
underscored the importance of color in an otherwise ordinary cake, and grated
beets or beet baby food is still found in some Red Velvet recipes.
I did not use beets, though I do love
the idea. What I did use was one tub of intensely concentrated red
food-coloring gel. It amounted to little more than a teaspoon, but packed a
serious punch (my fingers are still Barbie-style fuchsia this morning, after two
loads of dishes and a long shower). The red gel got mixed into the liquid
ingredients, namely a cup of buttermilk and a teaspoon each of white vinegar and
vanilla. Following the advice of bakers on Epicurious.com, I added some cocoa
powder into this mixture. Supposedly it helps to unify the color of the final
batter. I also added a little vegetable oil to ensure a moist crumb. The
mixture looked nothing less than sanguine.
In two buttered and floured cake pans,
the cake baked for 25 minutes, which seemed on the short side, but actually was
a little bit too long. To counter dryness (again) and to add an extra
something, I brushed each layer with Chambord. This was a TERRIFIC idea, if I
do say so myself. You could detect a subtle but delicious raspberry touch in
every bite. I used a cream cheese frosting, which complemented the chocolate
nicely and did a good job of concealing the redness. It also helped to give the
cake some structure since the crumb was a little... loose, for lack of a better
term. With one birthday candle on top, it looked splendid – splendidly
white and innocuous.
Many things are
popularized by legend, but Red Velvet became legendary because of its
popularity. It doesn’t have a deep history, nor is it associated with
myth. It wasn’t “created” or “developed” by
anyone (not even Satan worshipers). It wasn’t invented at the Waldorf
Astoria Hotel and sold for $200 to some woman who simply requested a recipe
(though many claim this is the case). It is also not a Southern classic,
although it still thrives in the South today. It just happened – because
of chemistry, because of utility – and people fell in love with it. It
distinguished itself from generic chocolate cakes, provided something unique and
vivid, something out of the ordinary. And people continue to love it –
not for its external beauty – but because in the case of Red Velvet, it
really is what’s on the inside that
counts.
I blew out the birthday candle
and Jacob popped some bubbly. Then I sliced into the cake. The deep red crumb
was shocking next to the pale frosting – it looked delightfully
scandalous. I toasted Jacob for being my faithful publisher and guinea pig, and
toasted all of you for being so wonderfully supportive of me and of this
project. Your encouraging words over the past year have been a true
inspiration. I only wish you had been there to have a piece of cake.
Posted at 11:38 AM
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Fri - November 5, 2004
Saffron
Too much of a good thing can be very, very bad. This
is particularly true with saffron. Although exotic, beautiful and certainly
delicious, it contains a poison that acts on the nervous system and can damage
the kidneys. In large doses it is simply narcotic, but ingest 10 to 12 grams of
it and you’re a goner. The pale yellow crystals of meadow saffron, a
closely related flower, are fatal in even smaller amounts: death comes by
respiratory paralysis in 7 to 36 hours.
I
find this tidbit of culinary caution worrisome. You see, there is a balance,
when using saffron, between price, quality, and potency. The lower the cost,
the lower the quality, and the more of these potentially fatal filaments you
will need to use to achieve the desired intensity of color and flavor. In other
words, if you dare to use it at all, spring for the good stuff – the
survival of yourself and hungry loved ones is at
stake.
I wish I had known all this before
yesterday. In the grocery store I balked at McCormick’s jar of saffron
(weighing in at .04 ounces and selling for a mean $16.99) and thought I had
struck gold in the Latin foods aisle, where I came across a petite box of the
stuff for $1.50. I got what I paid for. My cheap saffron was desperately
lacking in strength and I had to use almost all of it last night making paella
for two. The paella was delicious – a gorgeous mix of chicken, sausage,
shrimp, red peppers and peas scattered throughout the yellow rice – but at
what cost!?!
Saffron is the most
precious and expensive spice in the world, often retailing for over $35 an
ounce. The deep red threads are actually the dried stigmas of a variety of
crocus, Crocus Sativus
Linneaus. Each flower blooms once, during the
fall, and unveils three delicate red stigmas which must be harvested quickly and
gently by hand. Over 75,000 flowers are needed to produce one single pound of
saffron. Luckily, because of its concentrated coloring power, it can be used
sparingly. With high quality saffron, a few short threads will produce that
bold, deep yellow, mustardy hue so coveted by paella eaters, makers of
bouillabaisse, devotees of St. Lucia, and Buddhist
monks.
Concentrated in the tip of each
stigma is a triad of chemicals: crocin is responsible for the vivid color;
safranol for aroma; and picrocrocin for saffron’s distinctive and
treasured taste: at once musky, spicy, and infused with the natural sweetness
of honey – you taste it in the back of your throat.
In its purest form, only the red section
of the stigma is sold as saffron. As the stigma descends into the flower, it
loses color and appears much lighter, yellow, or white. These parts lack
culinary value – they serve as filler in less expensive saffron. The
question burning on my lips is whether they also lack venom. I don’t
exaggerate when I tell you that I used a
lot of saffron in our paella last night. While
I remain hopeful that I didn’t administer a lethal dose, I can’t
imagine that we will escape completely unscathed. Jacob seems to be fine thus
far, but I’ve been flushed all day and am closely monitoring the
situation.
Posted at 04:37 PM
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Fri - October 29, 2004
Pumpkin
Although 99% of all pumpkins are sold for decoration,
those that escape a jack o’ lantern’s fate become the source of
culinary delight for a stalwart minority who eat them. Canned pie filling
doesn’t count. I’m talking about the pumpkin in its entirety, with
its intense orange flesh and nutty seeds rich in antioxidants, vitamins and the
flavor of fall.
At this time of
year, newspapers, magazines and internet sites are bursting with pumpkin
recipes. Pumpkin ravioli is a perennial favorite, along with roast pumpkin soup
and the afore-mentioned pie. They all sound scrumptious to me, but the trouble
is knowing what pumpkin to use. Most of the ninety-nice percent are decorative
for a reason: jack o’ lantern pumpkins are bred for size and
staying-power, and tend to be fibrous, watery and bland. I’ve heard of
some varieties that are known for good eating (like sugar pumpkins and pie
pumpkins) but I certainly couldn’t pick one out in a line up.
My ignorance on the matter was evident
in dinner last night. Jacob and I hosted a little pumpkin carving
soirée, and while I was scraping out the innards of my jack o’
lantern to be, I was suddenly inspired to eat its diminutive friend, which I had
bought last week to decorate the dining room table. It was smooth-skinned and
small – five or six inches in diameter – and seemingly a good
candidate for cooking. The idea got me excited – I had a turkey roasting
away while we carved, and pumpkin would be the perfect accompaniment. I washed
it and hollowed it out, salted the cavity, stuffed it with stuffing, and tucked
it into a corner of the oven next to the bird. I then went back to my pumpkin
carving, looking forward to presenting my artful autumn
menu.
Well, as they say, even the best
laid plans can go awry. The turkey was overdone in the worst way. The stuffed
pumpkin, despite its small size, took about an hour to roast, and wasn’t
ready until we were almost finished choking down the bone-dry bird. I brought
it to the table anyway because it looked simply stunning. The bright-orange
skin had darkened and deepened into a brown the color of apple cider, and the
shriveled, twisted stem gave it great Halloween character. We each tried a
wedge, complete with some of the stuffing that had baked inside. The stuffing
was delicious, having taken on a faint and pleasant pumpkin flavor. The
pumpkin, however, was sadly lacking. It had some good squashy flavor, but erred
heavily on the bland and stringy side. I had an abrupt sense of regret for lost
potential. With the right pumpkin, this dish would have been a
triumph.
Fortunately, the night wasn’t a total
loss. Our jack o’ lanterns were a smashing success, and Jacob proclaimed
them the best we had ever carved.
As an
aside, did you know that pumpkins were not the original jack o’ lanterns?
As Irish legend has it, there once was an evil and miserly man known as Stingy
Jack. He was one for playing nasty tricks on people. One day, he tricked the
devil, trapping him in an apple tree by carving a cross on its trunk. He made a
deal with the devil that he would let him out of the tree if the devil promised
not to take his soul when he died. The devil agreed. Years later, when Stingy
Jack died, he was rejected from heaven for all his malicious deeds. The devil,
bound by their agreement, could not accept his soul into Hell, and cast Jack out
into the night with a burning ember to help him light his way. Jack, doomed for
all eternity to walk the earth, placed the coal in a carved out turnip and went
around spooking people in the night time. His ghost became known as “Jack
of the Lantern.” People in Ireland and Scotland began to make their own
jack-o-lanterns by carving scary faces in turnips and potatoes to scare-off Jack
and other ghostly riff raff. It wasn’t until Irish immigrants came
to America that they discovered that pumpkins made the ultimate jack o’
lantern.
Posted at 04:07 PM
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Fri - October 22, 2004
Pie
I once won a blue ribbon in a pie baking contest. It
was at the 1996 Martha’s Vineyard Agricultural Fair, and included a
whopping cash prize of four dollars. Though a pleasant surprise, this check
didn’t begin to cover the cost of the pie (blueberries on the island were
going for about $5 a pint), nor did it compensate for the painstaking hours I
had planned and labored. But the blue ribbon... I hold it as a symbol of one of
my greatest accomplishments.
It is a
simple fact that the aforementioned pie was the most beautiful pie ever made.
It came to me in a dream, and that I was able to bring it to life is a testament
to the imperative of its being. The heart of the pie was wild blueberries
spiked with lime. A woven crust adorned the top, but it was not the open
lattice pattern you see on so many cherry pies. Each ribbon of dough was no
more than two millimeters wide, and the weave was as tight as I could fit it
without tearing the delicate strands. It was as fine as cloth. I laid it on
the pie like a warm coverlet and lined the rim with small circles of cut dough,
mirroring the blueberries within. This pie, I tell you truly, earned the blue
ribbon before it ever reached the
Fair.
If you watch food television
religiously, you might happen upon an interview I gave the day I won. The
reporter asked me my secret to perfect pie and I will tell you now what I told
her then: Plate Tectonics.
I realize
this may not be the answer you expected, but as Sally taught me when I was a
young girl, it is the foundation of great pie-making. “Picture
this,” she said as I peeked my nose over the kitchen counter to watch her
masterfully manipulate the dough, “the earth is composed of thin layers
that slide flexibly over each other.” She held her hands out to show me,
one hand laid flat over the other, slipping back and forth. “We want to
create the same condition in the dough. The flour and butter form the plates,
and the water sits between them. In the oven, the water steams up and creates
space between the plates. The result: tender flaky crust. If, on the other
hand, you just mash the dough together, you ball up the flour and butter and
trap the water inside, making tough crust.” To show the contrast, she
made two fists and butted them against each
other.
It was an AHA moment. Everyone
talks about being careful with pie dough, but no one else could ever explain
why. Sally’s theory of pie tectonics has guided me through a highly
successful pie baking career, the high point of which was the blue ribbon. In
some circles, you might even say I’m famous for
pie.
Recently, however, I’m
beginning to feel out of sorts with my crusts. I used to approach making them
with confidence, but I’m out of practice these days and I’ve come to
experience some of the pie-dough-anxiety that plagues so many others. Earlier
this week, for instance, Jacob and I brought home several pounds of apples from
a local orchard. A pie was in order, and I set to making it quite happily. But
when the time came for the crust, I became anxious, and then sloppy. I threw in
some extra Crisco without measuring too carefully, and I poured in a stream of
water knowing that it was getting some of the flour too wet. Inevitably, the
dough reacted haphazardly; some parts stuck to the counter while other areas
cracked. I watched in misery as evidence of my dread rolled out before me.
Talk about self-fulfilling prophecy: anxiety begets anxiety, and who is to
suffer most but myself?
Luckily, this is
one psychological woe I think I can face. I made a resolution. No matter how
many attempts it takes, perfect crusts will once again grace my pies, so help me
God. Jacob was pleased with this undertaking – apple pie is his favorite.
Unluckily for him, I nailed it last night on the first try.
What
changed?
My new-found determination
helped to be sure, but I made note of a few other details. For one thing, I
created a happy baking environment. Laugh if you will, but I’m living
proof that it works. I cleaned the kitchen, plugged in a string of Christmas
lights and put on some music. I also added some fabulous new tools to my pie
paraphernalia. For instance, I had been frustrated with the bowl I was using
to make the crust because it wasn’t wide enough for both of my hands to
comfortably mix the shortening and flour. Solution? New wide-mouth glass bowl:
$2.99 at the mall. I was also unhappy with my counter top which (ingeniously)
sits over the radiator in the kitchen and gets just warm enough to screw up my
crusts. Solution? Some time in the fridge, and (drum roll please) Pastry
Cloth. I had never heard of pastry cloth until I saw Jacob’s
sister-in-law using one - you can get them pretty much anywhere for next to
nothing, and they work wonders. In a package, you get a large square of canvas
and a stretchy sheath to cover your rolling pin. With a minimum of flour, dough
rolls out beautifully and doesn’t stick at
all.
I can’t tell you how good it
felt when the pie came out of the oven golden and steaming. And how much better
it felt at the first bite, with the soft fragrant apples still warm from the
oven and the flaky crust melting on my tongue. I was overcome with
satisfaction, vindication, and blissful relief, and inspired by success, rather
than failure, to try again.
Posted at 12:03 PM
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Fri - October 15, 2004
Spaghetti Squash
I’ve never been one to lack imagination, but I
must say this: contrary to popular belief and dietary fantasy, spaghetti squash
is NOT a good substitute for spaghetti. It is a good substitute for squash.
Period.
In other words, if you’re
making spaghetti and meatballs, please do not use spaghetti squash to quell your
carbo-loading guilt. It’s not worth it, and frankly, it’s insulting
to the meatballs. If, however, you were planning a little acorn squash on the
side for dinner tonight, go ahead and try spaghetti squash instead – this
would be an acceptable substitution, and would perhaps contribute a new texture
to your harvest table.
I don’t mean
to denigrate all those creative cooks and calorie-counters out there. I myself
am disappointed to be so firm on this subject because I had been itching to try
spaghetti squash since spring, waiting patiently for the first frost so that I
could taste it in season. Being new to this type of squash, and having heard a
great deal of hype, I was expecting something a little more dynamic than the
norm, something with a little more punch, something that might transcend the
commonly inescapable descriptor: squashy. Not
so.
These days you can hardly walk
through the grocery store without tripping over a pile of winter squash, but you
might have to look a little closer to find the variety in question. Amid the
piles of brilliant orange, yellow, red, and green varieties, with their mottled
skins and wild diversity of shapes, the spaghetti squash appears quite plain and
uninspired. There are two types of spaghetti squash. The original is pale
yellow, about the size and shape of a rugby ball, and resembling a small
honey-dew melon. In the early 1990’s, a second variety, known as
“Orangetti,” was developed. Higher in beta carotene and a bit
sweeter than its paler counterpart, the orange variety recently has become more
common. It was one of these that I took home last night – not because of
its supposed sweetness, but because original spaghetti squash are huge – 4
to 8 pounds huge – and I didn’t wanted to be eating it for the next
three weeks. The specimen I bought was about the size of an overgrown
grapefruit.
I split it in half and
roasted it cut-side down in the oven until it was tender. I let it cool a
little and then, as instructed, ran a fork through the flesh to separate it into
strands. Ideally, this process should produce long spaghetti-like ribbons. In
my case, it did not. I got short fragments – rather more like Rice-a-Roni
than spaghetti. Today I learned that the larger, blander type of spaghetti
squash does better at living up to its name.
I tossed what strands I had with brown
butter and nutmeg, and added a generous dash of salt. (This to counter its
otherwise low-calorie, low sodium profile.) I had planned to serve it piled
elegantly back in its shell, but my attempts to shred as much flesh as I could
had left the exterior unusable. Too bad, because the presentation on the plate
was far less appetizing. A bit on the moist side, squash juices pooled under
the mass of orange threads.
Like I
said, pasta this is not. But once I had accepted it for what it is –
squash - it was a welcome discovery. It smelled and tasted much like pumpkin,
though the brown butter made it luscious and rich. Delicately sweet, nutty,
refreshing, and tremendously healthy, it embodied the best of what squash has to
offer. Which makes me wonder why we insist on forcing it into a role it’s
not designed to play rather than celebrating it for all its good honest
squashiness. Spaghetti only wishes it was so good.
Posted at 02:49 PM
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Fri - October 8, 2004
Dill
I’ve been duped. Some time ago, during a short
break at the water-cooler, a colleague tempted me with tales of his wife’s
spectacular home-made mustard. He described scenes of their growing cottage
industry: twin ten-gallon pots gurgling on the stove top, the air pungent and
heady, his wife diligently stirring in her secret concoction of spices. He told
me of the clamoring crowds, her adoring loyalists, the farmers markets and local
businesses that set aside tables awaiting each painstakingly-crafted batch. He
very-nearly drooled describing how he brushes the precious unction on salmon
steaks before sliding them under the broiler. I pre-ordered a jar on the spot.
Weeks passed and my anticipation grew.
He stopped by my office every few days to give me the update -- she’s
gathering the essential ingredients, she’s planning to do it next week,
she’s making it tonight! -- until at last, this Tuesday morning, he
delivered the long-awaited jar. With trembling fingers, I took it and examined
the label. My smile slowly faded. My face, once flushed with excitement,
turned green. I very nearly dropped it in revulsion, but managed a wan smile
and a thank you. What he had neglected to mention all this time was the key
ingredient: DILL.
Those of you who know
me well can attest to my utter contempt for dill. Dill weed: the name itself
makes me recoil... as do the dark memories of the two most-traumatic dill
incidents of my life.
The first:
Thanksgiving. For the first time in memory, I step away from my time-honored
tradition of mashing the potatoes. I return to lend a hand, but before I even
take the masher, the evidence unfolds around me – a cutting board, a
knife, feathery remnants scattered, and a tell-tale odor filling the air. My
potatoes defiled! With dill! Tears stung my eyes as I began peeling another
batch.
The second: My birthday. A
specially-requested green bean salad. But wait! A suspicious green tendril. A
tentative first bite. Dill again! Dismay! Disgust! A confidence betrayed. I
shudder to think of it.
I don’t
recount these horrors to reawaken remorse in the monstrous dill-lovers
responsible. (You know who you are.) I am merely trying to paint an
appropriate backdrop for the mysterious events that occurred in my preparation
of dinner last night. Perhaps, given the essential history of dill and me (I
hate to use those two words together), you will be able to help me explain why
in God’s name I reached for that
jar...
Native to Europe, dill has been a
blight on the land since at least the days of ancient Greece. The fact that it
can be cultivated as far north as the Arctic Circle explains why it’s so
popular in Russian and Scandinavian cuisine (and why I avoid both as often as
possible, Stroganoff excluded). In Medieval times it enjoyed a spike in demand
for its effectual use against witchcraft. “Therewith her Vervain and her
Dill, That hindreth Witches of their will.” Supposedly, carrying a bag of
dried dill over the heart was considered protection against hexes, and here it
is employed by Dryden’s Nymphidia to frighten off the mischievous Puck.
The word “dill” actually comes from the Norse “dilla,”
meaning “to lull.” It won its name for its reputation to calm the
stomach and counter nausea, though it has the reverse effect on
me.
Why, then, was I tempted to use the
dill-laden mustard on our salmon last night? I could have substituted any other
mustard - I had at least four others at hand – but I distinctly reached
for the new jar, knowing full well the potential ramifications. I think I was
testing myself, checking in with my taste buds to make sure everything was
status quo. After all, there may be a time when I find dill appealing, hard as
it is to imagine.
With Jacob looking on
in amused interest, I brushed it on a salmon filet, ground salt and pepper over
it, and slid it into the oven. As it cooked, we tasted the mustard alone. It
had all the aspects of dill that I despise, particularly the way it blooms into
one’s nasal cavity and lingers there like a dank cloud. Jacob thought it
tasted like pickles (which oddly I adore) and told me that I need to keep my
mind open to new experiences.
Maddeningly, he was right. Baked into
the salmon, the dill-y mustard contributed a faint honeyed sweetness and musky
spiciness that was delightful. When I had finished, he gave me a sidelong
glance and grinned. “I guess you’ll have to admit that it passed
mustard.” Reluctantly, I agreed.
Posted at 11:05 AM
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Fri - October 1, 2004
Beef Stroganoff
I should have known better than to skimp on a dish
with such an illustrious past. I guess I just didn’t think it would
matter so much. The result? Disastrous Stroganoff. I could blame the meat,
but as Cassius would say, “the fault, dear (Ginger) is not in our stars,
but in ourselves that we are underlings.” Or in other words, I really
have to learn more about beef.
I have
studied - on several occasions – instructive charts illustrating the
various cuts of meat, their pros and cons, and which methods of preparation they
best serve. These efforts, I’m sad to say, have been fruitless. To the
realm of the slaughtered beast, my mind is a closed door, and I always approach
the meat isle with some anxiety.
So what
if the recipe called for tenderloin? I’ve seen plenty of recipes for beef
stroganoff that use ground beef. After all, this dish had its American hey-day
in the 1950’s, when the average housewife wasn’t dropping $50 on a
cut of meat - surely not one that was getting chopped up in a stew! And in my
defense, I did NOT use ground beef. I used some sort of round. Was it top?
Was it bottom? Who can say? I felt it was an acceptable middle-of-the-road
choice. Plus, it came thin-sliced for my
convenience.
I cut the beef into strips,
seasoned and very-quickly browed it, and set it aside. I then sautéed a
diced onion and quite a few sliced white mushrooms, and when they were soft and
brown, added a cup of beef-broth and a splash of wine and let it all simmer for
a while. When it had reduced enough, I stirred in about two-thirds of a cup of
sour cream, a dollop of Dijon, and the beef, complete with any juices that had
collected as it sat. We ate it spooned over egg
noodles.
It would have been delicious -
with its luscious creaminess and slight tang, the buttery noodles, and that
pleasant earthiness that mushrooms suggest - except that the beef was like
chewing on sawdust. I know, I know, it’s my own fault. I shouldn’t
have let Count Stroganoff down, and if I had been cooking for him, perhaps I
would have taken the time to figure out a better cut of meat to use. Of course,
that would require revealing the real
Stroganoff...
There is great controversy
about the origins of this dish. Most food historians believe that it was
created in the 1890’s by Count Pavel Stroganov (or his chef) for a gourmet
competition in Saint Petersburg, where its mouth-watering combination of beef,
mushrooms, cognac, and sour cream took first prize. This Count Stroganoff was
the last scion of the great Stroganov dynasty, a dignitary in the court of
Alexander III, a member of the Imperial Academy of Arts, and a gourmet.
However, his claim is dubious since the recipe was first published in an 1871
edition of the Molokhovets Cookbook – predating the competition and the
Count’s reputation as a gourmet. It is more likely, then, that it was a
refined version of an even older Russian recipe that had been in the Stoganov
family for some time and became well known through Pavel’s love of
entertaining.
Another theory claims that
is was named for a different Russian count, Grigory Stroganove (1770-1857), who
was a wealthy nobleman and diplomat. Being a great lover of food, he was known
to employ the best chefs, one of whom created the dish in question and named it,
as was the fashion, after his boss. Legend has it that while this Count was
stationed in Siberia, the beef was frozen so solid that the chef could only
scrape it into very thin strips. He then used the ingredients at hand to create
the meal. Other rumors agree that it was named for Grigory but dismiss the
Siberia story for this one: when Stoganove was old and missing his teeth, he
could chew only the very thin slices of beef used in this
dish.
Yet a third camp insists that
boeuf à la
Stoganoff must have been created by the French,
being
très
français
in concept and character. Larousse
Gastronomique notes that similar dishes were
known since the 18th century but insists the dish by this specific name was the
creation of chef Charles Brière who was working in St. Petersburg when he
submitted the recipe to L 'Art
Culinaire in 1891. Well, that date is a bit
late in the time-line and suspiciously does not involve a Count, but it is
possible that stroganoff was created by a French person: around the probable
time of the creation of the dish, there were many French chefs in Russian
homes.
For myself, I prefer the following
tale I stumbled across on the Internet, purportedly relayed by a Hungarian
woman. It lacks specific dates and names, but it does a nice job of combining
all the other theories. Also, it has a kind of nostalgic charm I would choose
over fact any day.
“When my mother
got married, papa’s orchestra was playing in one of the large Hotels in
Moscow. The chef there had been with the Stroganoff family for years before the
Revolution, and his father had been chef for the Stroganoffs before him.
Knowing that papa's favorite meal was Beef Stroganoff and not having anything
else to give them as a wedding gift, the chef gave mama an ancient hand written
recipe for Stroganoff on a piece of parchment with burnt edges tied with a silk
ribbon. The recipe was not in measurements but rather in proportions, so we can
cook it for 2 people or 102. He also wrote the story of how his ancestor
happened to create it. It seems that Count Stroganoff was out riding with some
friends and decided to stop off at his Hunting Lodge as they were close by. He
had not been expected and therefore not much was available to feed the large
group of guests. The chef was in a panic as the gentlemen wanted things
“bistro, bistro.” The meat was hanging outside on the rafters since
it was winter, and there were onions available along with the ever present
mushrooms and sour cream. The chef slivered the frozen meat, added the onions
and mushrooms, and dressed it with the sour cream. Voila, Boeuf à la
Stroganoff! Count Stroganoff and his slightly inebriated guests called the chef
in. He was sure that the Count would be upset with the meager fare, but instead
he was complimented and rewarded with a gold piece.”
Posted at 12:23 PM
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Fri - September 24, 2004
Ginger Snap
Being a Ginger, I am asked at least once a week how
Gilligan is doing, or what Fred is up to these days, or alternatively, where
nutmeg and cinnamon are. I don’t get too annoyed by this tired routine
since there are entertaining pay-offs to being a Ginger as well. For instance,
while playing tag, I can run around singing “can’t catch me,
I’m the gingerbread (wo-)man!” And I can smile coyly when people
announce that sushi is simply not as good without ginger. “Nothing
is,” I say. My favorite trick is to snap my fingers. Get it? It’s
a Ginger snap. And this leads me to an exciting new discovery: Ginger Snap,
the beverage.
I came across the Ginger
Snap in a magazine ad for Stoli Vanil. Immediately, I was tantalized by the
prospect of liquid vanilla and ginger and I knew at once that I had to try it.
It did not disappoint. It’s prickly and smooth, spicy and sweet, and
above all, as creamy as a cream soda. In fact, if you like cream soda, you
should give the Ginger Snap a shot. Just fill a glass with ice, add a splash or
two of vanilla-flavored vodka, and top it off with ginger ale. I don’t
see why you couldn’t also use plain vodka and add a splash of vanilla
extract. Or – oooh – how about using a vanilla bean as a stirrer!
I’m going to have to try that
myself.
The Ginger Snap is the latest in
a long line of alcoholic beverages made with ginger ale. From the 1860’s,
when ginger ale was first manufactured in America, up until the 1920’s,
ginger ale was the nation’s #1 selling soda – and while it’s
popularity may have had a little something to do with kids bellying up to the
soda fountains at the corner drug store, it was driven mainly by the fact that
dry ginger ale was the country’s preferred mixer. Some might have called
it the ONLY mixer. The early twentieth century was the golden age of ginger
ale: cocktails and speakeasies were the thing, and ginger ale was an essential
part of the mix.
Then prohibition
happened, and ginger ale crashed. It was so closely linked in people’s
minds with liquor that it plummeted into a long dark age from which it is only
now emerging. For many, many years, ginger ale has been relegated to sick rooms
and kiddy cups.
But not for long.
Apparently, ginger ale is making a comeback with the over-21 crowd. According
to one source, demand has increased by over 300% during the last three decades,
and I think I have some idea of where all that ale is going. Webtender.com
lists ginger ale as a key ingredient in 161 drinks, and Drinksmixer.com lists
234, including, notably, Amor de Cosmos, Superfly, Flaming Ale, White Trash, the
Dancing Leprechaun, the Suffering Bastard (a perennial favorite at
Chan’s), as well as George & Ginger, Jack & Ginger, Jim &
Ginger, and Frisky Steve. I foresee smooth sailing for ginger ale in the coming
years. Good thing we have the twenty-first amendment to protect
it.
Posted at 04:37 PM
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Fri - September 10, 2004
Broccoli
I must be vitamin deficient because I have been
craving broccoli for weeks now. Chances are no matter what your body needs
you’ll find it in one serving of broccoli, the Superhero of Nutrition.
More calcium than 4 ounces of milk! More vitamin C than a whole orange! Loaded
with fiber, iron, folic acid, vitamin A, most of the B’s, and potassium.
But wait, there’s more! According to the National Cancer Institute,
broccoli may help prevent cancer. Because of its wealth of phytochemicals,
specifically indoles and isothiocynates, broccoli may actually boost the enzymes
that help detoxify the body, working to prevent cancer, diabetes, heart disease,
osteoporosis, and high blood pressure.
Great! ‘Cause I was making cream
of broccoli soup for dinner last night, and I was going to need all the
nutritional help I could get.
With the
Superhero on my side, I felt less frightened about villainous Butter and Cream
lurking in the larder, but I knew the battle would be close. Butter attacked
first, reducing a pile of innocent chopped onion to a softened heap. The
situation was dire, and about to get worse. I threw in some flour to bolster
the weakened onion, but it was for naught: cream dove in from above, and
obliterated any semblance of health there was to be found. Just when I thought
all hope was lost, I caught a flash of green out of the corner of my eye. Is
it? It can’t be. But it is!! Yes, Broccoli has come to the rescue! It
lunged valiantly into the bubbling pot, striking at Butter and Cream with
vitamins, fiber, and folic acid. And then at last, it launched its secret
weapon. Phytochemicals swooped in for the kill, and health was restored in Soup
City.
Phew. We settled into our steaming
bowls of soup – excellent (and healthy!) food to eat on a stormy night.
Seasoned simply with salt, pepper, and one bay leaf, it was creamy and
delicious, warm and restorative. Forgive my digression, but there’s only
one good way to describe it. For many years beginning around the seventh grade,
my friends and I used the expression “totally broccoli.” It showed
our great enthusiasm for something; it was a strong affirmation, a statement of
agreement. I cannot for the life of me remember how it got started, but there
was something in the roundness of the phrase, the loose alliteration, and its
unusual pairing of words that really caught on. We said it all the time. (We
also said “cool beans,” but let’s not get off topic.) The
point is that we had broccoli soup for dinner last night and it was totally
broccoli.
Posted at 01:27 PM
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Fri - September 3, 2004
Cinnamon
Cinnamon is the holiest of spices. Just ask God. Why
else would he command Moses to sanctify the ark of the Testimony (and just about
everything else) in sacred anointing oil, made with no fewer than 250 shekels of
cinnamon? God said, and I quote, “You shall consecrate them so they will
be most holy, and whatever touches them will be holy.”
Interestingly, God’s early vision
of cinnamon as the great purifier has since been adopted by science, which
values its astringent, anti-infective, and antifungal properties. These, in
addition to its sweetness, warmth, and woodsy fragrance once caused it to be
valued more dearly than gold. The Roman Emperor Nero ordered a year's supply of
cinnamon be burnt on his wife’s funeral pyre: a flagrant squandering of
wealth which of course, shocked the known world and in my opinion cost him his
reputation, fiddle or no.
Like many
things holy and/or valuable, cinnamon was at the heart of centuries’ worth
of exploration and war. It is native to very few countries; China was an early
producer, but it was the small island of Sri Lanka, just south of India, which
suffered the world’s hunger for the spice. Poor Sri Lanka was conquered
first by the Portuguese, then by the Dutch, followed closely by the French and
the English in quick succession. Each of these nations in turn did their best
to commandeer the world’s supply of cinnamon, going so far as to seek and
destroy any other crop besides their own. God, I’m sure, was not pleased.
I had a mini-rite of cinnamon in my
kitchen this week. Of course, lacking an ark of the Testimony of my own, I used
it to anoint some chicken instead, but I’m fairly sure that every exposed
surface was consecrated. Having whipped up a mixture of olive oil, cinnamon,
cayenne pepper, and sugar, I poured it over some plump bone-in chicken breasts
and let them marinate overnight (so they’d be extra-sacred by
dinner-time).
If you’re feeling not-so-holy, you could
always substitute cassia. The two are closely related and, once ground, nearly
indistinguishable. In fact, if you live in the U.S., chances are you’re
already using cassia - not because we Americans are heathens undeserving of the
holy Cinnamomum zeylanicum, but because that’s normally what we’re
sold under the name cinnamon. You can tell the difference between the two more
easily in stick form: true cinnamon quills are curled like a telescope, while
cassia quills curl inward from both sides, like a scroll. Connoisseurs will be
able to tell which is which even when ground. True cinnamon is pale tan in
color with a warm, sweet flavor, whereas ground cassia is a reddish brown,
slightly coarser in texture, with a bitter edge, stronger flavor and a more
aromatic bouquet.
After the chicken
went into the oven to roast, I prepared some harissa sauce, a spicy red-pepper
sauce from Tunisia. I charred four red peppers under the broiler, popped them
into a big ziplock bag and let them steam until their skins got loose and baggy.
Once peeled, I chopped them up and pureed them in the food processor with some
roasted garlic, toasted coriander and caraway seeds, red pepper flakes, sugar,
salt and pepper. The harissa presents a vibrant orangey-red accompaniment to
the deeply browned cinnamon chicken and sets your taste-buds singing. All who
partook sensed the divine, and with anointed chicken in our bellies and hymns on
our tongues, we too were purified.
Posted at 05:14 PM
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Fri - August 27, 2004
Pesto
A quirky myth would have us believe that ancient
Greeks and Romans thought basil would grow only if you screamed wild curses and
shouted unintelligibly while planting
it.
To this I say phooey: the minute my
basil touched root to soil it erupted to enormous proportions - and I’m
quite sure I didn’t raise my voice even once. Basil has overrun my sunny
suburban porch in a tangled (yet fragrant) jungle and I must now hack through it
with a machete in order to find the grill. Luckily, my recipe for pesto demands
two packed cups of basil leaves, and batch by verdant batch, I vow to reclaim my
property.
One of the world’s
most-loved pasta foils originated in Liguria, the “Italian Riveria,”
whose capital is Genoa. The Genoese are known to be a tad overprotective of all
things local, but perhaps none more so than pesto. It is often said that there
are as many different pestos as there are homes in Genoa, but everyone agrees on
certain ingredients and standards. True Genoese pesto is composed of the small
leaves of a young basil plant, Italian pinoli, mild garlic, coarse salt,
parmesiano reggiano, and Ligurian olive oil (a mild, fruity product), all of
which are pounded into a paste by hand. The word pesto means
“pestle” after all.
Here is
where I stumbled. I was under the impression that I had been making absolutely
bellissimo pesto with just a pulse or two of the Cuisinart. But in article
after article on the subject, I read that I’d been missing out my entire
pesto-making life. Real pesto, true pesto, superior pesto can be made only by
hand. I was living a lie.
With this
earth-shaking knowledge in mind, I resolved to determine once and for all the
best method by conducting what I now refer to as the Test o’ Pesto. My
experiment was limited by the resources at hand. First, my basil is the
voluptuous American kind, not the paler, more diminutive Genoese kind. The
robust leaves of my basil plant would be looked at with distain by
traditionalists – they say that mature basil takes on an unpleasant minty
flavor, and can be oilier than the tender, nubile stuff. Second, I stumbled
across some especially heady garlic. Italian garlic tends to be smaller and
less pungent. In fact, Italian food’s reputation for being garlicky was
created in part because the garlic we use is much stronger, and we tend not to
adjust recipes for the difference. Third, I’ll be damned if I can get
Italian pinoli around here. They are supposed to be longer, more conical and
more delicate than their stubby Chinese cousins, but the later was all I could
find. Fourth, I cheated on the cheese. I’m sorry, but I couldn’t
bring myself to use my entire slab of $18/ pound Farmstead parmesiano reggiano.
I stretched it with some super market stuff (don’t worry, not from the
green canister, I’m not that bad). Fifth - and this is controversial
– I added some fresh flat-leaf parsley. It’s clearly not
traditional, but it is widely accepted as it ups the green in both color and
flavor.
On Monday, I whipped up an
emerald batch in the food processor. Three cloves garlic, a quarter cup toasted
pine nuts, two cups basil leaves, about 10 largish parsley leaves, a generous
pinch of coarse salt, a short stream of olive oil (maybe 5 tbs or so?) and a
quarter to a third cup parmesan. Jacob and I enjoyed this batch fervently over
some linguine. It scored high marks, but it’s hard to judge without a
comparison. I reserved some for the
face-off.
Last night brought the
contender. Lacking a real mortar and pestle, I fashioned a crude substitute out
of a mixing bowl and the butt end of a large screwdriver wrapped in saran. The
pounding began. I first made a paste with the garlic and salt, then added most
of the pine nuts, and a few torn basil leaves. I added the basil, a few leaves
at a time, pounding and grinding steadily for about a half an hour. When the
leaves looked decimated enough, I drizzled in olive oil, and lastly, stirred in
the cheese.
The Test o’
Pesto:
I smeared some of each pesto on pieces
of fresh bread. Jacob and I took turns sampling the
two.
The
results:
Pesto 1 was smooth in consistency. It
was pleasant, but gentler, flatter, and a bit oilier. In the dish, it tended to
separate so that a pool of bright green oil formed around the
solids.
Pesto 2 was chunky, with varying
sized leaf fragments (keep in mind – as if one could forget - that I was
using a screwdriver as a pestle). It did not separate. It had a strong
garlicky sting (though as I mentioned above, I think I hit a pungent clove). It
also had a rounder, deeper flavor. As Jacob said, “despite the garlic
bite, it tastes fresher.” I agreed. Pesto 1 was quite good, but Pesto
2 was somehow more complete.
Fred
Plotkin, connoisseur of music and food, writes that “esters (fragrant
compounds) are brought out more by a mortar and pestle than the violent action
of the blades of blender or food processor.” Hand-made pesto allows the
nuances of flavor to emerge while the food processor tends to dull them.
Interestingly, a lot of traditionalists will save time (and elbow grease) by
using a blender to make pesto, though they would never touch a food processor.
I plan to test this method as well – at least until I get my hands on a
real mortar and pestle.
For dinner last
night, we ate tuna steak sandwiches, in which the tuna was nestled into toasted
French bread, topped with lettuce and tomato, and slathered in a
pesto-mayonnaise. I used Pesto 2 for this mixture, adding just a dollop of
Hellmans and a little lemon juice. The tuna was seasoned simply with olive oil,
salt, pepper, and a drizzle of lemon juice, and was seared on the stove. The
heat of the tuna awakened the deep esters (thank you Mr. Plotkin) of the pesto,
and they melted into each other in each soul-satisfying bite.
Posted at 12:09 PM
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Fri - August 6, 2004
Rosemary
If you ever were to doubt your love’s devotion,
give him (or her) the sniff test: Place a sprig of rosemary under his nose and
watch closely. Indifference reeks of betrayal. But if the woodsy-sweet perfume
stirs him, his heart is true. And if your sweetheart is moved, as is mine, even
more by tongue than nose, steep his taste buds in the stuff. It will remind him
that he is yours.
This was my strategy
for dinner last night. It was supposed to be Jacob’s night to cook, but I
preempted him once I had rosemary on the brain. Admittedly, I was also tempted
to test the claim above. When Jacob got home from work, I wafted some rosemary
under his nose. The results were inconclusive. He wasn’t
“moved” per se, but neither was he indifferent. If anything, he was
curious as to why I would be eagerly waving herbs around. I had expected as
much, so I moved on to the taste test.
We had some center-cut pork chops
thawed, so I rubbed them with chopped fresh rosemary from the plant on my porch.
The spicy resinous aroma saturated the kitchen, and I nearly swooned. (I would
pass the sniff test with flying colors.) I sautéed the chops in some
garlicky olive oil until they were nicely browned and cooked through, then took
them out to rest while I made a sauce. White wine, cream, chicken stock, more
chopped fresh rosemary, and (secret ingredient) two teaspoons of balsamic
vinegar went into the pan and simmered until reduced to coat the back of a
spoon. I nestled the pork back into the sauce and served it with some roasted
potato spears and simple dressed
greens.
There were six pork chops. Six.
I don’t mean to broadcast our gluttony, or to make you raise one eyebrow
in disgust, but they all disappeared. To be sure, they were small, but the
truth is that they were absolutely irresistible. I had two. Jacob had three.
Then he sat there, eyes darting toward the kitchen, until he finally said
“I blame the rosemary,” and finished the last one
off.
In this age of fact and pragmatism,
rosemary has slipped out of legend. Now it’s just an herb, albeit a
popular one (herb of the Year 2000 according to the International Herb
Association). But for centuries rosemary was intertwined with love and memory.
For instance, it was metaphorically tied to the birth of Venus, the Roman
goddess of love. In the myth, Venus springs lustily from sea foam, and so it is
with rosemary, which is most content clinging to the salty cliffs of the
Mediterranean. Rosemary’s Latin name,
Rosmarinus,
means “mist of the sea.” In English Tudor times, the herb played a
symbolic role in weddings, representing faith in new love and remembrance for
families left behind. Bridesmaids gave sprigs of rosemary to the bridegroom.
Brides wore corsages of it to show they would always honor their families.
Sprigs were burned as incense, and were also added to wine to toast the happy
couple and ensure their nuptial bliss.
With enough rosemary under our noses, we
might be able to remember back even further. The first references to rosemary
were found written in cuneiform on stone tablets dating from the 5th
millennium B.C., making it the oldest known herb. In those earliest of days, it
was likely used in ointments and balms to soothe the mind, and ever since, it
has been thought to improve memory. In the 1st century, Dioscorides
the Greek physician prescribed it as a learning aide, and students wore springs
of the herb in their hair when they studied. Rosemary was tossed into graves by
ancient Greeks and Romans to remember the departed. Ophelia murmurs,
“There's rosemary, that's for remembrance. Pray, love, remember.”
And with one whiff, we do.
Posted at 03:17 PM
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Fri - July 30, 2004
Boston Baked Beans
I bet if I were to take a poll right now and ask what
major event is happening in Boston this month, most of you would say the
Democratic National Convention. And you would be right. But Let It Be Known:
July is also National Baked Beans Month, and Boston ain’t called Beantown
for nothing. While news reporters might insist that Bostonians are fighting
traffic in a desperate attempt to spot politicians and celebrities, we know the
truth. They just want to get home to mind the beans. It matters little that
outside it is 85 degrees and 90 percent humidity; they are obsessively sweating
over their bean pots, adding a dollop of molasses here and a pinch of dry
mustard there, wringing their hands as the hours tick by and the kitchen
temperature rises, all in an effort to produce authentic Boston Baked Beans.
It’s true that Boston is nicknamed
Beantown because of the colonists’ overwhelming affinity for slow-cooking
beans in molasses (yet another practice picked up from the natives). Molasses,
however, was not traded primarily as a commodity for this tasty dish. I know, I
know, it’s hard to believe that baked beans did not drive the global
economic market of the day, but the fact remains that molasses was actually a
key ingredient in quite another venture: the triangular trade. Molasses was
used to make rum, which was traded in West Africa for slaves. Africans were
shipped to the West Indies where they worked harvesting sugar cane. Sugar Cane
was shipped to Boston to be made into molasses. And so on. Colonial Boston was
awash in molasses, and Boston Baked Beans became a serendipitous by-product of
its otherwise sinister industry.
Why
anyone would choose the hottest, stickiest month of the year to pay homage to
baked beans (a dish that smacks of winter and requires up to eight hours of
baking!)
is beyond me. Personally, I think January should be National Baked Beans
Month. It was January 15, 1919, after all, when a 50 foot high storage tank of
molasses burst open and sent a tidal wave of over 2 million gallons of the stuff
through the streets of Boston at over 30 miles per hour. (Molasses has never
moved so fast since.) Houses, buildings and even parts of the elevated train
were crushed in its gooey path. Twenty-one people died, and over 150 were
injured. It took 6 months to clean up the mess and cost the city millions of
dollars. Seems as good an event as any to commemorate baked beans.
Some day I’ll take this matter up
with the powers that be. Until then, I could think of no better way to
celebrate the union of National Baked Bean Month and the Boston DNC than by
making some baked beans of my own. During my lunch hour, I made a quick run to
the grocery store to pick up some essentials, got home and laid all the
ingredients out on the counter:
•
•
•
Grandma’s Molasses, which is unsulphured
“first” molasses. This means that it is the
product
•
• of the first concentration of pure juice
from sun-ripened sugar cane, no sulfur added. The
more
•
• times you boil sugar cane down, the more of
the natural sweetness is removed until you end
up
•
• with black-strap, which is bitter and
thick.
•
•
•
Brown Sugar, for good
measure.
•
•
•
Coleman’s Dry English Mustard. That ancient
yellow tin lurking at the back of the spice cabinet.
•
• The stuff is so potent that one little tin
lasts for decades. I bought my tin yesterday, and I
expect
•
• never to have to buy another. How do those
guys stay in business?
•
•
•
Salt pork, which looks like a slab of unsliced
bacon. It’s cured with salt instead of being
smoked,
•
• so it adds incredible flavor to slow-cooked
dishes.
•
•
•
Onions. Yellow.
•
•
•
Beans. I didn’t use Boston’s official
dried navy bean. I simply didn’t have time, however
leniently
•
• I wanted to judge my lunch hour. I picked
up a can of small white beans and a can of pinto
beans
•
• and called it a
day.
I cubed the salt pork, quartered the
onions, threw everything into the crock-pot on high, and went back to
work.
Four hours later it was looking
kind of anemic. The pork clearly was not cooked, the onions still held their
shape and there was way too much liquid. I decided it needed more heat and
stuck it in the oven. Good thing too, because in the oven it stayed for a good
3 or 4 hours more. I took it out every once in a while to stir it and mark its
progress. The 350 degree heat was working - especially after I removed the lid
of the crock pot (which wasn’t supposed to be in there anyway. Oops).
The liquid stared to thicken into a deep brown rich syrup. The onions soon
melted into the background and the pork, once cooked through, could be broken
into shards with the slightest pressure. Also - the kitchen, though hot as an
oven itself, smelled fantastic.
We had
Mark over for dinner and some healthy political debate. The beans were velvety
and homey and delish. Along with them, we had beer-braised Boston brats, which
had been toasted on the grill and topped with soft onions and mustard. And to
drink? Sam Adams Boston Lager, of course. I can’t be sure about this,
but I wondered whether our Bostonian fare had any effect on the discussion. The
more we ate the farther left the conversation leaned. By the time John Kerry
took the stage, we were steeped in Boston tradition from the inside out. I felt
a certain kinship for the man and I wondered what he had had for
dinner.
Posted at 12:44 PM
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Fri - July 23, 2004
Pattypan Squash
The Saturday morning farmers’ market at Hope
High School is one of my favorite rituals of Providence in the summertime.
It’s small but lovely (much like Providence itself), with its semi circle
of covered stalls, its colorful sampling of homemade jams and preserves, and of
course, its mascot the llama, who stands to one side of the yarn stall serenely
surveying the scene. Colliding unexpectedly with friends and family is almost
guaranteed, at which point the thing to do is compare lists and baskets of
unquestionably fresh and local produce.
•
Squash has been the true highlight of the
farmers’ market this season. Granted, the early corn was crisp and sweet,
the tomatoes ripe and juicy off the vine, the baby plums a tantalizing balance
of sweet and sour, and the greens so fresh they keep for weeks - but it’s
the squash that have really set my taste buds humming. I don’t remember
the last time summer squash tasted much better than substantive water. The
farmers’ market squash, by contrast, have a deliciously creamy texture,
and are densely packed with that lightly buttery and subtly nutty flavor that is
best described as “squashy.”
•
We’ve eaten quite a bit of squash this summer.
Each week I’ve made a different rendition of zucchinis, straight- or
crook-neck yellow squash, or truly any variety I can find: sautéed in
olive oil; roasted in a mélange of mixed veggies; grilled with some
vinaigrette and herbs; boiled and buttered. It wasn’t until this week,
though, that I brought home pattypan squash.
•
Smallish, short, and squat with festive scalloped
edges, pattypans are sometimes described as flying saucers. They come in lively
shades of yellow, white, and/or green, the darker ones providing the most
nutrients in their tender skin. The baby ones are cute and little enough to pop
in your mouth like fresh crunchy candies, and the big ones can be prepared as
you would any other variety of summer squash. Either way, they are one of the
world’s most healthful foods, providing vitamins A and C (and some
B’s), niacin, thiamine, riboflavin, calcium, potassium and iron, and tons
of fiber and beta carotene.
•
Summer squash was a food staple in the Americas for
some eight thousand years before the first European explorers arrived. The name
was adapted by the settlers from the Algonquin word askutasquash, meaning
“eaten raw.” Pattypans were cultivated widely in those times, and
their popularity soon caught on in Europe. In England they became known as
custard marrow for their delicate fleshy interior, and in France,
patisson
panaché. For a period in the seventeenth
century, pattypan squash was known as cymling because it resembled the English
simnal cake, a fluted cake eaten during Lent.
•
Because of their beguiling shape and stature, I felt
it was a shame to chop the pattypans – they’re just too charming
left intact. I think a lot of people must feel the same way because recipe
after recipe I consulted recommended stuffing them. I tried this technique last
night with a couple of larger ones – about three or four inches across
– slicing off their caps a little way under the stem and gently scooping
out most of the white flesh with a small spoon. I diced a shallot, a clove of
garlic, and the flesh of the squash, and sautéed them all in a bit of
butter and olive oil. I added a few tablespoons of breadcrumbs, salt and
pepper, and at the last minute, some grated parmesan cheese. I stuffed this
mixture back into the pattypan shells, placed the cap back on top, and put them
in the oven for about twenty minutes at 350. You know they’re done when
you can pierce the shells easily with a fork.
•
They were so adorable sitting on the place with their
caps set jauntily askew! They were quite yummy also, but I didn’t pay
them enough attention since my mind was already racing to the countless other
pattypan fillings I want to try: think, for instance, of a roasted corn, black
bean, and jalapeño combination, or a sausage and cornbread mixture, or a
potato gratin en
patisson, or even a sweet custard, paying homage
to its old British name... the possibilities are endless, too bad the season is
not.
Posted at 04:19 PM
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Fri - July 9, 2004
Eggplant
In early times, botanists called eggplant Mala insana,
or “mad apple,” because they thought that eating it would drive a
person insane. They’ve of course been disproved, but I suspect they were
on the right track; I for one am unquestionably mad for eggplant.
Sautéed, fried, stewed, roasted, pureed or grilled, give me eggplant or
nothing at all.
I am a particular sucker
for eggplant parmesan. It is my most-ordered dish in restaurants and a stand-by
at home as well. I like to fry thin slices coated in breadcrumbs, add a dollop
of tomato sauce and a ball of fresh mozzarella to each one, bake them until the
cheese is melted, and eat them with fresh basil on top. I love the crisp
outside and the tender creamy eggplant interior, the way the slight bitterness
of the vegetable is softened and sweetened by the sauce. This is a classic
pairing, and with good reason: tomatoes and eggplant are cousins in the
nightshade family.
Sadly, I recently
learned that the spongy flesh of the eggplant absorbs more fat in cooking than
any other vegetable. According to an Australian study, when a serving of sliced
eggplant is deep-fried, it absorbs 83 grams of fat in just 70 seconds—four
times as much as an equal portion of potatoes—adding more than 700
calories. Not that this unsettling bit of news will make me renounce parmesan
forever, but I have sought out less sinful means of sating my eggplant
obsession.
For instance, there is a red
pepper and eggplant soup that I’ve been itching to try, in which the
peppers and eggplant are blended into a smooth bisque and seasoned with lemon
juice, basil and thyme. Sounds delicious. But for dinner last night, it was
roasted eggplant that did the trick, mixed into a lemony orzo, veggie and
grilled chicken salad.
Technically a
berry, eggplant comes in an enormous array of shapes and sizes, from spherical
to cylindrical, from 2 to 12 inches in length. There are small, creamy-white,
egg-shaped eggplants (from which the plant is named); long slender Japanese
eggplants; tiny, green, grape-like Thai eggplants; rosy pink and white striped
eggplants; and our very common pear-shape variety with a smooth, glossy, dark
purple skin. I chose an Italian eggplant, which looks like a miniature of this
last kind. It is a great option when cooking for one or two since it is small
but very tender and flavorful.
I sliced
it into rounds, salted them liberally and let them rest for about thirty
minutes. There is much debate over salting eggplant. The salt pulls moisture
out of the slices, makes the flesh less porous, and lessens the potential
absorption of fat, which, we now know, is a very good thing. It also may help
to reduce the eggplant’s bitterness. In recent years, however,
cultivation and crossbreeding have greatly improved the vegetable’s
natural flavor; these days it has only a whisper of the bitterness that has
given it such a bad rap for so long.
While the eggplant rested, I grilled
some chicken breast that had been marinating in lemon juice and oregano. I also
boiled a pot of orzo (rice-shaped pasta) and drizzled over it a simple dressing
of lemon juice, good olive oil, a bit of mustard, salt and pepper. If you
dress it while it’s still hot, the orzo soaks up the liquid and becomes
intensely flavorful.
When I came back
to the eggplant, the slices were dotted with beads of water. I brushed them
off, patted them dry and cut them in rough cubes (it’s not a good idea to
rinse salted eggplant, as it will just soak the salty water back up). I tumbled
the cubes in a little olive oil and herbs de provence and roasted them in a very
hot oven with some slices of zucchini, red peppers and red onions. When the
veggies were done, I tossed them into the warm fragrant orzo, and mixed in
slices of grilled chicken. I crumbed feta cheese over the top and added a
generous sprinkling of fresh basil and
parsley.
Oh. My. Lord. How do I love
thee orzo and roasted veggie salad? Let me count the ways... with my mouth
full, because it is just insanely yummy. And I do mean insane, since it is good
enough to turn a sound mind batty. Which brings me back to my earlier point
regarding mental health and the eggplant. It’s interesting: eggplant
ranks among the most popular edible vegetables of the world and is widely used
throughout Europe and the Mediterranean basin, India, the Far East, and
practically all Latin American countries. Only in America are most folks
reluctant to give into eggplant folly – they hold their sanity too
dear.
Posted at 12:02 PM
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Fri - June 18, 2004
Scampi
Here’s a little trivia question for all you
movie buffs out there: In Forrest Gump, what most delectable dish did Bubba
Blue neglect to mention in his famous shrimp diatribe?
*
This quiz, I realize, is a tad
anticlimactic since you’ve probably already noticed the title of this
article. However, I do find it peculiar that over the course of several days of
doing nothing but list possible preparations of shrimp, Bubba left out the most
popular shrimp dish in U.S. history: scampi. Next to canned tuna fish, shrimp
is the leading seafood consumed by the American public, and scampi is its number
one preparation. The U.S. is the top importer of farmed shrimp, bringing in
between 260,000 and 400,000 tons a year (and that’s just the farmed stuff
– about 50% of the total trade), so if I were to hazard a guess, I’d
say that easily 100,000 tons of scampi is eaten in this country on a yearly
basis.
Over drinks last night with
Cristina, I mentioned that scampi was on the menu, and she said she had just
made it the night before, a coincidence we both found uncanny at the time.
After looking up the numbers, I realize that I might well have had the same
revelation with any number of people at the same bar. What I’m getting
at is that dinner last night was not particularly creative or original –
millions of other Americans were probably eating the same thing. But that
didn’t make it any less tasty.
I
had about a pound of large shrimp in the freezer, so I thawed, rinsed and
shelled them and set them aside. I heated some butter and olive oil and
sautéed 4 cloves of sliced garlic until it was fragrant and golden. Then
the shrimp went in until just pink, at which point I took the pan off the heat.
I added a splash of white wine, the juice of one lemon, a bunch of chopped
parsley, some salt and some crushed red pepper, mixed it all up and served it
over penne (I would have gone for a linguine or angel hair product, but was
sadly without).
“Scampi”
actually means shrimp in Italian, so “shrimp scampi” is like saying
“shrimp shrimp” – think, for instance if “veal
vitello” or “cheese formaggio” started showing up on menus.
But like the ATM machine before it, shrimp scampi has become part of the
American idiom, and quite frankly, the name means very little after one bite.
The scampi was lemony, buttery, garlicky, hot with flakes of red pepper. The
shrimp had just reached that magic moment where they burst in your mouth, and I
at once understood why shrimp scampi is so well-loved: it is delicious
delizioso.
*For those of you who
still doubt this claim, check out the quote for yourselves: “Shrimp is
the fruit of the sea. You can barbecue it, boil it, broil it, bake it,
sauté it. There’s, um, shrimp kebabs, shrimp Creole, shrimp gumbo,
pan fried, deep fried, stir fried. There’s pineapple shrimp and lemon
shrimp, coconut shrimp, pepper shrimp, shrimp soup, shrimp stew, shrimp salad,
shrimp and potatoes, shrimp burger, shrimp sandwich... That’s...
that’s about it.”
Posted at 04:36 PM
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Fri - May 21, 2004
Salt Crust
The last time I baked fish in a salt crust was on the
Amalfi Coast of Italy, in a kitchen desperately lacking in cooking tools, but
entirely redeemed by its window overlooking the sparkling Mediterranean Sea.
On our second day there, we were poking around in the town of Amalfi just before
siesta, and my charge was to find something fresh and scrumptious to cook for
dinner. I quickly ducked into a fish market before they had a chance to close
for the afternoon. Not knowing more than a few words of Italian, the pescatore
and I played charades until I left with four or five hand-sized white fish
– complete with heads, fins and scales. I had neither the knives nor the
know-how to filet a fish, so I baked them whole in coarse sea salt, following a
technique I had once seen Martha do on TV. The fish emerged from its salt crust
luscious and bursting with the flavor of the sea. We dined on the veranda,
listening to the waves rock against the cliffs just below and watching the
lights come on in the town across the cove.
•
In ancient Rome, salt was valued so dearly that Roman
soldiers received an allowance for it as part of their pay. The word for that
portion - salarium - is the root of the English word “salary.” The
incomparable memory of the fish we ate that night makes me understand completely
why salt was once precious as gold.
•
Jacob, Cristina and I tried to recreate the experience
for dinner last night. I splurged on a hefty 4 pound red snapper and picked up
an extra box of kosher salt on my way home. The fish was beautiful with its
shimmering pink and pearl scales. I rinsed it out and removed the gills,
swearing to myself once again that I had to learn better knife skills. I
stuffed some lemon slices into the cavity and set it aside.
•
I filled my big mixing bowl with coarse salt –
probably six to eight cups of it – added a little less than a cup of water
and one egg. It mixed up into a damp batter which I scraped into a large baking
dish. I spread it out into a roughly oblong shape and laid the snapper on top.
As Cristina and I started to bury the fish, we realized we didn’t have
nearly enough salt. According to the recipes I consulted, you want to create at
least a half inch layer all the way around the fish. I mixed up another batch.
We packed the fish snuggly in this white coat until only the tip of its red tail
poked out the end. Then it went into a very hot oven (450) for about 30
minutes.
•
The practice of roasting fish and meat in salt goes
back to the Chinese, who discovered centuries ago that food cooked quickly and
evenly when placed in a salt crust and roasted over an open fire. Because the
salt retains heat so well, you can roast for shorter times at higher
temperatures. In addition, the crust prevents moisture from evaporating and
seals in the natural flavor of the food.
•
Surprisingly, the salt crust does not make the fish
salty in the slightest. The crust is only there to retain the juices and
conduct heat. The only way it will flavor the flesh of the fish within is if
you add too much water to the crust mixture, creating a layer of salty water
that bastes the fish rather than baking it.
•
A few minutes past the half hour mark we took out the
fish. The crust had browned slightly and was hard as rock. It’s a little
nerve racking not to know if the fish is ready – once you crack the crust
there’s no going back. But you must take the plunge sooner or later. I
took up the blunt end of my microplane (in retrospect I wish I had used
something a little more glamorous, but it was the tool at hand) and with a
resounding thwack, the crust cracked into large solid chunks. Steam immediately
started pouring out from the cracks, and we broke away the pieces until the fish
was uncovered, looking festive and intensely red against the salt piled around
it.
•
What followed was a shameful display of incompetence
that I cannot bear to rehash here. I’ve already admitted that I
can’t filet a fish to save my life and last night was no exception. We
ended up with a platter piled high with smallish and misshapen pieces and chunks
which in a last ditch effort at elegance I garnished with lemon
parsley.
•
The fish was full of flavor, moist and succulent. We
ate it with a fresh salad and grilled baby artichokes, drizzled with their
lemony marinade. We mopped our plates with a crusty durum baguette and drank a
very pleasant, light pinot grigio. It was how every meal should be. And
although we didn’t have a view of the Mediterranean, we did have the taste
of it in our bellies.
Posted at 03:11 PM
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Fri - May 14, 2004
Chipotle Chicken
Jacob bought a book recently called “Discover
Rhode Island: An AMC guide to the best Biking Hiking and Paddling.” Ever
since, we have been taking short excursions in the evenings - hiking the trails
of southern RI and gearing up for longer backpacking, camping and kayaking trips
later in the summer. Our woodsy amblings have been beautiful and invigorating,
but they don’t leave much time for cooking. By the time we get home,
it’s usually close to 9 and we’re famished. Harried dinner
preparation ensues.
I bring this up
because last minute cooking encourages short cuts, and the one I (somewhat
ashamedly) used last night was serendipitous indeed. I’ve been on a
Mexican kick lately, and was bent on making a chili-lime spiced grilled chicken.
I had forsight enough to start the chicken marinating before I left for work in
the morning, but had not planned for the sauce. My recipe-of-choice called for
rehydrating dried ancho chilies and then blending them into a creamy sauce to
top the chicken – a process that I am still eager to try, just not while
in hiking boots and teetering at the edge of starvation. I opted instead for a
bottled chipotle (chi-POTE-lay) sauce, mass produced for my convenience by
Tabasco.
Chipotles and anchos seem to
have a lot in common, making this substitution a likely success. They are both
known for their smoky, sweet, almost chocolaty flavor and their relative
mildness. On the Scoville scale - which measures spiciness by the level of
capsaicin found in a pepper - both rank low. Capsaicin is a natural compound,
concentrated in the veins and seeds of peppers, that stimulates your nerve
endings and makes you think that you are in pain. Anchos contain about 1000
Scoville units; chipotles about 5000. They may give you a pleasant tingling
about the lips. In comparison, habaneros, the world’s spiciest chili
peppers, contain up to 400,000 Scoville units. At that level, your brain is so
convinced that you are burning alive, that it releases large amounts of
endorphins into your bloodstream, producing a vague sense of euphoria. Kind of
like morphine. Capsaicin is serious stuff – even for brave explorers of
southern RI.
So, chipotles. Chipotles
are actually jalapeños that have been dried and smoked. In the process,
they release their characteristic sharp, crisp, bright, acidic notes and reveal
their deep, smoky, moody, mellow undertones. Translated literally, chipotle
refers to any smoked chili pepper: the word derives from
“chilpotle” in the Náhuatl language of the Aztecs, where
“chil” meant hot pepper and “potle” came from poctli,
meaning smoked. The word apparently was reversed somewhere along the line, as
it originally was spelled pochilli. In any case, Tabasco was kind enough to
dry, smoke, rehydrate and blend some jalapeños for me, so all I had to do
last night was tip the bottle. Happy, happy
day.
First I made some guacamole,
because, well, what could be better? The chicken that had been marinating (in
lime juice, soy sauce, veg oil, sugar, rosemary, oregano, chili, cayenne, and
garlic) was slapped on a hot grill. I then mixed up some chipotle sauce with
the lovely product mentioned above, more lime juice, mayo, brown sugar,
rosemary, oregano, and cumin. I dipped a couple of corn chips in it to taste.
Delicious. Creamy and smoky, quietly buzzing with spice, and fresh with lime.
It went brilliantly with the chicken, which had taken on an almost carameled
exterior on the grill, and together they produced a mouthwatering combination of
sweet, tangy and spicy. Interspersed with cool munches of chips and guac, it
was much-appreciated nourishment for two weary adventurers.
Posted at 03:48 PM
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Fri - April 30, 2004
Stout Pork
Benjamin Franklin is known to have said, “Beer
is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.” This is a sentiment
that Jacob surely would second, particularly when it comes to the beer named for
Mr. Franklin’s revolutionary compatriot, Samuel Adams. Outside our
kitchen door stand two great pillars built entirely of empty boxes of Samuel
Adams – a testament to Jacob’s patriotism to the beer and, by
extension, to the values of our forefathers. After all, if Samuel hadn’t
been plotting revolution with Paul (Revere) and John (Hancock) over some of his
very own home-brewed ale, we might still be saluting the Union Jack
today.
The Sam towers reach from ceiling
to floor, and boxes continue to accumulate in other corners of the apartment
until I draw the line and take a few out on recycling day. One can chart the
passage of time by the boxes of seasonal brews which appear every so often
between the Boston Lagers. I have just added a new one to the collection:
Cream Stout, which was a key ingredient in dinner last
night.
Being somewhat beer-ignorant, I
looked up stout on the website of the Boston Brewing Company. I also drank one.
My findings: Stouts are famous for being smooth, rich, intense and very very
dark. While there are many types of stout, including bitter, sweet, Imperial,
oatmeal, milk, and even oyster, the richest is cream stout, a lush brew made
with additional malt, fermented to impart a sweetness and creaminess in the
beer. Dense and full-bodied, with hints of coffee, it has a good balance of
roasted grain and hops. I would hazard that no other beer as closely matches
its reputation as liquid bread. Stout is as rich in medical history as it is in
flavor. Nursing mothers are fortified with stout in Irish hospitals to help
them produce milk. A popular Australian beer brewed in the 1800s was called
Nurse Stout, a health-promoting brew for invalids. In some parts of Asia,
bathing a newborn baby in stout is thought to have beneficial effects on the
complexion.
Last night it was not a baby
(thank God), but rather a pork shoulder that bathed in stout. Thus the title
of this article, “Stout Pork,” refers not to the girth of the piggy,
but the liquid he was braised in. I stopped home on my lunch hour to get
started since it would need to cook for several hours. I seasoned the meat with
salt and pepper and browned it well in a bit of olive oil. I sautéed
some garlic, onions, and celery, added a few chopped tomatoes, and deglazed the
pot with a splash of balsamic vinegar. Then the shoulder went back in and was
slowly enveloped in frothy, foamy, ebony stout. I shoved it in the oven and
went back to work.
When I got home, I
defatted both the pork and the braise, added some potatoes, carrots and red
cabbage to the pot and let it bubble away in the oven for another hour or so
until it was fork tender. (Fork tender is an expression that’s thrown
around a lot, but I didn’t know what it meant until recently. It means
that if you jab a fork into the meat and try to remove it, it will not come out
easily. When you try this with raw meat, the fork slips right out - a problem
that has caused me great aggravation in the
past.)
The fun part of this meal was
fishing out potatoes and carrots from the braising liquid and piling them around
and on top of the beautiful roast. In the future, however, I will omit the
veggies. They were uninteresting – bland actually. Roasted veggies and a
green salad with balsamic vinaigrette would have been a better option. Anything
fresh and acid would complement it well.
Despite this minor disappointment, I
must say that the beer-braise is a terrific way of preparing pork shoulder, and
it would probably work equally as well for other pork and beef roasts. The meat
was tender, moist, and quite flavorful, although Jacob and I were both
unsuccessful in pinpointing exactly what the flavor was. It didn’t taste
like beer, but it made perfect sense with the beer we were drinking. It had
depth and a fullness of flavor, an insinuation of dark maltiness. In fact I
hate to say it, but it was, quite fittingly, stout.
Posted at 04:12 PM
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Fri - April 23, 2004
Fish Tacos
The concept of the fish taco has yet to catch on in
New England, even now in the days of the unraveling regionalization of American
cuisine. A few forward-thinking restaurants and some national chains offer
watered-down renditions around here, but the idea of fish-in-a-taco to most
people this side of the Rockies is, well, disgusting. I too was once a skeptic.
Only the admirable persistence and irresistible enthusiasm of my brother was
enough to bring me to my first wary bite. Now I am a convert, but I am also
three thousand miles from the nearest fish taco joint.
Let me say right off the bat that fish
tacos are just about the antithesis of the Old El Paso style ground beef and
cheese product we all know and love. Don’t get me wrong – I enjoy
beef tacos as much as the next person, but more for the challenge of eating them
than anything else, what with those uselessly brittle shells that let fall
chunks of salsa, beans, and the aforementioned spicy concoction before you can
shove them in your mouth. It’s just that fish tacos are something
completely different. They are fresh and light - lively even - spritzed with
lime and clean with crisp shredded cabbage. They evoke life in sunny San Diego,
which is appropriate, since they are considered the city’s signature dish.
Born on the Baja Peninsula, where the
freshest seafood is cheap and bountiful, fish tacos were discovered and
popularized by the surfing community. In the early 80’s, one enamored
surfer in particular was shown the ropes by his beach-side taco slinger and went
on to open a fish taco shop of his own - called Rubio's in Mission Bay. It was
an instant success. Today there are nearly 150 Rubio’s in Southern
California specializing in Baja-style fast food fish tacos. I ate my first fish
taco at a Rubio’s. It was good, but the truly superlative fish taco
experience is at the beach, and involves getting messy on a picnic table with
the salt spray of the sea in your
face.
Until you’re next in San
Diego, you can approximate the experience at home with some good fresh
ingredients and a cold beer. This is what we did for dinner last night, one of
the first Summery evenings of the year. I fried up beer-battered strips of
buttery cod (a more authentic choice of fish would have been snapper or shark,
but we are in Providence after all). These went still sizzling into a soft corn
tortilla, with a squirt of hot sauce, a handful of shredded red cabbage, chopped
tomatoes, and a dollop of crema mexicana (OK - sour cream, mayo and ketchup, but
close enough). The whole pile was doused generously with lime juice before
being hastily and sloppily munched.
In
one bite there is an immediate burst of steaming hot fish, soothed by creamy
sauce, cooled with the crunch of cabbage, and perked up by the tang of lime.
The taco oozes fish and sauce and cabbage onto the plate, where it is collected
and gobbled down with fingers between sips of beer. I heard summer
calling.
Posted at 04:01 PM
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Masala Dosa
Soup
Duck
Gumbo
Lamb Shanks
“Enchiladas”
Tortelloni
Dumplings
Artichokes
Beets
Gnocchi
Pulled Pork
Polenta
Sourdough
Oranges
Sweet Potatoes
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Published On: Feb 18, 2005 04:26 PM
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