Here’s the full recipe, adapted from Charcuterie by Micharel Ruhlman and Brian Polcyn:

For the brine:

• 1 pig’s head
• 2-4 pig’s trotters or hocks
• 2 gallons of brine (1 cup Kosher salt and 1/2 cup sugar per gallon of water)
• 1-2 pig’s tongues

For the stock:

• 2 cups dry white wine
• 1 bouquet garni
• 4 garlic cloves
• 10 black peppercorns
• 8 bay leaves
• 6 cloves

For the terrine:

• kosher salt
• parsley or other flavorings (nutmeg and/or allspice)

Brine all the meat overnight. Drain and rinse the meat. Add the meat and stock ingredients to a 20 quart stockpot and add water to cover as much as possible. Bring everything to a boil and maintain a very slow simmer for 3-4 hours, skimming fat as needed, until the stock is very dark.

Remove the meat and let it cool. Bring the remaining stock to a rolling boil until it reduces in volume by 1/3, about 2 more hours. Meanwhile, pick off the edible meat from the tongues, head, and trotters. The tongues must be peeled. Work around the bones and skin, judiciously selecting the meat and a little of the fat. The meat should fill one terrine, lined with plastic wrap, with some leftovers.

Mix the meat with the parsley or other flavorings. Ladle the reduced stock over the meat to fill the terrine, then salt the entire thing to taste.

Cover and refrigerate overnight. The terrine should be firm all around. Invert onto a serving plate, remove the plastic wrap, and serve with salsa verde, cornichons and other pickled accompaniments, mustards, bread and a salad.

When I read David Leite’s article about the 36 hour chocolate chip cookie in the Times, I had to try it. The theory is that giving the batter 36 hours in the fridge results in a much better texture, because the flour has time to fully absorb the egg.

The Times cookies are 5 inches in diameter. I’ve generally been skeptical of big cookies like this, but their explanation was reasonable. With a bigger cookie, you’ll ideally get to experience three different textures: a crusty edge, an interior ring that’s somewhere between crusty and soft, and a soft, less-than-done center. A smaller cookie might allow for a more consistent texture (all crust, or all soft), but as Winnie said, variety is the spice of life! And besides, since chocolate chip cookies are a classic American invention, they must be immense (and suitable for eating while driving).

Here’s the dough before the 36 hour resting period, and before I added chocolate chips. It’s not exactly wet, but it’s not exactly dry either.

After 36 hours, and with chips, it’s definitely dryer and sandier and darker.

And here comes the first batch! Frankly, I’d rather wait 36 hours for one of these than for an iPhone. The texture was wonderful (neither gritty nor cakey), the chocolate was great (I stole Winnie’s Scharffen-Berger). There was a tinge of baking soda or powder (I couldn’t tell which) that blocked some of the flavor, but this went away in subsequent batches (a day later). Winnie suggested I try making my own baking powder next time, but given the intimidating statistics behind this recipe (2.5 sticks butter, etc.) it’ll probably be a while before I have the appetite for more of these monstrous handheld desserts. And by “a while,” I mean approximately 36 hours from now.

I am loving our new knife block:

It’s called the Kapoosh and it holds a slew of knives without regard for shape or size. What a huge improvement over most knife blocks—I highly recommend it. Our other option was a knife magnet, but we don’t have the wall space for one, and it’s honestly not as easy to use. Our Kapoosh is situated right below the counter. Now I can whip out my steel in a moment’s notice.

I was up in Boston for an amazing ROFLcon weekend and last night I stumbled into/crashed a birthday pig roasting part for a guy named Craig, who I’d only met the day before (our mutual friend Christine paved the way). The victim was a 75 lb pig, purchased from Mayflower Poultry (“Live Poultry, Fresh Killed”). Lots of fish, scallops, shrimp, crabs, and mussels also perished. It was incredibly delicious. Here’s the whole gallery of crappy cell phone pics. Roasting a pig this size not a one-person operation. Three guys who love food, Craig among them, did the bulk of the work. These guys were having a blast, though after 15 or so courses they started losing steam, understandably, so I tried to do my part by slicing up some fruit for dessert.

The roasting box they used is called a La Caja. It’s insulated, it has aluminum walls, and you set the coals on top. A La Caja cuts the roasting time in half (down to 4 hours in this case) but still requires a lot of charcoal (set on top of the box, not underneath) — about 40-50 lbs total I think. At one point they removed the charcoal top and set it on the driveway while basting the pig, and the driveway’s tar started to melt. Wow.

But seeing the whole process gave me confidence in roasting a big animal, should the need arise. Sure, you need some outdoor space, a bathtub to brine it in, a big work table to cut it on, and a lot of people around to eat it, but otherwise it’s just like a chicken!

Dear Blog,
How are you? I am fine. I miss you. New York is big. I am busy. I know you worry about me. Am I safe and warm? Am I happy? Am I eating enough?

Blog, you don’t have to worry.

See, here I am. Eating, all safe and warm and happy.

Lentil soup Winnie made tonight

Smoked turkey drumstick and cheese on Balthazar’s raisin-walnut bread

My version of pasta with Bittman’s double sun-dried tomato sauce

Eggs baked into a baguette

Karl’s amazing & simple tofu satay

Broiled trout with ginger

And Winnie’s huge corned beef -n- veggie dinner on St. Patrick’s day

I will write more often, Blog. I promise. Now that we’re finally settling into our new home, I will try to make more time for you. You are special to me. I’m sorry.

Love,
Carl

See also: Dear Rabbit and Dear Microwave via Get In My Belly.

Bittman’s jamaican rice & beans, chicken & turkey sausage, red chard with soy sauce, and basil/goat cheese/tomato salad.

Cross-posted on Thing-a-day

• dice and roast a parsnip and 3 yams at 425° for 20-30 minutes, shaking occasionally
• meanwhile, saute 3 shallots, finely chopped
• add chicken broth, bay leaf, thyme, and a bunch of kale, chopped small
• bring to a boil, simmer for 15 minutes.
• add roasted vegetables, 3 cloves whole garlic, and a can of great northern beans
• season with salt & pepper and simmer for 10 more minutes to blend flavors.
• garnish with shredded beets
• enjoy with buttered baguette bits

I really have to make these more often. A tart is simple to make, delicious, and for some reason it looks like an impressive feat. But with all that butter, it’s hard to screw up. The only goal is to deliver a crispy, flaky crust, and as long as the butter stays cold until the tart hits the oven, you’re home free.

Unfortunately, my standards for these things are way too high. It was the apple tart at L. Poilâne in Paris that spoiled me. A melt-in-your-mouth, gorgeous flakey pastry, baked over a wood fire like their breads. Absolutely omg wtf delicious, and it wasn’t just Paris’s psychological effect on the taste buds.

K and I left Nashville on September 25th, drove 8,151 miles, hit a dozen national and state parks, another dozen cities, and now we are back.

Having travelled so far in such short time, I can finally post what may be my first Winnie-style travel food adventure. Winnie Yang seems to write these kinds of posts weekly: here’s a pig’s head she ate in Montreal, a lovely passion fruit on the beach in Kenya, and oh, that dim sum in LA… and that’s just the last couple months. The food below is a little more pedestrian, and a little less well photographed (shitty cell phone camera), but I hope you like it.

First, starting in Nashville with the catfish sandwich.
This is from Fat Mo’s, a little drive-through place down the block. Between this sandwich the krunkest fish sandwich over in East Nashville, I predict Nashville will become an unlikely fish sandwich mecca. We do have the deep frying skills for it.

But Portland, ME will remain the lobster roll mecca

And Butte, MT is the only home of the original pork chop sandwich, invented at Pork Chop John’s and served “loaded” with red onion, mustard, and pickles, on a toasted bun, for $2.90 (!).

Portland, OR: My first bit of beef this year!
This is a local, sustainable hamburger from the amazing Burgerville USA.
And to go with it, a mind-blowing pumpkin milkshake.

Side trip: While in Oregon, my aunt Joy took us shrooming. Don’t pass up an opportunity to do shrooms with your aunt.

Talking of chanterelles and local food—we had a great lunch on the porch at Chez Panisse in Berkeley, CA:
Rocket salad with beets and a chopped medium-boiled egg
Hand-cut wild nettle pasta with chanterelle mushroom ragú
Provençal fish and shellfish stew with fennel, tomato, and rouille
Grilled pork roast with shell beans, roasted pimiento, and tomatillos

Then, on our way back east, we went to Bryce’s Cafeteria in Texarkana, TX. This place was loaded to the gills with amazing home-cooked southern food. I wish I’d taken a picture of the buffet.
The absolute crispiest most amazing fried chicken legs ever, with all the southern accompaniments.

And as my dad taught me, if you’re ever in Memphis, a stop at Charles Vergo’s Rendezvous is a must:
Here’s a full order of their charcoal roasted, dry rubbed ribs. Heaven on a bone.

I know it doesn’t look like much, but when my mom sent me this raw food vegan torte recipe the other day, and she used the word “fabulous” to describe it, I was intrigued. I’ve never “cooked” raw food before, and to be honest I’m deeply skeptical of the genre. Raw food is not easy to make taste good. We are not bunny rabbits. But—a good review from mom is reliable, and I’ll eat most things involving fresh strawberries. This is made like a cake, with alternating layers of fruit and a pecan/fig mixture. The nutmeg and citrus give it a mild fruitcake flavor.

Start with:

• 2 c. pecans
• 2 c. figs
• 1 tsp. nutmeg
• 2 tsp. soy sauce (raw soy sauce, if you want to be 100% orthodox—I wasn’t)
• zest of one lemon

Whiz the pecans in a food processor to a medium grind, then add everything else and process well. You might need to work in two batches. Form half of the mixture into an even layer on a plate, about ¼” thick. Layer sliced strawberries or bananas on top, then the formed other half of the mixture, and top with another layer of fruit.

Now get out the blender and make the “frosting.”

• 1 c. walnuts or pecans
• 3 T. raw honey
• ½ tsp. salt
• ½ c. water
• a capful of orange blossom water

Blend ingredients well and spread/pour over the torte. Let chill for an hour or so in the fridge, and the frosting will solidify. (thanks, Mom!)

I made these this morning, adapted from Mark Bittman — it’s a mash-up of his muffin recipes. I like these because they cook faster than coffee cake, and they have more crusty goodness.

Preheat oven to 401°F. Grease a standard 12-guage muffin tin. Prepare three bowls:

Bowl 1, dry ingredients:

• 2 cups (~9 oz) AP flour
• ¼ cup white sugar
• 1 tsp baking powder
• ½ tsp baking soda
• ½ tsp salt

Bowl 2, wet ingredients:

• 1 Tbsp melted butter or canola oil
• 1 egg
• 1¼ sour cream or yogurt

Bowl 3, tasty ingredients:

• 2 Tbsp melted butter
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• ½ cup packed brown sugar
• 1 cup finely chopped pecans

Mix dry ingredients to combine, burrow a well in the center, and add wet ingredients plus half of tasty ingredients. Fold in quickly until everything is just hydrated. Fill each muffin slot about 8/12ths and top with other half of tasty ingredients before baking. Pour a little water into any remaining empty muffin slots.

Bake 23 minutes. Let stand 4 minutes and 53 seconds before flipping the pan over and turning its contents into your mouth.

First I laid out a few egg pasta recipes and examined their contents, then I claimed I finally understood how to make it. Now I have to take that back. I was only just beginning to learn. Making fresh pasta, with just 2 or 3 ingredients, is as “simple” as bread, which is to say it is very complicated. I got cocky, I thought I knew what I was doing. But I don’t. I am humbled.

Having said that, I just learned a few more things about fresh pasta from the book Heat by Bill Buford, and I think they will help answer my earlier confusion about it. Like bread, pasta will sing only when made with the best, freshest, most excellent ingredients you can get your paws on. And given the time commitment, I can’t see how it would be worth making any other way. In my post on pasta doughs, I’d wondered aloud why Jamie Oliver uses eight egg yolks plus 3 eggs in his dough, where all the other cookbooks used just 2 or 3 eggs. As it turns out, Mario Batali does the same thing at Babbo. Why? Well, first, the recipe calls for almost twice as much dough as the others. But more importantly, Jamie’s recipe freely admits something about the modern eggs we get from battery hens: they suck. The extra yolks are there to make up for the low-grade eggs that most of us use every day. Back when all chickens were grass-fed and life was great, you might’ve only needed 3 eggs. In parts of Italy, I’m sure that’s still the case. But if you don’t have fantastic eggs—grass-fed eggs with big, neon yellow-bordering-on-red yolks—you simply need more yolks to make up for it. Apparently Batali uses salt and oil, too, to further redress the egg quality issues.

FYI, here’s Batali’s pasta dough—made for American mass-produced eggs:

• 1 lb flour
• 3 eggs
• 8 egg yolks
• hint of salt
• drizzle of olive oil
• water as needed

Of course, all of these recipes assume you’re going to know by feel when the dough is perfectly hydrated, and when to add water. I’ve learned a little about this from breadmaking, but it’s not something that’s easy to explain in English. It’s kinesthetic. It’s about muscle memory, and when I read about it, I lament not working in a professional kitchen. Unless I’m making a ton of this stuff every day, kneading it out by hand, I don’t get a chance to teach my body the feel of perfect dough, just as I can’t easily teach my body how to poke and smell a steak and tell that it’s perfectly cooked. Anyway, the dough sould be tacky, but not sticky, while you knead it. After a few minutes of kneading, it should shine a little. So it won’t be dry, exactly, but it will be something you can knead easily.

Good luck.

I finally figured out fresh egg pasta. It only took about five attempts. I thought I understood three attempts ago, and that it was supposed to taste gummy. No wonder so many pasta machines collect dust in the corner.

1. Use the right flour Obviously, all-purpose will work, but lower-gluten flour is best for pasta. Last night I used some Marino Organic Wheat Flour Tipo “00” flour, which is pretty amazing and too expensive. But for “everyday” fresh pasta, if there is such a thing, you can use any pastry or cake flour. You can always mix in a bit of other flour (semolina, whole wheat).


2. Not too wet, not too dry Start with 10oz flour and 3 eggs. Whisk the eggs and mix them into the flour. Once formed into a ball, keep adding flour a bit at a time until the ball isn’t sticky anymore. Then knead it for a minute or two, wrap in plastic, and let it rest in the fridge for at least 30 minutes.


3. Get to “5” or “6” without tears Using a hunk of 1/6 of the dough ball at a time, keeping the rest of the dough wrapped while you work, feed the dough through the #1 setting on the machine. The sheet should be totally smooth when it comes through the machine. If there are ruts or tears in the dough, it needs more flour on the surface. Add a little, fold the piece in half, and run it through the machine again. When it comes out nice and smooth, move up to #2, and so on, until you reach 5 or 6. #5 will give you linguini thickness. #6 is more delicate, and I would use it to make ravioli or very delicate pasta.


4. Cook it properly. Fresh pasta cooks fast, but don’t take it out too early. It starts out firm and chewy, and when it’s done it becomes light and silky. It will never be “al dente”, as far as I can tell. It usually takes 3-4 minutes for linguini at the “5” thickness setting, but you really have to keep tasting it. Some fresh pastas will cook in as little as 1 minute.


5. Salt the water, not the dough (this one from Daisy) “salt tenses up the dough and makes it stronger, definitely not what you want when getting to those thin settings.” I dump a bunch of salt in my pasta water, at least a couple tablespoons for 6 quarts of water, to cook 1 pound of pasta.


6. Keep the sauce light A heavy bolognese is uncalled for. How about just pasta with butter, pepper, and really good quality parmesean? When you make that and it tastes delicious, you know you’ve made fresh pasta properly.

We made some “overnight waffles” for breakfast yesterday.

a bubbly batter after 8 hours

They were creamy and delicious, topped only with maple syrup. I kind of cobbled a recipe together from a few sources. The batter is yeasted and rises slowly the night before, so the flavors get to develop nicely. And there’s no baking soda. These waffles are no more work than usual; you just have to mix the batter before you go to bed! Kind of like making a very slow-cooking dinner in the morning.

Mix:

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 Tbsp sugar
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp instant yeast

Add:

• 2 cups whole milk
• 6 Tbsp butter, melted and cooled
• 1/2 tsp vanilla

Leave overnight, and just before ironing add 2 beaten eggs. Buttermilk might be a great substitute for whole milk. Or you might get away with using a tablespoon of buttermilk powder with the dry ingredients. Maybe next time.

In celebration of the beginning of winter, we made a sweet Clafoutis with cranberries and walnuts:

This is so easy and tastes amazing. It’s like a soufflé, but it doesn’t taste eggy. It is just delicious. It is from Suzanne Goin’s book Sunday Suppers at Lucques.

• 1 cup whole milk
• 2 Tbsp unsalted butter, plus some for the pan
• 3 extra large eggs
• 1/2 cup sugar, plus some for the pan
• 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/2 tsp kosher salt
• 3/4 cups walnuts, toasted and chopped
• 1/2 cup dried cranberries

Heat the milk and butter in the microwave until warm, not hot, and the butter has melted. Whisk eggs, sugar, flour, and salt in a bowl. Whisk in the milk and butter mixture until incorporated. Rest batter for one hour.

Preheat oven to 375°F. Butter bottom and sides of a 10” cast iron skillet, then sprinkle with sugar and shake to coat sides, discarding any extra.

Pour the rested batter into the skillet. Add chopped nuts and cranberries on top—most will float near the surface. Bake 45 minutes until it looks like the above photograph.

Top with hand-whipped cream.

We made some sugar cookies last night. It is very easy and a lot of fun.

Here’s the basic dough, adapted from HTCE:

• 3 cups (14 oz) AP flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 cup (2 sticks) salted butter, softened slightly in microwave
• 1 cup sugar (white & brown in any combination)
• 1 egg, lightly beaten
• 1 tsp vanilla

1. Find some nice cookie cutters.
2. Mix flour, baking powder, and any dry add-ins in one bowl
3. Cream butter and sugar in standing mixer on low speed until fully incorporated. Add egg, then add dry ingredients slowly, adding a little milk if the mixture gets too dry.
4. Add vanilla and incorporate.
5. Refrigerate a couple hours, to harden the dough.
6. Remove 20 minutes before rolling out. Preheat to 400°F. Roll out to 1/8 inch between two sheets of floured parchment paper. Then cut your shapes! You can also roll the dough into a log and slice it into rounds.
7. Bake 7-10 minutes on parchment papered cookie sheets, then cookies to a cooling rack for a few minutes.

Of course, we couldn’t settle with just the basic recipe. We also made a chocolate-orange variant and a ginger variant.

Chocolate-Orange cookies: Add 1 TBsp orange zest and a tablespoon of cocoa powder to the dry ingredients, omit the vanilla, and add 3 oz melted baking chocolate with the egg (you can melt the chocolate in the microwave on high—stirring every 15 seconds or so).

Ginger cookies: Add 1 TBsp, or more, of ginger powder to the dry ingredients, along with some cinnamon and nutmeg (just a pinch) as desired. Cardamom would be great, too, if you want to go Middle Eastern with it.

Here are a few pasta dough recipes from around the house…

A New Way to Cook
To make 12 ounces, to serve 4:

• 2 large eggs
• a little more than 1 cup AP flour
• 1/2 tsp olive oil
• 1/8 tsp kosher salt

Jamie Oliver — to serve 4:

• 1 2/3 cups bread flour
• 1 2/3 cups semolina flour
• 3 large eggs
• 8 egg yolks

The New Basics—makes 1 pound, to serve 4-6

• 2 cups AP flour
• 3 eggs

Mark Bittman — for 1 lb:

• 2 cups (10oz) AP flour
• 1 tsp salt
• 3 eggs
• a few drops of water

Cook’s Illustrated

• 2 cups AP flour (10oz)
• 3 eggs

Questions:

• Does one salt the dough or salt the cooking water?
• Jamie’s version seems heavy on the eggs; is it too wet, or does semolina absorb more?
• Cook’s tried bread, cake, and AP flour, and determined that AP made the “best” pasta. But they didn’t try semolina, as in Jamie’s version. Isn’t most dry pasta made with semolina? Maybe bread flour works well with it?
• What is the thinnest setting on the pasta machine used for? How can you make dough that won’t fall apart at that setting?
• Could pasta dough possibly benefit from some kind of fermentation? I mean, what doesn’t benefit from fermentation?

A few weeks ago I saw a Mark Bittman article about a loaf of bread that requires no kneading, is baked in a pot instead of a stone, and has a superior “rustic” crust.

Low humidity has always plagued home “hearth” baking on a bread stone. Commercial ovens have a steam-injection mechanism that keeps the conditions right for a nice, thick crust and a lot of “oven spring”—the extra rise that happens at the beginning of baking. I struggled with humidity in my oven before, and I thought I’d hit the peak of what was possible in a home oven. But I’d never really loved the crust of my breads.

Obviously, I was not thinking beyond the baking stone. Baking in a covered pot is a clever home technique when coupled with a very high-moisture dough, as it helps establish a humid environment for the critical first few minutes of baking (the cover is removed at the end, for browning).

Until today, when I finally got a chance to make the Bittman bread. Here’s the loaf that just came out of our oven:

This loaf is amazing. The crust is serious, like an Italian loaf from High Rise, and the crumb is perfectly creamy:

But the simplicity of this recipe is what makes it a gem. I have made a lot of bread over the past couple years, and today I felt like I was cheating, because this loaf took less than 10 minutes of work, spread out across 24 hours. Not only is kneading eliminated, but so is the separate pre-ferment (this bread is 100% poolish—fine with me!), the scoring, and the precarious transfer of loaf to stone. This is truly one of the quickest recipes I can think of.

Anyway, here is the Times recipe for this bread, and here is my slightly rephrased version of it, for when the Times recipe is no longer freely available:

Mix

• 3 cups (430 grams) high-quality bread flour
• 1/4 tsp instant yeast
• 1 1/2 tsp salt (more would be OK too)

in a large bowl. Add

• 1 5/8 cups water (345 grams)

and stir until hydrated.

Cover and wait 12-18 hours, the longer the better, until you see little bubbles along the top of the mixture.

Turn it out onto a floured counter. Sprinkle flour on top, enough to pull the dough out and fold it over itself, envelope-style. Cover and rest it for 15 minutes.

Coat a cloth towel with flour. Shape the dough into a ball with a seam, and place it seam side down on the towel. Sprinkle flour and/or oats on top. Cover with another towel and let it rise for 2-3 hours, until more than doubled in volume. Half an hour before the rise is finished, preheat oven to 450°F, with only the bottom rack in place, and put a medium to large covered pot inside as the oven heats up.

When the dough is ready, dump it into the hot pot, seam side up, cover, shake to evenly distribute the dough if needed, and bake 30 minutes. The seam acts as a score, so it eliminates the step where you might score the dough before baking it.

Take the lid off, bake another 15-30 minutes until golden brown. Cool on a rack for an hour or so at least (it’s still cooking…).

I think there’s a lot of potential variations. I’m really curious to see what my mom does with it; she has perfected whole-wheat bread and could probably make an excellent whole-wheat version of this.

• This month’s Sierra Club Magazine is all about food.. here’s a piece by Eric Schlosser, ‘Cheap Food Nation’, about the high cost of cheap food. Also a [via Lloyd]
• Speaking of which, the Fast Food Nation film is now playing here in Cambridge, and a new Nikolaus Geyrhalter film about European agribusiness called Our Daily Bread is opening this weekend. Our Daily Bread has no dialog. Shades of Koyaanisqatsi. More at NY Times.
• And… Ever wonder why you can never find American prosciutto? [via Winnie]
• Finally, find local food around you at the Eat Well Guide.

Now that it’s getting cold outside, it’s time to start making hot chocolate again. Not that you really need a recipe for this—almost anything you can make with chocolate will taste good.

Anyway, this makes a small but potent cup of hot chooclate—double or quadruple it as needed.

• 1/2 cup milk, whole if possible—plus a splash of water
• 1 ounce 70-75% dark chocolate
• 1/2 tsp high quality (eg. Valrhona) cocoa powder
• pinch of salt
• touch of vanilla extract, if desired

1. Bring the milk/water mixture to a boil over medium heat in a small pot.
2. Whisk in the chocolate and cocoa powder, lowering the heat.
3. Turn the heat all the way down and keep whisking for a few minutes if you want more froth—note that 2% milk won’t give you as much froth.

I don’t add sugar, but if you like your hot chocolate sweeter, well, you know what to do.

Here’s a recreation of something Karl and I ate at Montreal’s Jean-Talon farmer’s market. It is so simple, takes less than 10 minutes and is v. tasty.

olive oil
touch of anchovy paste
pinch of dried red chili pepper
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 Tbsp or more mustard seeds
1 small onion, diced
1 can chickpeas, drained and rinsed
big squeeze of lemon juice
liberal salt & pepper

Fry the garlic, anchovy paste, mustard seeds, and red pepper in some oil in a small pan over medium low heat, just for a minute. Add the onion and cook until translucent, a couple more minutes. Add the chickpeas and salt and pepper, and fry for another 5 minutes or so, until everything is nice and hot and the flavors have blended a bit. Off heat, add the lemon juice.

Enjoy.

Some days I wake up and the virtual world looks flat and spiritless, and I get the urge to do something that breaks into the physical space. In other words, I get the urge to do something real. Something that involves manual labor. And I have to say, cooking often satisfies.

The tomatoes are at their peak in New England, so now is the time to can for the winter. Yesterday Alex and I canned 1,000 fresh tomatoes—about 160 pounds. I’m still not ready to commit to the 100 Mile Diet, but this is a step in the right direction.

“You’ve got way too much time on your hands,” said my landlord as I was cleaning up the kitchen afterwards. And he’s right. But what I also have is a thousand canned local tomatoes, and that’s pretty sweet.

To pull this off, you will need:

• 1,000 ripe tomatoes
• 2 very large stock pots (20 and 35 quarts)
• a small pan for heating jar lids
• steamer baskets, jar lid rings, or another mechanism for raising the jars 1/2” from the bottom of the pot
• 6 12-packs of widemouth quart jars (average 3 lbs tomatoes per quart jar)
• a jar lifter
• a large hand-held sieve or strainer
• 2 Tbp bottled lemon juice per quart, for acidification
• some kind of plunging device for packing the tomatoes down
• cooling racks for hot jars
• paring knives
• two people
• one very long day

Here’s 1,000 raw tomatoes, which we bought from Red Fire Farm:

Hmm, make that 999.

So, to make canned whole tomatoes in their juice, first you have to skin the tomatoes. Start by scoring a small X in the bottom of every tomato and removing any bad bruises or moldy bits. We decided not to core the tomatoes, but you can if it pleases you. While you’re scoring, bring a few gallons of water to boil in both stock pots—one for skinning, and one for sanitizing jars. For the lids, heat but do not boil water in the small pan.

Dump the tomatoes into the skinning pot in batches for a couple minutes, until the skins split. Usually this takes only 30-60 seconds, but with such a large quantity of tomatoes, it takes 3-4 minutes because the water cools down so much. Pull them out with the strainer, dump them into the sink, spraying cold water on them as you go. Bring the water back to a full boil before you skin the next batch.

When the sink is full, start pulling the skins off. It should be easy, with your fingers. Remove any stems and put them into another pot or bowl or whatever you can find. A spotless bathtub might be prudent at this point. Meanwhile, sanitize your jars and lid rings in the other stock pot, boiling them for 5 minutes, and sanitize the lids in the small pan, in the not-quite-boiling water. Don’t boil the lids, as it might weaken the seal.

As the sanitized jars come out of the water, add 2 Tbsp lemon juice and your skinned tomatoes to fill. Push the contents down and keep adding more tomatoes until the liquid from the tomatoes rises to 1/2 inch from the top.

Clean the jar rims with a damp towel, place the lids on squarely, and tighten down the lid rings with your fingertips, until they are “fingertip tight.” We made the mistake of tightening a few too much, and they bulged because the air could not escape while cooking.

Once they’re sealed, stash all the jars for the moment. Finish skinning and canning all the tomatoes. You will be impressed by the number of jars. Dump out your tomato skinning water, or use it to make a tomato bisque.

The final step is to boil all the filled jars in batches for 50 minutes each. The USDA says the water must be at a full rolling boil for the entire 50 minutes, so give yourself an hour and a half for each batch to account for the cooling of the water when you add the jars.

After 50 minutes of boiling, remove the jars to cooling racks. They may hiss slightly as they come out of the water. That’s OK. Let them stand 12-24 hours until they’re room temperature. Then remove the lid rings, test the seal by pressing the top (it should not give), picking the jar up by its lid (it should not open), and turning the jar upside down (it should not leak). Clean the jars and store them without their lid rings.

Here they are, all canned up. We had another 5 that didn’t seal properly.

Resources:

• Home Canning Tomatoes for the fail-safe USDA method.
• Or the slightly shadier Minnesota Methods that we used.
• The Canning Pantry — online store for lid lifters, canning funnels, and other supplies

Some of these are from Mark Bittman. Karl and I have been loving How To Cook Everything—it has quickly become our most-reached-for cookbook (thanks Winnie!).

• You barely need to “cook” corn, you just need to heat it up. You certainly don’t need to boil it. Fill a pot of water to an inch, add salt, put the corn in, cover, turn it on, and set the timer for 10 minutes. If the water’s already boiling, make that 3 minutes. Doesn’t matter if the corn is half-submerged. Just keep the lid closed.
• Speaking of corn, do not put Tabasco on corn; it tastes awful.
• Speaking of Tabasco, do put Tabasco on most other things, in leiu of salt.
• Pesto freezes very well in an ice cube tray. Cover it with a thin layer of olive oil, to keep the nice green color.
• You can make unripe fruit riper by macerating it. Toss the sliced fruit with sugar and let it sit for a few minutes. This concentrates the sugars in the fruit, and you’ll get some nice fruit juice at the bottom of the bowl.
• Hot chocolate will froth up better when you make it with whole milk.
• Speaking of froth, Alex is right — Diesel Café makes the best latte in town.
• Speaking of cafés, French in Action is a great way to learn French. And if you know French, your food will taste better.
• I don’t know French.

But I do know an amazing amazing pizza dough formula from Cook’s Illustrated. I say formula because it is a dough, and doughs are very formulaic. Hopefully my saying “formula” instead of “recipe” will give you pause before you fuck with it. This cooks in a home oven at 500°F with a pizza stone, preheated for an hour while the dough rises. It comes out with a beautiful thin crust that is crispier than I’d ever thought possible at home.

Crusty 500 Degree Pizza Dough Formula

1 1/4 tsp instant yeast (this is not active dry yeast)
1 cup water at room temp
1 3/4 cups (8 3/4 oz) unbleached all-purpose flour, plus more for work surface
1 cup (4 oz) cake flour! This is where the magic happens.
1 1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp sugar

You might also try this on the grill (I haven’t yet). Just add a 2 tablespoons of olive oil to the dough to help prevent sticking to the grate.

My grandfather made this salad, which the camera’s white balance made look like a cookbook photo from the 70s. All the better.

Karl and I enjoying the first spring meal on the porch: Couscous salad with grilled veggies.

And, for memorial day weekend, some real meat. Bacon-wrapped pork loin with a black olive chutney, balsamic-glased grilled pears, and some broccoli rabe that we threw in under the coals. This was all from Let The Flames Begin, which so far has taught me a lot about grilling.

Kombucha Update! The kombucha turned out well and I have gone on to make two more batches. It gets a little vinegary if you let it brew for too long, but when you drink it at the right time, it is delicious. It tastes like the juice of a yet undiscovered tropical fruit.

I love fermentation. It is at the soul of the best foods in the world. Chocolate, bread, and wine. Kim chi, pickles, yogurt, buttermilk, and cheese. And lots of other stuff. I’ve made some of these things, and I’ve always enjoyed waiting with anticipation while the flavors build over hours or days.

But chocolate, bread, and wine do not look like this when the fermentation process is going well:

This is my Kombucha tea, and I’m scared of it. In a couple days, I’m supposed to drink it.

It’s called Kombucha tea, but it’s not really tea. It started as tea 4 days ago. Then I added a bunch of sugar, cooled it to room temperature, put it in a sanitized container, and added that round thing that you can see in the liquid. That’s the Kombucha mother mushroom. Well, it’s not really a mushroom. It’s a symbiotic blob of yeast and bacteria that eats the sugar, turning the tea into Kombucha which, when made properly, is “a bubbly apple cider-like drink.” Apparently non-alcoholic.

I bought the mushroom online. They told me it’s totally safe.

See those nasty looking blobs coming up to the surface for air? Those are the beginnings of the baby mushroom. A new baby forms at the surface every time you brew Kombucha. You can give the babies to your friends and they can brew their own Kombucha. Built-in viral marketing!

Anyway, this is the weirdest thing I’ve ever cooked. Well, it’s not really cooking.

Lots of bad news about Teflon lately. By 2015, DuPont and a handful of other companies will eliminate a harmful chemical in Teflon called PFOA (perfluorooctanoic acid), which has recently been classified as a likely carcinogen by the EPA. No one will straight up admit Teflon is the next asbestos. But does it really matter? Hot pans kill birds.

Why restaurants never used Teflon anyway

• Restaurants cook on high. To a restaurant cook, stoves have only two settings: off and high. And Teflon burns too easily on high.
• It’s easy to scratch, so forget about using metal tongs, spatulas, whisks, or spoons with your pan anymore. What a great way to get people buying more cheap plastic tongs, spatulas, whisks, and spoons, right?
• Teflon doesn’t sear food well. A restaurant kitchen must deliver beautiful food, of course, and a boiled-loking bit of chicken leg, cooked in a Teflon pan, just doesn’t look very exciting.
• It isn’t even non-stick! Teflon is forgiving, but you can still dork up an omelet six ways from Sunday in a Teflon pan. So what is the point?

Certainly there are restaurants that use Teflon pans, but they typically use it for a handful of specific purposes like crepes.

Your options now

• Old school cast iron pans are fantastic and cheap: $15-25 for a nice heavy skillet that fries food beautifully. But cast iron takes some care and takes an ice age to warm up. You have to season them if you don’t want you food to stick. More on this later.
• There’s also enameled cast iron. This is more expensive than cast iron, but it doesn’t need any seasoning. I consider it somewhere in between cast iron and stainless steel: it warms up slow and holds heat forever, just as well as a heavy cast iron pan, but its surface is smooth like stainless steel. You don’t have to buy an expensive Le Creuset or Staub pot; there is a German brand whose name escapes me, and they sell the same thing without the 66% marketing surcharge (but that’s why the brand name escapes me…).
• But how about stainless steel? Stainless steel is a great cooking surface but a bad heat conductor, so any stainless steel pan worth its salt will have an aluminum or copper core to help distribute heat nicely. These pans are much more expensive than cast iron, but they require zero maintenance and, when used properly, they’re effectively non-stick.
• Lets not forget the carbon-steel wok. Great for a stir-fry. And they are cheap: about $20. You have to season them, but it’s easier than seasoning cast iron: just heat some canola oil on high and coat the inside of the pan with it for a couple minutes, until it starts to smoke. Turn if off. Clean your wok as you would a cast iron skillet (see below).

Tips for non-stickiness

OK, so you have your stainless steel or cast iron pan. The goal now is to prevent things from sticking in the first place. Here’s what you need to know:

• Temperature is key. Most people do not heat their pans enough before they start to cook. When you add food to a hot pan, it will sear and release some water. That water vapor is the non-stick magic, as it will keep the food floating atop the oil. But if your pan is too cold, searing won’t happen, water won’t be relased, and the food will fuse to the pan. Oops. As a general rule, you need to preheat your pan in proportion to the amount that your food will cool it. If you’re going to fry up four pork chops that you just took out of the fridge, your oil should almost be smoking. But if you’re just frying a bit of garlic, you’re better off at a lower temp—garlic bits will burn easily.
• Do not crowd the pan. Your goal is to sear. If you put 10 chicken legs into a 12 inch skillet—no matter how much you’ve preheated it—they will not sear. When in doubt, sear in batches.
• Take the chill off of your ingredients before cooking. Food cools the pan dramatically when you add it. You’ll want to minimize the temperature differential. So get your eggs out of the fridge 10 minutes before you heat the pan, and just let them hang out on the counter. This may sound silly but I promise it makes a difference.
• Use oil. You need some, but you really don’t need much. The more oil you add, though, the hotter and faster you can cook things without sticking.

Eggs fried fast and hot: Heat 2 tablespoons olive oil over medium-high until tiny wisps of smoke start to rise from the pan, which happens about 30 seconds after the oil starts to shimmer. Add your eggs and spoon the oil over the top of them as they cook. They’ll be ready in no time. And they’ll be beautifully crispy around the edge and slightly brown on the bottom. Remove with a slotted spatula. No sticky!

• Patience. When searing meat or fish over high heat, you might notice that it sticks to the pan right away. Leave it alone, and do not be afraid. It will unstick! It just has to brown first. A hunk of salmon will come unstuck after about 2 minutes of searing over high heat, and it will be perfectly brown. Take the leap of faith and discover that this really works, or you’ll lose the crispy goodness and have a tough cleaning job ahead of you.

At this moment you might be thinking, “This is really annoying. Too many rules.” But if you lose the Teflon, you’ll see that these techniques really become second nature.

Oops, my food stuck. Now what?

You don’t have to soak the pan forever in the sink. Just put a little water in it and heat it to a simmer on the stove. Whatever was stuck to the pan will come away in short order. For anything that isn’t seasoned, you can use a cleaner like Bon Ami to quickly remove a really tough fond.

Cast iron pan care

Stainless steel pans are so easy to take care of, but cast iron requires a bit more work.

• Keep it seasoned. A seasoned cast iron pan has a tiny bit of oil fused to the pan, which makes for an exceptially good non-stick surface and prevents rust. Most cast iron pans are already seasoned when you purchase them. But if you start to see rust forming, you need to reseason your pan. Seasoning a pan is easy, and it’s been covered many times elsewhere.
• Barely wash it. Pour some salt in the pan and rub it around with a paper towel. Rinse. Done. It’s ok if a bit of your oil from cooking remains in the pan for the next use.
• But if you have to wash it… Don’t use a lot of soap, and don’t let it soak. Use a tough sponge to remove the stuck bits. Dry it thoroughly, because if it gets rusty you will have to reseason it.

Resources:

• The irreplaceable cast-iron skillet is a great resource from a major cast-iron enthusiast.
• Tell Wal-Mart: no nonstick chemicals in food packaging
• DuPont covered up decades of internal PFOA studies

On a hot grill, blacken two or three eggplants on all sides. They’ll come out like this:

When cool, slice them in half and scoop out the pulp. Strain it to get rid of the bitter juices, then put it in a bowl. Add a few dollops of dairy: yogurt, sour cream, and/or pickled lebna. Add lemon juice, a dash of paprika, salt, pepper, and a big spoonful of tahini. Keep tasting. Top with pomegranate seeds and olive oil:

Adapted from “A Mediterranean Feast” by Clifford A. Wright.

Jon was over the other night and we made pizza with artichoke hearts, asparagus, and this spicy red pepper sauce I got from a Turkish shop.

The dough is as follows, from “The Bread Baker’s Apprentice”:

You need to start around noon. Not because there’s 6 hours of work to do, but because you’ll need to give the dough 3-4 hours to relax in the fridge, at minimum.

For six 6-oz crusts, you’ll need a standing mixer, a scale to weigh everything (“real bakers don’t use measuring cups”— a scale is more accurate), and preferably a pizza stone:

20.25 oz flour (bread flour, preferably cold)
0.5 oz salt
1 teaspoon instant yeast
1/4 cup olive oil (optional)
14 oz ice cold water (40° F)

Mix everything together in the mixer bowl. Mix on medium for 5-7 mins with the dough hook. The dough should stick to the bottom of the mixer bowl, but not the sides. If it’s too sticky, add flour; if it’s too dry and doesn’t stick to anything, add water. Easy does it.

Don’t go way over 7 minutes, because you don’t want to raise the temp too much.

Scrape the dough out of the mixer bowl and onto a floured counter. Flour the top of the dough and your hands, and divide the dough into 6 pieces of equal size. Now you can freeze them by putting them into airtight bags (make sure they’re coated in olive oil so they come out easily), or put them in the fridge on a sheet pan (cover the pan with plastic wrap, or put it in a bag, so the dough doesn’t form a skin).

2 hours before they go in the oven, what as many as you need out of the fridge (the rest will keep up to 3 days). Put them onto a floured counter. Press them out into disks of 5 inches in diameter, cover them with plastic wrap (oh, and oil to keep it from sticking), and just let them sit. You will shape the pizza at the very end, right before it goes into the oven.

45 minutes ahead, crank your oven to the highest temperature possible. Put the rack on the lowest position, with pizza stone on top if you have one.

When you’re ready to bake, shape the dough on a peel or on the back of a sheet pan, covered with a little cornmeal to keep things moving smoothly. The shaping is something I still haven’t fully worked out, but you just have to do it anyway. You can push it out, or try picking it up and flinging it around like Mario. Have fun, but watch out because it will tear pretty easily; don’t make your pizza super thin. Leave a bit of thickness around the edges if you want a nice crust.

Now slide the pizza into the oven. This is the tricky part. Hopefully your cornmeal will make it easy to slide the pizza around, so you can just slip it in. The pizza is done when the cheese is melted and the crust is golden—about 5-8 minutes (but check it sooner!).

On top, add whatever you want. You can get pizza sauce in a can, and then just add all kinds of cheese and good stuff. I know you’ll use your imagination. One of my favorite pizzas at Emma’s has roasted potatoes, cranberries, cilantro, and smoked bacon. I’ve noticed that toppings are almost always better if you cook them in advance: slowly sautee or roast them, then add them to your pizza dough. Emma’s seems to use roasted tomatoes generously.

Baking the final pizza is mostly about cooking the crust and heating up the ingredients so the cheese melts.

This week I wanted to bake custards for some reason. I thought the process would be mystifying, tricky and somewhat painful. Turns out a custard takes almost no time to make and it’s pretty simple. After some scrounging around online and in books, I made up a standard recipe for baked custard:

Preheat the oven to 325. To fill six small ramekins, heat 3 cups of milk/cream in any combination until almost boiling. Add a little bit of vanilla extract (or half a bean, with the seeds scraped into the milk) and optional flavorings. Turn off the heat and let it sit for a few minutes. While the flavorings are steeping in the milk, beat 2 eggs and 3 yolks together with 1/3 cup sugar. Now add a little of the hot milk—just a little, straining out your Whisk it into the eggs to temper them. You want to slowly raise the temperature of the eggs, mixing all the while, so keep adding milk little by little. Be gentle and you can’t screw it up.

Place the ramekins into a roasting pan and add enough hot (not boiling) water to go halfway up the sides of the ramekins. Pour the egg/milk mixture into the ramekins. You can just short of the top. Cover with foil and bake for 30-40 mins. Check after 30. A finished custard will may jiggle around a little and look like it’s not done, but when you touch the top, you’ll see that it is solid in the center. Also, it will cook a little more after you take it out of the oven.

On the left—syneresis! This custard curdled because I overcooked it. The cooked-egg protein bonds that thicken the custard got a little too tight and pushed out all the water.

On the right—a reasonably well cooked custard. Yum.

Flavorings:

This form can be taken to a lot of different places. Sugar and vanilla are not the only way.

I made chai custard this week, so I used Rooibos Chai as the flavoring— which I think is made from the same plant as Red Bush tea. Tasty. I brewed 4 teaspoons of it in the hot milk for about 5 minutes before combining with the eggs. Instead of sugar, I stirred honey and a little maple syrup into the milk.

You can really go anywhere with flavorings though. Spices, fruit rinds, pumpkin purée, peanut butter, chocolate, etc, etc. Fermented black bean custard, anyone? You can also make a syrup of any kind and pour a little into the bottom of each ramekin before baking. A caramel custard is made with a simple syrup, but anything that can be reduced to coat the back of a spoon will do.

I wasn’t joking about the fermented black beans. I’m going to make some crazy savory custard at the next full moon.

Something else:

If you are dying for custard and you want it fast, you can make a stirred custard on the stovetop. Forget the ramekins and hot water bath. Once you’ve mixed the milk into the eggs, transfer it all back to the pan and heat over medium for 2-3 minutes, whisking the whole time, until the custard thickens up nicely.

PS. baking911.com has an excellent custard site that is impossible to read but gives the back story on many more custard varieties and methods.

We threw a summer banquet last night! We had about 20 people. It was a whole lot of fun to put together. (view the menu, or the slideshow)

Here’s how it all went down…

Picking up food at Haymarket…

Pot o’ oil for pasteis de bacalhau.

Appetizers on the plate.

the appetizers…

the roast, and potatoes fried in duck fat

grilled mussels

lots of dirty things

Lessons learned:

• You always need a lot less of everything when you’ve got many courses.
• Especially cheese.
• Always use dripless candles. Never use drippy candles that aren’t white.
• A three or four hour meal is great. But at around six hours, people want to take a nap. And maybe it’s the sugar in the coffee, or the prospect of going home to bed, but somehow by hour seven everyone tends to wake back up again.

Stephen and I replaced almost everything, from headset to crankset. In fact, the only thing I’m keeping is the frame and the rear hub (it’s almost 60 years old — will it hold up? cross your fingers…). The front and rear wheels are ready, but I still need to get rim tape, tubes, tyres, break cables, and some other minor stuff.

This makes a ton.. like 8-10 servings. I have never made this before so I looked around for recipes and just sort of made something up. I had heard from a friend that you simply put everything in a pot with coconut milk and boil it until it’s done, but I thought I could cook things more evenly (and get some nice browning) by doing the whole thing in a wok. I think this is a decent first attempt.

2-3 Tbsp peanut oil
1 eggplant, 1/2” dice
1 red & 1 green pepper, sliced thin
1/4 lb green beans, ends lopped off
1 medium onion, roughly chopped

2 cloves garlic, minced
1/2” ginger, minced

6 kaffir lime leaves
2 Tbsp green curry paste
2 Tbsp fish sauce

2 14oz cans coconut milk
1 cup chicken stock
2 boneless chicken breasts, 1/2” cubes

Thai basil (if you can find it) or just basil, to top.

Heat the oil in a wok over medium-high and stir fry all the veggies. When they are almost done, clear a space at the bottom of the wok and add the garlic, ginger, lime leaves, curry paste, and fish sauce with a little extra oil. Press the mixture into the wok with a spatula and let it fry for a few seconds before mixing it in with the veggies.

Meanwhile, boil the coconut milk and stock, and add the chicken bits. Cook a few minutes until just about done. Add this to the wok and bring the whole thing to a nice simmer.. let it simmer a bit to blend all the flavors.

Serve with the basil and steamed rice. Yum.

Notes to self for attempt two:
- figure out stir fry time differential for the different veggies, so that I know when to add at which stages (this is really just a practice thing, I think).
- how long does chicken really take to boil/fry?
- make this a one-dish meal: do the whole thing in the wok.
- It seems too liquidy, too thin. Use only 1 can coconut milk, and possibly reduce it with the stock for a while before adding the chicken?
- use a little less curry paste and perhaps one or two more lime leaves or some extra lime juice.
- add bamboo shoots?
- How can I blend the flavors better (we’ll see tomorrow whether time in the fridge does the trick)

I love stuffed naan. Any kind of stuffed naan will do: potato, nuts & raisins, onions, paneer cheese, olive, mushroom, whatever. My favorite is the peshwari naan they serve over at Namaskar in Davis. But until I get a 900 degree clay oven, I probably won’t be baking it. So the other day I was happy to find out that Pillsbury actually makes frozen paneer-stuffed naan. And what’s more, the Indian food store down the block sells it!

Pros:
cooks up nicely from frozen in 5 minutes
it’s actually crispy and tastes good, nice and spicy.
I got to see the Dough Boy cozy up to a plate of naan on the package. You can sort of tell by the look in his eye that naan is his true love, that the cookies are really too sweet for his taste and he’s tired of flavorless crescent rolls.

Cons:
still not as good as Namaskar naan, though I wasn’t expecting it to be.
I don’t think they make a frozen peshwari naan. Aside from my paneer naan, I think there was one with carmelized onions or something. But I’m sure someone out there sells frozen peshwari naan, and I intend to find it…

A restaurant in the West Village called ‘ino (recommended by Winnie) taught K and I the rules for a panini sandwich:

• start with rustic Italian bread
• slice it very thin (1/4”)
• cook all the veggies in advance: roast your tomatoes and asparagus, sauté your sweet onion, etc.
• use pesto, but not lettuce or mayo
• find a way to involve a meat ending in ‘ata or ‘utto
• a cheese or two ending with ‘ano or ‘ella is always good.
• limit your ‘ini to 3-4 ingredients.
• don’t overstuff. roasting everything will concentrate the flavor, so keep the ‘ini thin and crispy.
• dust off and bring out the George Forman grill, because this is the only time it’ll be helpful. Or just fry your ‘ini in butter on the stove, on both sides until its toasty. Start saving up for one of these. Mmm…
• invite your friends over whose names end in ‘ini, open a bottle of red wine, serve and enjoy.

If you want something akin to bacon fat, with that kind of richness of flavor but without all the fat and dead pigs, try this

1 cup EVOO in a small jar
fill the jar with dried porcini mushroom pieces—as many as can be submerged (maybe about 2oz?)

let it sit a month or two on the shelf. I put it in soups, on pasta, etc. It’s lighter than bacon fat, obviously, but it’s very hearty.

mushrooms will never fail to surprise me.

Here’s a great NY times article about France’s feast of the Epiphany,
during which everyone gorges on galettes—round pastries with almond
paste and trinkets inside.

Whoever finds the trinket in the galette (the fève), is king/queen
for the day. People have written books about fèves past and
present. One guy has a collection of 60,000. Each year there’s a
fève guidebook.

La France est la bombe.

my latest stir-fry attempt is quite good. Stir frying hasn’t failed me yet. If you don’t have a wok, I highly recommend getting one and get into the habit of using it. The stainless steel ones are $15. You just start with sesame oil and fast fry everything on very high heat— it’s so quick. Right now I’m really into making stir fry-turned-fried rice. I’m going to eat it with rice anyway, so why not always add the rice right to the wok and get it nicely coated at the end of the cooking time?

today’s was, in the order added to the wok:

2Tbsp sesame oil
1 onion/2 garlic/0.5” ginger/pinch of crushed red pepper
1/4c coarsely chopped walnuts
10oz sliced mushrooms
and 1c rice, cooked
with teriyaki sauce (like Veri Veri Teriyaki) and scallions added at the end.

I think it only cooked for 5 minutes, max: 2 mins for the onion, 2 more for the mushroom, everything else at the very end.

I don’t use that much oil, maybe a couple tablespoons?, so toward the middle-end of cooking, things tend to dry out a little. That’s when I throw in a spash of soy sauce and it all works out.

I’ve been eating out a lot lately, for one reason or another. Last Thursday I felt sick and worn out, there was no food in the house, and I didn’t want to cook. I craved one of the incredible bowls of Japanese udon noodle soup with tempura shrimp from the family-owned Ittyo, right down the block from my house, that costs $8 and cures all ailments. But I started to wander through the Porter Exchange mall/bazaar where Ittyo is located, and I found the Rustic Kitchen that opened a few months ago.

Rustic Kitchen is a chain originally owned by Todd English that he gave to one of his original partners to settle some lawsuit between them. I’d never been to a Todd English restaurant, but I had a gut feeling that this place, and any other restaurant currently or formerly associated with English, should be avoided. He has always seemed like the celebrity chef who cooks for Boston tourists and others who have primed themselves to believe they’re having a good dining experience. That’s why I think his restaurants are mostly confined to Quincy Market (the Boston tourist Mecca) alongside places like Legal Seafood that have a great reputation only among people who don’t live here. I should’ve listened to my gut, but Rustic Kitchen’s menu spoke louder with the lush adjectives of faux high end cuisine.

So I ordered, to go, a $19 seafood stew with saffron that sounded great. My rationale: I feel gross, I’ve had a long day, I need this more expensive soup, because somehow it will be better. Fifteen minutes, she said. Ittyo takes five, but okay, this is slow-cooked French food we’re talking about. They’re probably out back picking the herbs right now… in the parking lot.

But I wouldn’t know, as there’s no view into the kitchen at Rustic Kitchen. I did notice right away that the dining room was not exactly rustic. It felt more like someone’s idea of what rustic feels like. It’s rustic in the same way that The Cheesecake Factory is rustic. In other words, not at all. It is engineered rusticity: too clean, too perfect, too new, too well lit. No restaurant with a TV—especially a plasma TV—behind its bar should have the word “rustic” in its title.

Ittyo, on the other hand, is a rustic kitchen exemplified. Its kitchen takes up most of the stall that it’s located it, leaving enough room for maybe five tables. Peering over the counter into the kitchen, you might see big pots of broth on a huge gas stove, tempura frying, a little radio tuned to slightly off of an AM station, noodles flying all over the place, and a couple cooks who are totally absorbed in what they’re doing. While you wait, you can see, hear, and smell your dinner being prepared. There is no plasma TV, nor is there a bar for it to go behind, but it’s totally visceral. And totally rustic. Charmingly simple and unsophisticated.

Meanwhile, back at the “Rustic Kitchen”, I stared blankly at a muted ESPN News while waiting for my food. A full thirty minutes later, it finally came out. Five minutes after that I was home again, tearing open the package, only to be confronted by a pile of lukewarm, overcooked seafood in a puddle of broth. Ittyo’s soup comes in a huge bowl filled with a rich steamy broth and lots of goodies mixed in with the noodles, and I was expecting something similar here (sans udon). I knew a French “stew” implied a thicker broth and less of it, but this was ridiculous: there was maybe 1/4 cup of broth here. But even after accepting that I didn’t get what I’d imagined, this stew just wasn’t very good. The caper berries were way over-salted, the piece of bread on top was burned, and there was no detectible hint of saffron in anything. The seafood was just OK. Mostly cheap mussels. Two shrimp. A couple clams.

So next time you’re in the Porter Exchange mall, I urge you to visit the real rustic kitchen: Ittyo. In fact, it’s well worth the trip out to Porter Square next time you feel the cold-weather blues.

Yesterday was Karl’s birthday and somehow we ended up dining at four restaruants. I guess that’s what happens when you leave me to plan a birthday.

In the morning we took a trip out to Brookline to meet some friends at the Washington Square Tavern. It’s a smallish neighborhood place, home to the original chef from Matt Murphy’s Pub. A friend had a hunch that the Sunday brunch was delish, so we all met up at high noon, and the hunch was confirmed. The food was excellent. Their paninis were great: not greasy, lots of flavor, simple ingredients. The french fries were the best I can remember ever having in Boston. The eggs benedict was very tasty, perfectly cooked. At no point was there the hint of recycled Saturday night dinner that I’ve come to expect from brunches. And the price is right, with most items around $8-10. It’s a shame I didn’t go to the Tavern more often when I lived in Brookline.

Anyway, that tided us over until about 6pm, when we went to the El Salvidorian Tacos Lupita on Elm St in Somerville, about a block away from my house, for the best tacos I’ve had in New England: two corn tortillas, grilled chicken, loads of onions and cilantro, a big chunk of lime, and a bottle of Jarritos. Yes. $2.99, and way better than Anna’s Taqueria.

We followed it up with a cup of tea and a long chat at Café Algiers in Harvard Square. We’ll be going here more often, I think. It’s a quiet room with a nice window overlooking Brattle St. It has comfortably slow service that allows an entire conversation to take place over a cup of tea. There is no obtrusive music and, as far as I can tell from two or three visits, there’s no attempt to shuffle you along once you’re done. For Harvard Square, that alone is worth the price of $3.50 for tea.

At 9:30pm we had reservations at the tiny Craigie St. Bistrot. Some friends had worked there in the past, and I’d read this article about the Sunday night $35 prix fixe. There is no menu; you just know that there will be four courses. The restaurant is closed early in the week, so chef Tony Maws likes the clean out the fridge on Sunday nights. Even the wait staff doesn’t know what’s going to come out of the kitchen a couple minutes before it’s done. It sounded like an adventure and a lot of fun.

And it was! Since I don’t know my exotic ingredients that well, describing what we ate will be a bit like a game of Telephone, but I’ll give it a shot. The entreé was a plate full of excellent seafood: crabmeat, shrimp, mussels, sea urchin, and more all peeled and shelled, then perfectly cooked in an incredible creamy sauce with some toast points for dipping. I thought this was the best dish of the night—though I couldn’t be sure, as every table was getting something different.

The second course was a sole fillet rolled up and served on top of a pureé of cardoons and some (fava?) beans. It had a salad of some little green bits and fried potato shavings on top. Very tasty.

The main course was a foie de veau (veal liver, as they explained) served with wild mushrooms in a rich, dark sauce. Karl’s not into the taste of liver, and it’s not my favorite food either, but we forged ahead. Were I a big liver fan, I know I’d be loving this dish. The preparation seemed perfect, as it kind of melted in my mouth as great sushi does. And anyway, I can’t complain when I’m at the mercy of the chef who’s practically giving away a great, spontaneous prix fixe meal.

I got grits for dessert, and Karl got a chocolate tart with bourbon ice cream. Both were excellent. My grits had fruit compote on the top, a dusting of Demerara sugar, and some handmade vanilla wafers on the side.

The service and atmosphere were all great; just what I would expect from a place like this. Friendly and not the least bit snooty or intimidating. Attentive, but not obtrusive. I would highly recommend the Bistrot, and I may return soon if the occasion arises.

I just made a lunchtime risotto that took a turn for Spain.

1 cup Arborio rice
~4-5 cups chicken stock, at a slow simmer
1-2 cloves garlic and some choppen onion if you want
2 tbsp olive oil
1 pre-cooked chicken Andoullie sausage, sliced
1/2 cup chopped red pepper
1 tsp spicy paprika

Heat the oil in a heavy 3-4 qt pot for a minute or two on medium-low. Fry up the garlic and onion until just soft, then add the rice and cook it for 3 more minutes, stirring. Add a cup of hot broth, the paprika, and about 1 tsp salt and some ground pepper