Big Man with an Apron

Up in your grill...

2011-04-03T11:05:00.000-04:00

Howdy Strangers,

The big news in the big man family is that we are buying our very own first house in West Orange, NJ. This is, theoretically, good news for you as well since the house comes with a totally kick ass Weber grill, with which I can scorch meat with all summer!

I don't have much in the way of new recipes or photos, but sure to find some soon once I get this baby fired up. Any suggestions as to what I should make?

P.S. - I did make a shepard's pie and a meat pie that make you wish you were a shepard in the worst way. Check these out:

Accidental Genius (or Momofuko you)

2011-02-21T20:32:00.000-05:00

Last Christmas I got the Momofuku Cookbook from the Mrs. The book was beautiful and fascinating, but honestly I hadn't really had much time to make the food in it. Part of the problem, of course, is that I've been meaning to eat at one of the Momofukus for almost two years now, but haven't gotten around to it. Sometimes it's hard to be motivated to make something that you've never eaten before. For me at least.

Anyway, so this weekend, I found some time to try out David Chang's rice cake recipe, complete with something he refers to as Red Dragon sauce. The rice cakes were edible. It's basically rice shaped into a log and fried in a pan with oil. I also slow roasted a chicken and adapted his ramen recipe to suit my own ingredients.

Both courses were well and good, but the moment of genius occurred when I took the leftover chicken and slathered the sauce over it and give it a quick re-fry. Out of this momofukoing world!

Hard Day's Night

2010-11-28T20:03:00.000-05:00

Hi All,

It's been a while since you've heard from me. Months to be exact. I'm really sorry about that. I can't say that it won't happen again, but I can say that I've been thinking about Big Man all this time and trying to figure out how to write more with everything else that is happening.

When you last left your fearless hero, he was a new father and studying for the NJ and NY bar exams. Months later, I'm still a new father but am now working in a law firm at the schedule and pace of a young attorney. I passed both exams, and tomorrow will be sworn in as an attorney in NJ. I still have to send in a bunch of paperwork before being admitted to NY.

Work is interesting. I like my firm and I like the sophistication of most of my cases. But it really doesn't leave me much time to write or to even to cook. Mrs. Big Man has really stepped up her game in the last few months, cooking most of the dinners on the weeknights.

I did have a massive culinary victory on my birthday when I invited 15 people over and made Indian food for everybody. This was one of my goals, to get some proficiency in Indian food. I bought a cookbook on the subject, pretty thorough in my opinion. I'll put up some amazon link at some point in the future to point you to how to buy this book if you are interesting. Some percentage of the proceeds will go towards justifying the time that I spend thinking and writing about food.

Anyway, while I've been thinking about how to keep Big Man going while also keeping my day job, I think the answer is just to re-adjust some of my expectations about what this blog is. It began as an experiment, and I made no promises. But, naturally, pretty quickly in fact, I worked toward improving the look and quality of the content, substantively and presentationally. I created some recipes, and reprinted a few old favorites, with the hope that maybe at some point in the future, they would be the makings of a cookbook or magazine article.

The truth of the matter, however, is that I'm not Orangette. She blogs and writes cookbooks with her blog and gets magazine gigs and takes prettty pictures of her husband's pizza shop. I blog and practice law and raise my son and go fishing and look for a house to buy and spend time with my wonderful wife. I'm a renaissance man, which means that I'm limited in the time that I can spend on this. So, going forward, rather than publishing recipes, I will likely stick with pictures and shorter posts. Brevity if a virtue, they say. And to the extent that I am up to that task, I'm going to give it a try.

So, I hope this means I'll be writing more. Maybe not.

Enjoy the pictures! But if anyone is offended by a pig roast, you might not want to scroll all the way down.

Damn Good Fried Chicken for a Yankee (I cheated, I'm half-Texan).

Beautiful Tomaters

In Texas, Basil is free.

So we eat it with tomaters.

Summer Sweet Salad

I don't totally remember what this is, but it looks delicious.

What is a summer fair without a prize winning rooster?

Lobster Roll in Portland, ME.

I picked blueberries in Bar Harbor. There were more than I could fit in a paper bag.

It's a salmon, stupid.

We drank well in Maine.

Jersey Tomaters.

Best damn BBQ I've ever had. Even better with a hangover.

This is what I had for lunch.

Jersey does BBQ, too.

It gets hardcore at the Jersey Shore. Don't mess wit NJ.

6 Days

2010-07-21T18:37:00.000-04:00

In 6 days I will be taking the NY, then the NJ bar exams. Looking forward to cooking something soon. So far, it is just my brain that is fried.

Pizzaaaaa

2010-07-06T15:26:00.001-04:00

Don't mind me. I'm not really here. I'm actually studying for the bar, so I am DEFINITELY not blogging right now about food. I am way too busy to be doing anything remotely like that. Although, I do have a couple pictures of pizzas that I've been making. I've been working on really perfecting my pizza making. Right now, my pizzas are way better than your average pizza place pizza about 75-85% of the time. Although, occasionally I do have pizza disasters where you have to scrap the dough off the pan with a paint scraper.

I have no sage advice about how its done right now, except to say that, yeah, throwing the dough in the air is ACTUALLY necessary to making a good thin crust. You need the centrifugal force that is only available in a zero-gravity, spinning, floury, environment. O.K., enough talk. I have to go. I really do have to study for this thing. But here are some pictures in case you are wondering what I'm having for dinner tonight.

Also, my friends Burkett and Katherine had us over for dinner yesterday. Dinner was amazing, and I got this pretty picture of our first course. They were extraordinary with grilled lemon squeezed over them!

Hello (again)

2010-06-29T09:05:00.000-04:00

Where has the time gone?

It's been a forever since I've written anything. Like I said before, I've been busy. Since you last left your aproned hero, I've handed in all my papers, taken an exam, and graduated from law school. Everything was swell, I had family come to town, took a few days to go fishing and relax and visit more family and the next thing I know... Bam! I'm starting bar exam review to get prepared to take the NY and NJ bar exams. What crap!

Not to say I'm not looking forward to being lawyer. But I was also looking forward to a little down time after this semester and it has not come. As we speak, the baby is napping and I'm forced to choose between blogging and getting to eat lunch.

*pause to eat lunch*

Ok, to be fair lunch wins over blogging. But, I guess lately most things have won over blogging. I make no apologies, just saying is all.

In other news, my digital camera broke, so I had to fix the thing all the time while being happy to have an excuse to buy a brand new camera. The Mrs. says that I should wait until I have, you know, actual income, before I buy a new one. I say, yeah, but the baby is always blurry in our pictures and wouldn't it be nice to take a clear, good picture of him before September? I think we both have a point. In the meantime, I fixed the camera that broke, cooked some Mahi-Mahi and took pictures.

I'll preface the pictures by noting that I'm not Mahi-Mahi's biggest fan-fan. First of all, I think it's silly that it is called the same thing twice. Mahi would be a completely appropriate name for a fish. Mahi-Mahi is a bit redundant. Second of all, I think Mahi-Mahi tastes like very tender chicken. Since I am perfectly capable of making very tender chicken out of actual chickens, I see no need to pay three times the amount for a fish that tastes the same. The Mrs. is a big fan of fishes that taste like meat, but I just prefer meat. So, long story short. If you find yourself with some Mahi-Mahi and are wondering what to do-do with it-it, here is one option. It was baked with some garlic and given a shallot and vermouth sauce. It was good, just not spectacular. I'll take a stir-fry over this any day.

Ratatouille

2010-04-26T14:54:00.001-04:00

Did anybody (or did everybody) see that Pixar movie, Ratatouille? It was surprisingly entertaining, especially if you are the sort of person who would read a food blog. Without trying to give away the ending, let it suffice to say that at some point in the movie, they make ratatouille. And their recipe looks really delicious, to the extent that computer animated food can look delicious. But I've made a few different ratatouille recipes in the last few years, and while they all look about as colorful and well-presented as the dish in the movie, they also end up tasting... well... a bit bland.

It is really unfortunate, because whenever I've served ratatouille, my guests tend to be really impressed with how beautiful the dish is, but then I notice that there is plenty left over once dinner is over. I suspected that there is more to this classic dish than just carefully overlapping colorful vegetables.

The thing that sparked my determination to try it again was a recent episode of Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations, where Bourdain goes to Provence, France. He attempts to treat his Provençal hosts to his own take on the local cuisine and one course that he serves is "ratatouille."

Now, quotation marks might be appropriate there because when the hosts come to the dinner, they tell Bourdain that he has made a very nice dish of vegetables, but that it is NOT ratatouille. So what is ratatouille? I have no idea really. The people of Provence surely reserve the right to discredit any American attempt. But there is someone that I trust who has graciously provided us with a fantastic ratatouille recipe that, if not authentically ratatouille, is at least not bland.

In fact, if this isn't ratatouille, then I don't really care because Julia Child's ratatouille is amazing! No, it's not a carefully presented stack of colorful veggies. It is more like a stir-fry really. And it is damn good.

Just in case a fantastic vegetable recipe isn't sufficient to keep your attention, I also made garlic aioli, another Provençal specialty that is basically garlic-bomb mayonnaise. If you think of garlic less as a seasoning and more as a food, then you're going to love this stuff. I ended up spreading some of it on my ratatouille, because the only thing better than enjoying your vegetables is enjoying your vegetables with some emulsified olive oil on them.

So, without further delay, I present my adaptation of Julia's ratatouille:

Ratatouille
Adapted from Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Vol. 1 by Julia Child, Louisette Bertholle, and Simone Beck

1 large eggplant
1 zucchini
2 tomatoes
2 green bell peppers
1 medium yellow onion
2 cloves of mashed garlic
3 Tbsp parsley
1 tsp salt
4 Tbsp olive oil

Peel the eggplant and cut it into pieces approximately the size and shape of steak fries. Slice the zucchini the same way. Toss the eggplant with salt and let stand for 30 minutes.

Saute the eggplant in olive oil for a minute on each side in order to brown lightly. Then remove the eggplant from the pan and put it in a dish off to the side. Saute the zucchini in the same manner as the eggplant. Remove the zucchini to the same side dish as the eggplant.

Slice the onion very thin, and slice the green pepper about a 1/2 inch thick. Cook the onion and pepper together in the pan with olive oil for about 10 minutes, until tender but not brown. Stir in the garlic towards the 8th or 9th minute.

Remove the inner seeds from the tomato so you just have the outer pulp. Slice the tomato pulps into 3/8 inch strips and lay them over the onions and peppers. Cover the pan and cook on low for 5-8 minutes until the tomatoes have begun to render their juice. Baste the tomatoes with the juices, using a baster or a spoon. Salt and pepper to taste.

Layer the tomato/onion/pepper mixture between layers of the eggplant zucchini mixture, starting and finishing with the tomato mixture in a casserole dish. Sprinkle minced parsley atop the tomato mixture.

Cover the casserole and bake for about 15 minutes, then uncover and bake for another 20 minutes. Baste occassionally. Julia's recipe actually calls for cooking the casserole on a stove, but because of the dish that I used, I ended up using the oven and it worked just fine. I think you can make due either way. You'll know its done when most of the juices have evaporate and become pure flavor in your veggies. Be sure to say something in French when serving.

Springing

2010-04-09T17:55:00.000-04:00

The Lake has thawed. The Devils are about to begin their playoff run at the Stanley Cup, St. Patrick's day and Easter both came and went. Things are moving quickly folks.

For some reason that is surely related to John Jameson's life's work, I failed to take any pictures of the food that I made on St. Patrick's Day. That was really weak, I know. But, if you were there, you know that there was nothing weak about my Colcannon, which contained a 1/2 lb. of butter, and 1 lb. of bacon. Purely awesome, my friend.

Once spring gives way to summer, you'll probably notice that a lot of cooking expeditions mentioned on the site will change too. I do about as serious a BBQ as someone from New Jersey can do. I smoke ribs. I smoke shoulder. I've been smoking chicken since last year, and this year I'm thinking about smoking some fish.

In the mean time, I'm still pretty focused on perfecting my Chinese food. I could eat Chinese food just about everyday; there are over a billion people on earth who do! Ok, that was a lame joke. I admit it.

Anyway, I've got pictures. There is no guiding theme other than the fact that this is what I've cooked recently. I would give you the recipes, but frankly it's been so long since I made them that I barely remember what was in it.

The first picture at the top is of a tofu and vegetable stir-fry that came out really well. Tofu can be hard to make well, but I've found that using a REALLY hot pan, and getting a good crisp going on the outside does wonders. Also, pat the tofu dry before cooking, knucklehead!

The second picture is of a curry sole stew with sweet potatoes. I had a hell of a time getting the sweet potatoes to fully cook without murdering the fish into a mush, but I found a balance somewhat and it was pretty good.

The third picture is of zucchini mac and cheese with salted chopped chilies. In case you haven't heard, you need salted chopped chilies in your life. Here's how.

The picture immediately above this paragraph was of some noodles with ginger, garlic, and chopped leaks.

Ok, now to other big news. The beer is FINALLY done! Yes, you heard right, I tasted the beer today.

I have to say that it smelled absolutely wonderful. This is some of the toastiest, delicious smelling beer I've ever had. It's also a pretty good looking beer. My wife and son are both redheads, and it seems that my beer is a redhead too now. I don't mind that one bit. The taste is something else though. I made this beer with the intention of producing a hoppy batch of beer with a VERY high alcohol content. I wanted this beer to knock you on your ass. And it does. The beer is at least 10% alcohol. And it tastes like it too. It's a somewhat bitter, very intense flavored beer. The jury is still out on how well it'll age. It might mellow out a bit in the next few weeks and taste like the complex thing that it is.

All Apologies

2010-03-26T16:04:00.000-04:00

Hi Everybody,

I recognize that it's been a while since I've written. Fellow law students will recognize the post-spring break, pre-finals period as the time in the semester when one has to get a handle on upcoming deadlines before the shit hits the fan. So, here we are. In an effort to keep the fan pristine (i.e. free of shit), I've had to take a blogging hiatus that, I hope, won't last too long.

Love,
Jim

Tofu Espagnole

2010-03-02T19:26:00.000-05:00

Earlier in the week, I made a sauce for some fried tofu that came out really well. You might notice that, yes, there is indeed chicken in this. So... be warned. I only gave up eating solid pieces of meat for my Lenten fast. I didn't give up using broth for flavor.

Anyway, the sauce came out really well. It was full of flavor, warm, and thick. The thickness made the tofu and mushroom stick together to form almost a stew, which just about put the dish into the "comfort food" category because of its warmth and savoryness. The tofu itself held up really nicely to the sauce, not overdone, but cooked in oil for a sufficient period of time to brown the outside of the tofu and give it some texture. I generally find that ghost-white tofu in soup is OK, but I prefer my tofu to have some color on it if I'm serving it as a meal. Per usual, having homemade stock on hand was a must for this recipe. Anyway, enjoy. This dish made me forget about meat for a solid 5 hours.

Tofu Espagnole

Ingredients
14 oz. Package of Firm Tofu
2 Tbsp. Peanut oil
2 Tbsp. Butter
2 Tbsp. Flour
3 Cups Chicken Stock
1 Cup Baby Bella Mushrooms
1 or 2 Sprigs of Fresh Tyme
1/2 tsp Salt

You'll need a very large skillet for this recipe, or you can use two medium-large pans.

Heat oil in large skillet on high heat. While the pan is warming up, drain the tofu and pat dry with a paper towel. Cut the tofu into 1 inch by 2 inch by 1 inch rectangles. It is easiest to do this while keeping all of the pieces together in the same shape that they came in the package such that when you are finished cutting the tofu rectangles, they are all still neatly stacked together into one big rectangle.

Add the tofu to the pan, gently stirring every 3 minutes or so. The tofu should begin to brown on all sides. While the tofu is cooking, rinse, pat dry, and slice the mushrooms. When the tofu has browned on each side, add the mushrooms to the pan. Continue to stir, this time every minute or so.

When the mushrooms have begun to soften up and release their water, push the tofu and mushrooms all to one side of the pan, leaving as much room as possible on the other side for making the roux.

On the empty side of the pan, melt the butter in the pan, being careful to keep the butter all on the empty side of the pan and not mix with the tofu and mushrooms. Do not burn the butter! Once the butter is half or mostly melted, add the flour and mix with the butter until it forms a paste. Bring the paste closer to the middle of the pan and stir quickly until the paste darkens to a light to medium brownish color. Once your roux is brown, slowly add the stock and mix rapidly with the roux so that a brown sauce forms. Once the roux is fully incorporated into the stock, combine the tofu and mushrooms with the sauce. Turn the heat down and simmer the sauce, tofu, and mushrooms until the sauce is reduced by half. Shred the thyme with your fingers and add to the sauce while it is reducing. Add salt only at the end (since your sauce is reducing, early salting will just get concentrated later on). Serves 3-4.

Some Stale Bread

2010-03-01T11:26:00.000-05:00

Well, the first batch of maple sap came in. Much of the bucket contained snow, despite it being mostly covered. But it seems to me like I had a decent amount of sap, about a gallon or so, and that I was on my way to making at least, like, two tablespoons worth of sap. Alas, another setback. Once I boiled off most of the sap, I had a maple syrup-like substance. It was sweet, with the sort of smoky rich flavor that real maple syrup has. But it also came with a shockingly bitter sort of flavor that really overpowered any good effects from the sweetness. It basically tasted like a combination of maple syrup and poison.

There's a pic of sap boiling off. Anyway, I've taken steps to better cover the spouts and will come back and check my containers on Friday for more sap. I did have a good time drinking beers with my grandfather while we tried to boil off the sap on his wood burning stove. It didn't boil much, but I had a few Long Trail IPAs that were really nice.

This past week, I made a few noteworthy dishes. Most of them are pretty basic. For instance, last night, I made some pea soup. Sorry, I'm not going to write out a pea soup recipe for you. Mine is pretty straightforward. Have a ham bone left over, buy some Goya split peas, soak 'em overnight, and follow the directions on the bag with the exception of bouillon cubes and flavor packets. Use your homemade broth dummy!

The croutons I threw onto my pea soup are worth expounding on, though. This is especially true since I've been making a lot of bread lately, and not all of it is great. So, as discussed previously, one of the things you can do with crappy old bread is make croutons with it. And it's really easy too. I used a food processor, but you really don't have to. If you have a garlic press, that would be helpful, but you could just chop the garlic and rosemary very finely.

Rosemary-Garlic Croutons

Ingredients
1 Tsbp. Chopped Rosemary
1 Clove Finely Chopped Garlic
1/4 Cup Extra Virgin Olive Oil
2 Cups of "Experienced" Bread, cut of shredded into crouton-sized bits.
1/2 tsp. salt

Notes: I don't generally condone cooking with extra virgin olive oil. The point at which extra virgin olive oil begins to smoke, chemically decompose, and lose its flavor and nutritional value is often lower than the temperature that it can reach while in a hot pan. This is called an oil's smoke point. But, our croutons aren't getting pan-fried or broiled, they are just going to soak up that oil, garlic, and rosemary flavor and get a bit of a crunch.

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Mix oil, garlic, salt, and rosemary in a medium sized bowl. Use a food processor if possible, or just chop and mix with a spoon or fork. Add the bread and gently stir the bread so that it soaks up as much oil as possible. Spread the bread around on a flat surface. Discard any extra oil (or put it on your salad if you really love garlic and are in the sort of relationship where garlic breath won't be a dealbreaker). A baking sheet works best, but a casserole dish works too (just takes longer if the croutons are piled up). Put the mixture in the oven for 25-30 minutes. Stir if necessary halfway through. After 25 minutes, check to see how crunchy the bread got. It will vary depending on how stale the bread started out, how much oil it absorbed, the size and depth of the container, and whether you had to double stack the croutons. Give 'em another 5-10 minutes if need be.

Sorry I didn't take a picture of the final product. We were hungry! Besides, you know what croutons look like.

A Poached Pear, A Tapped Maple, and Some Momofuku-like Homecookin'

2010-02-22T16:29:00.000-05:00

By now you might have recognized that I like to make things from scratch. So, the first of many announcements for today is that I tapped some maple trees at my grandfather's house this weekend. I've got my mom and grandfather recruited to the cause of homemade maple syrup, and will be back at the house to check on the trees sometime over this coming weekend. I don't have extremely high hopes for this project, but it seemed easy enough, and if it works, what a grand success! Of course, my Vermont-based family members have all made syrup before and are not at all impressed. But, the NJ crowd will surely be in awe when I douse my blueberries pancakes with syrup that's fresh from Lake Hopatcong.

In other news, you may find that many of my recipes over the next couple months are vegetarian or pescatarian in nature. I've given up meat for Lent, so there it is. I did it partially because I like to really challenge myself for Lent and give up something that is very dear to me. Additionally, I've been struggling to reconcile my love for the taste of animals with the ethical implications of supporting an industry that profits off of disease and torture. I'll kill animals and eat them, but that doesn't mean that I don't care about how they are treated.

Apparently David Chang of Momofuku fame agrees with me. He had something really interesting to say about sustainable meat in his new cookbook, which I got a chance to peruse over the weekend:

"Pigs have heads. Every one of them does. Farmers do not raise walking pork chops. If you're serious about your meat, you've got to grasp that concept. And if you're serious about sustainability and about honestly raised good meat-which is something we're dead serious about at Momofuku and we try to get more in touch with every day-you've got to embrace the whole pig.

A farm turns out a head on each beautiful, well-raised pig, but nobody's rushing eat it. That's where the cook steps in: you take it, cook it, make it delicious. That's the most badass way you can connect with what you cook: elevate it, honor it, lavish it with care and attention-whether you're slicing scallions or spooning out caviar or boiling up half a pig's head. Turning ingredients into food, and sometimes almost literally turning a pig's ear into a silk purse, is what cooks do in the kitchen" See Momofuku Cookbook, p. 201.

Chang goes on provide a recipe for "pig's head torchon" which looks nothing like a pig's head and sounds pretty amazing.

Speaking of Momofuku, I did make a Momofuku inspired ramen with shrimp, some scallions, and a slow-poached egg. The slow-poached egg concept is another thing I pulled out of that cookbook. Pretty cool. Basically, you put an egg in hot water, kept around 140 degrees or so for 40-45 minutes. Keep the egg off the bottom of the pot though to prevent overcooking. I put it in a metal vegetable steamer-type colander. Whenever you're ready, crack open the egg and you've got a perfect poached egg that is cooked whites and goey, beautiful yolk. Made me feel like a rock star when I tried it.

The shrimp ramen came out really, really good. I have become somewhat of a master broth maker, and this time I used a mixture of chicken broth that had also simmered with some mean-as-hell roasted Jamaican hot peppers, combined with some shrimp shell broth. It just made it extra-seafoody. You could try it with the shrimp broth or just regular broth.

And since we're sharing pictures. I took a picture of a super freak of a mushroom that was in the package of mushrooms that I bought from Whole Foods. It was too weird not to take a picture of it and share with you.

The recipe that I want to leave you with, though, actually comes from Anthony Bourdain's Les Halles Cookbook. It is really simple and, if presented well, an absolutely beautiful dessert. Did I mention that it's freaking delicious? Here it is:

Poached Pears
Adapted from Les Halles Cookbook

Ingredients
1 bottle of somewhat cheap red wine
1 cup of sugar
1 cinnamon stick
3 star anise pieces
4 pears, peeled and cut lengthwise

In a medium pot, combine wine, sugar, and spices. Bring to a boil, and let boil for 5-10 minutes. Add the pears, cover, and let simmer for about a half an hour or until the pears are soft and could be eaten with a spoon. Remove from heat, uncover, and let cool. Serve the pears with the sauce they were cooked in and/or with vanilla ice cream.

Serves 8 meager appetites, or 2-4 gavones.

Winter Root Stew

2010-02-15T12:16:00.000-05:00

After our rich Saturday eating extravaganza, beginning with lunch at Les Halles (which is my new favorite restaurant by the way) and ending with dinner at Egan & Son's new location in West Orange, NJ, I figured I would make something less rich and more wholesome for Sunday dinner. Based on what I had left around from the food co-op, I decided to make a stew of various winter roots. My only concern was that it could end up being somewhat boring.

We've all made those dishes before where you know that it will be edible and you know that it will be more or less good for you, but you don't know if it will be exciting or something that you'll want more than a few bites of.

So, in the quest for flavor, I ended up using my chicken broth and about a pint of beer to give the stew a hearty, yet tasty flavor. Once that broth and beer mixture combined with the juices of the carrots, parsnips, onion, celery root, etc, it was pretty damn flavorful. I was also a little stumped on how to season it. I could toss in some maple syrup, maybe throw in some apples and cinnamon. I ended up with salt, pepper, some cinnamon and some nutmeg. Not too much though! The spices were subtle, which made it really nice. Boring, it was not. Although, it was interesting how the flavors of the root vegetables all seemed to blend together. It was difficult to tell whether you were eating a piece of turnip or a piece of celery root. It all sort of blended together into a delicious flavor; one that is sweet, but savory and evokes sitting by a nice warm fire on a cold winter day.

Next question was whether or not to add a meat. I happened to have a really nice piece of smoked Kielbasa that my upstairs neighbor gave me after a trip to the Polish butcher. I chopped into bite sized pieces and threw it in there. This way, there really wasn't enough meat to take over the thing and turn it into a meat stew. The Kielbasa just added a little something, turning the stew from a side dish to a main course. Vegetarians could totally go without the Kielbasa and substitute vegetable stock for the chicken stock. Carnivores can go crazy and throw in a slab of bacon-which I had considered, but decided against in light of the order by the Mrs. to "don't make anything rich". Another idea would be some beef to stew in with the veggies. You get the idea here. There is ample opportunity for improvisation.

Winter Root Stew

Ingredients
1 pint of dark beer (I used my homemade brown ale)
About 1 Quart Chicken Stock (can substitute with any stock, including vegetable)
1 onion, minced
3-6 cloves of garlic, minced
1 celery root
2 sweet potatoes
1 turnip
1 acorn squash
2 white potatoes
2 red potatoes
4 carrots
4 parsnips
1 Tbsp salt
1 Tbsp fresh ground pepper
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp nutmeg
2 Tbsp olive oil OR butter
1 Kielbasa sausage (or 1 lb of thick cut bacon)

Note: You'll want to use a dutch oven for this. If you don't have a dutch oven, you could just use a pot and keep it on the stove, although I liked not having to tend to it by putting it in the oven.

In a large dutch oven or large pot, warm the oil (or butter) on medium-low heat on the stovetop. While the pot is warming, mince your onion if it is not already minced. Add the onion and saute while mincing the garlic. Add the garlic and saute until golden brown. Pre-heat the oven to 325 degrees.

Chop the root vegetables into pieces approximately just small enough to fit onto a tablespoon. They will soften up after they are cooked and can be broken into bite-sized pieces with a spoon by the eater. Add the root vegetables to the pot. Next add the chicken stock and beer to the pot so that it just about covers the vegetables. Use as much stock as necessary to cover most of the vegetables.

Next, chop the kielbasa into spoon-sized pieces and add to the pot. Stir all of the contents of the pot around so as to mix them up and disperse the sausage throughout the pot. Now turn off the stovetop and put the pot into the oven for about an hour. Cooking time will vary depending on the size of the vegetables and amount of liquid added to the pot. Cook until the vegetables are soft and steamy. Add salt, pepper, cinnamon, and nutmeg after removing from the oven and then stir the contents again. If you do not have a dutch oven, simply the pot the on low heat, stirring occasionally for about an hour.

Serves 4-6

Don't forget to save any leftover broth from the pot. Freeze and add it to your next dish!

Obsessions of a Mad Man

2010-02-12T14:40:00.000-05:00

I might be losing my mind. Or, at the very least, I am getting recklessly disorganized. This is a really bad thing for me, because I'm somewhat absent-minded to begin with.

Today, I really really thought that I had to go to school for a symposium that my law journal was putting on. So, as I saunter in to school, imagine my surprise when I arrive at a different symposium, put on by a different journal. Oh no.

So now I've taken about an hour and fifteen minutes to get to the city for apparently no reason at all. For the first five minutes after realizing this, I was pretty peeved with myself. But then I thought, wait! I've stolen an afternoon in the city with nothing to do. Sweet! I decided to treat myself to a nice lunch and then do a little shopping.

Now, when I say shopping, I'm not talking about Madison Ave. here. No, I'm more interested in Murray's Cheese Shop on Bleecker St and Patisserie Claude on West 4th St. I wandered around with two aims, 1) I wanted to eat good food and 2) I wanted something to read.

When I first came to the conclusion that I would be attending law school in Greenwich Village, I was less than thrilled with the neighborhood. Those who have visited New York City before might be surprised to find out that I didn't want to spend all of my time in the Village, but that is precisely the point. So many of my experiences in the Village, before going to school there, involved being mobbed by tourists and the bridge and tunnel crowd. Never mind that I am now the bridge and tunnel crowd myself. I wasn't always. I was hip once. Dare I say a hipster! No, I didn't wear an ironic trucker hat but I sure did have a band in Williamsburg, Brooklyn and it doesn't get much more hipster than that.

But since spending nearly three years in the Village, I've come to find places to call home. Places that are neither overrun by NYU undergrads, nor stinking with the foul stench of tourists who think that Bob Dylan still plays at the Cafe Wha?. Not that I'm against tourists or tourism per se, in fact, sometimes I am a tourist (although not in New York). But they sort of have a way of destroying the thing the makes people want to come in the first place, don't they?

Anyway, today's meander through the Village in search of happiness and something to eat was a really nice escape from everything going on in my head. And I returned home with all sorts of goodies.

My first stop was Pearl Oyster Bar where I had a nice glass of wine and 6 raw oysters. These oysters were really good, although I can't say that I've gotten over my squeamishness from chewing a snotty shellfish. I'm trying though. I ate an oyster only once before, but it was more like taking a pill than enjoying a fine delicacy.

After reading Anthony Bourdain describe the taste of his first oyster, I've resolved to try again and to learn to love them. People think that if they don't like something that they are forever imprisoned from enjoying that thing, but they are so wrong. You can learn to like almost any food if you try it enough times. Case in point, I used to despise olives. So many people whose opinion I respected loved olives, however, so I resolved that I would learn to love them. First I started by eating olives soaked in vodka. I had already learned to love vodka. Soon, I was tasting good quality olives, and enjoying it. Now, my mouth waters at the prospect of a fine olive. I suspect that oysters will be no different. Smart people seem to enjoy them, and there must be something to it. So why shouldn't I learn to love them too? If nothing else, it is an admirable approach to life.

The Mrs. says we already like enough expensive things, and so we shouldn't be going out and looking for more costly habits, but I disagree. The world is a richer place the more things that are in it that I love. Let oysters be one of them!

Next I went to Patisserie Claude, a small French Bakery staffed by small Spanish people. Both are charming. I love the Napoleons, so I got two to share with my wife. They also make a little quiche that I have gotten twice now and have never intended to take home. I have them warm it up and I eat it immediately, walking down West 4th St. with the sort of satisfaction that is normally associated with getting one's back scratched.

After Claude, I went to Murray's cheese shop where I bought a triple creme soft cheese to spread over my homemade bread this evening, and a French Onion Melt sandwich, which is Gruyere and caramelized onions on whole wheat bread. I ate the sandwich on the PATH train back to NJ. This made me feel a little guilty, especially when I saw the pregnant woman sitting across from me look at my sandwich and sigh in quiet resignation. I would have gladly offered her some, but who was accept half a sandwich from a total stranger on the train? Sorry!

I then stopped in a book store and bought a book for me, Anthony Bourdain's The Nasty Bits, and a book for the little man, This is Texas.

Last, I stopped for some flowers outside of the PATH station. Turns out everyone gets presents today. We had homemade fettuccine, served with butter, sauteed garlic, some fresh chopped basil, and Parmesan cheese. My fettuccine needs work but I'm getting the hang of it. Delicious nonetheless,

Tomorrow should be even better! The Mrs. and I are going back to the city tomorrow to see Wicked. We got tickets for Christmas, babysitter included. What good fortune! Before the show, I made reservations at Les Halles for lunch, the bistro where Anthony Bourdain calls home. Ok, Ok, I might be obsessing on Anthony Bourdain a little bit. But the guy sure can write (which I try to do), and he travels a lot (which I'd like to do), and he is supposed to be a damn fine cook (which I try to be). So, it's hard not to sweat the guy a little.

New Header (Again)

2010-02-11T14:07:00.001-05:00

Ok, I'm still just trying things out, but so far I think this header is the best by far and will probably stay for a while. Any objections? Praise?

Snow Day!

2010-02-10T12:31:00.000-05:00

After two predicted snow storms that never materialized, we finally got hit with some snow. School is canceled and I have all day to cook whatever I can think up. I really hit all of the bases since I have an extra day now that I wasn't expecting.

First, I mixed some bread dough and am letting it rise. I've been tricked before with dough that is slow to rise, so I'm planning on letting this one go crazy until Friday when I'll bake it during the day and enjoy it shortly thereafter. It should be light and fluffy, not dark and dense like the last time.

Next, I started up a new batch of beer. I used a few different kinds of malts from the ones that I used the first time. I used some "Munich" style malt from an Oktober Fest kit that I had, and I used an entire English Brown Ale kit worth of Amber malt extracts, spray malt, and chocolate crushed malt. There are a lot of sugars in this batch, but not as much of the weird stuff. My last batch had a lot of molasses, brown sugar, and maple syrup. I added the brown sugar, but I didn't have any molasses. I might add the maple syrup at a later point in the fermenting process, but honestly I haven't decided yet. The maple syrup really raises the cost of the brew. As it is I'm putting about $50 worth of materials into 5 gallons of beer. That's almost $1 per bottle of beer. Not cheap considering its homemade. Then again, the sort of beer that costs you a dollar is not the sort of beer that you're likely get from a home-brewer. My stuff is of much higher quality than your average Coors Light.

My batch should be ready to go for St. Patrick's Day. It's a good thing too, because we just might end up going through 5 gallons of beer on that day. I made a gallon of Mead as well. This is my first attempt at Mead making but it seems pretty straight forward. I added a giant bottle of honey to about a gallon of water, added a splash of orange juice and a few sticks of cinnamon. The yeast I used for the Mead was a little on the old side, but I proofed it in some sugar water and lo and beyond it foamed right up. Before putting the Mead wort into my 1 gallon mini-keg and sealing it up (with an airlock on top), I checked the gravity of the wort. It is pretty high gravity and should end up at about 10% alcohol. It is fermenting very slowly though. I figure it'll also be done right in time for St. Paddy's. It doesn't have to be bottled and carbonated, so that buys me some time, but since its fermenting so slowly, it might be a while in that little mini-keg.

For my next trick, I made some chopped salted chilies. This is a staple in Hunanese cooking, and is really easy to make. You basically chop up some fresh chili peppers, mix them with a few tablespoons of Kosher salt, put 'em in a jar, and then cover the chilies completely with salt. You seal up the jar and wait a few weeks. What comes out of that jar is, if you like things that are spicy and salty, absolutely amazing. Sure, you can use them just for making Chinese food, but there is a lot more available to you than that. My favorite: Throw a few in your salad. While fresh chilies are really really hot, once they've been cured by the salt for a few weeks, they are significantly less hot. And they get a really great crunch to them that makes them fantastic for salad, or eggs, or pizza, or really anything that you would put hot sauce on. If they are too salty for your taste (and if you are like me and want to just eat them straight, they might be), you can always rinse them off with water before serving. Plus, they are just pretty to have a jar of the stuff sitting in your kitchen. You're supposed to refrigerate it once you've opened the jar, but I just keep it on a shelf over my sink and it is as much decoration as it is condiment.

So now my beer is brewing, my bread is rising, my chilies are salting. What's left? Oh yeah, what are we going to eat for dinner? Chicken and Pasta Rags. I saw a recipe for something similar to this on the Essence of Emeril show a few months ago. The "Pasta Rags" concept sounded really great and right up my alley. Of course, I made the pasta from scratch and got another chance to break in my pasta maker. Tasty Trix had a post recently where she made homemade fettuccine, and that was a pretty good guide for where to start with the pasta making. I think I still need a bit of practice. My "rags" looked pretty ragged.

Before I made the pasta dough, I put a chicken confit in the oven. Now, I know in some circles I'm supposed to cook the thing for 10 hours. I didn't have 10 hours. I had about 2. So the thing cooked for 2 hours. It was still great. I put some garlic cloves in there too late in the game with the hopes that the oil would absorb some of the flavor and also that my garlic would be pretty mellow when I put it in the pasta dish. The whole process is fairing straight forward. I took some chicken, I added some salt, pepper, and fresh thyme and then put the chicken (I had chicken thighs, but you could use any cut) in a saute pan and covered the chicken with fat or oil. I used mostly bacon fat, but I had to also use some chicken fat that I scraped off of my frozen broth and a little bit of olive oil in order to fully cover the chicken. Then cook on low heat until you can't stand it anymore. I used some of the oil/fat as the oil in the pasta, adding scallions (for crunch), crushed red pepper (for color), and Parmesan cheese (for obvious reasons). Magnifique!

Fish, Chips, and Other Fried Sources of Delight

2010-02-06T16:00:00.000-05:00

Many great meals are the result of careful planning, but some others follow the spaghetti on the wall strategy: let's throw everything we've got at it and see what sticks. I find that some of my best work is of the second category. Not to say that I don't do careful planning. I do. But, here's the thing. I LOVE to cook. And not it's because I love following directions, wandering aimlessly through the grocery store, or slicing and burning my hands on a near daily basis. No, I love to cook because I love the freedom that it brings me. It is an escape with a fantastic reward at the end. It's also a way to express myself. My personality definitely comes through on the plate. Not to say that I think that I am like the food I make. I recently saw an episode of Chopped where one of the cooks kept saying that she is like a spicy fish or something like that. It made her sound insane.

I don't purport to be sane, but I do know that I'm not similar to fish and chips. That said, my personality definitely comes through in my cooking. It is bombastic, it is bold, and it revels in experimentation.

Last night was definitely a night of reckless experimentation. I caught a deal on wild-caught Cod and figured that I'd try my hand at some fish and chips. My mom came over for dinner, so I wanted to make something nice.

Let me tell you. It kicked ass. I've had fish and chips all over New York City. It is the go-to dish when my wife goes out to eat and doesn't know what to order. Mine was superior to anything we've had out. Now, granted, this was an exquisite piece of Cod. It was really nice. It was such a beautiful piece of fish before I even touched it that it made me want to rent a boat to find some fishermen and thank them. But, even still. My fish and chips is the bomb. I suspect I'll be asked to make it again at least 5 more times by the end of the year. Killer fish dishes aren't always easy to come by, so when you get one, you gotta hold onto it like, well, like you got a fish on the line.

Since I already had a vat of hot oil and a bowl of flour batter, I figured it was a good opportunity to experiment after dinner. I added a whole bunch of sugar and a little vanilla extract and tried to make a funnel cake with the beer batter. No, it did not taste like fish. What did happen was that I put too much batter in there at one time, and it cooled the oil too much and wouldn't turn golden brown until it turned almost black. I burned it.

Next I made a new batch of batter, added A LOT of baking powder to that mixture, and instead of putting strings of batter in the oil, I just plopped a ladle full of batter all at once. That was the key! The baking powder made it puff out while it cooked. The batter blob was big enough to not get burned on the inside, but small enough not to overcool the oil. I took my fry cake out of the oil, put it on a paper towel and sprinkled it with a good amount of powdered sugar. Awesome! Of course, by this time I had eaten fried cod, french fries, a burned funnel cake, and two delicious fry cakes. I ended the night with a tummy ache, but satisfied in the knowledge that I had mastered the baking powder/hot oil combo technique. Make sure you eat a salad with this meal. Or better yet. Make the fish and chips on one day, and the fry cake on a different day. Nobody should eat that much oil in one day.

I've made a few other things since I last wrote, and I'm trying to take some nice pictures, so there's a few of those around too. That salad picture really gets me excited about taking more pictures, although I have to admit that I just went to Whole Foods and bought salad greens and then very thoughtfully and carefully drizzled store bought salad dressing on it. Goes to show how nice something can look even if you didn't do shit to make it be so beautiful.

The noodle dish is sort of a Thai chili-basil chicken concoction based on a recipe in the January/February 2010 issue of Cooks Illustrated. It was delicious. I couldn't stop eating it. I ate it until it was gone, and then I paced around the apartment thinking about going to the store to get more chicken. My only gripe was the lack of color in my version. It looked dull for such a spicy, sweet mess. Also, I could have used more basil or at the least the right kind of basil, but that's for another day. My basil plant is growing tall and strong and I'm not going to kill it over one noodle dish.

Today I made my own Yogurt, which was shockingly easy. Be that as it may, I still managed to mess something up. I was keeping it warm in a warm oven when I turned the oven on to keep it warm and then got distracted with the rest of my life and forgot to turn it off. Plastic yogurt cup. Melted plastic yogurt cup. But hey! It still made yogurt, and I saved it before the Yogurt couldn't be salvaged. Next time, I'm going to use hot water. Then I strained the yogurt through some cheesecloth to make it more like Greek Yogurt. I actually overstrained it and add to go back and add a dab of milk before eating it. It is sort of weird to have dry yogurt, but its possible. Anyway, it was good and really easy to make. You can use just about any kind of milk too, so, you could use goat milk if you want or skim milk or lactose-free milk or whatever. I used organic whole milk. That's how I roll.

I'm still working on the header picture up at the top of the site. Let me know what you think. I suspect this new one looks more professional than the last one, but it might hurt your brain to look at for too long. Let's see how it goes. I like it because that is the pattern of my apron, although if you didn't read this post you'd never know that and you'd always wonder why I chose such an odd pattern as my header. Of course, if anyone wants to donate a header for the site, by all means, hook me up!

Classic Fish and Chips

Ingredients

2 lbs. cod
2 cups flour
2 Tbsp. baking powder
1 bottle of beer (preferably dark beer)
2 Tbsp. salt
1 Tsbp. pepper
1 quart peanut oil
4 white potatoes, skinned

In a medium-sized pot, warm the peanut oil on low heat. While the oil is warming, slice the potatoes, lengthwise, into half-inch thick slices. Next, turn the potato and slice it lengthwise again, to form french fries. By the time you've completed slicing the potatoes, the oil should be warm to hot. Now heat the oil on high heat until the oil is 300 degrees F. In small batches, approximately a full handful of potatoes per batch, cook the fries in oil for about 3 minutes. Batches that are too large will cool the oil and prolong the cooking process, if not ruin it entirely. Remove the fries with a slotted spoon and spread the fries on a baking sheet. Once all of the potatoes have been fried the first time, put the baking sheet in a warm oven about 200 degrees F.

In a large mixing bowl, mix the flour, 1 tsp of salt, 2 Tbsp. of black pepper, 1 Tbsp. of baking powder, and a bottle of beer. Mix the ingredients with a whisk until they form a thick batter. Slice the cod into approximately 2-3 inch thick pieces by cutting across the width of the fish. With tongs, coat the fish with the batter by dipping the fish into the mixing bowl. Be gentle with the fish while ensuring that the entirety of the fish is coated with batter. Next, carefully put the battered fish into the oil in batches of no more than 4 pieces of fish at a time. Cook for approximately 4-5 minutes, being sure to turn the fish over halfway through cooking and removing the fish from the oil only after the batter becomes golden brown. Cooking times will vary depending on the the size of the pot, the heat of the stove, the amount of oil used, and the size of the fish. When the fish is cooked, place the cooked fish on a plate covered with paper towel. The paper towel will soak up excess oil.

Next, return to the baking sheet and re-cook the fries in oil until they are golden brown. Small batches should not take more than 5 minutes. Remove the fries to another paper towel covered plate, coat with the remaining salt, and serve.

Serve the fish with malt vinegar and/or tartar sauce. Serve the chips with ketchup and/or mayonnaise. Serves 4.

All The Great Things

2010-01-26T11:24:00.002-05:00

I've been feeling guilty. This might just be a general condition of my Catholic upbringing, but I prefer to think it is because of some actual transgression on my part. In November, I wrote 16 blog posts, more than every other day. Since baby arrived though, it's been tough. Not only because it is hard to find time to write, but because it even harder to find time to cook something that is worth writing about. I've been dying to try my hand at bread again, there is a can of malt extract that is calling for me to brew more beer, I've got three new cookbooks that are worth my attention and all around me the foodie universe continues to go on without me.

And, as I mentioned recently, there have been plenty of culinary failures in my house. No sense giving you a recipe to something that tasted like crap so there are a few blog posts that could have been but weren't due to performance errors on my part.

That said, there is lots of cool stuff going on in the world, and even a couple of success stories in my own kitchen. For instance, my cyber-buddy Chuck sent me a kick-ass wing recipe. It seems as though everyone and their cousin are discovering Sriracha for the first time, which only confirms my belief that the obscure things that I embrace fully will all sooner or later become super popular (note also that I brought back the high-five, brought back beards, brought back saying "rad", popularized premium tequila around 2002, and made it O.K. to prefer small batch Bourbon over Single Malt Scotch, which, at least in the North-East, was a pretty big deal). Sriracha is just latest example. We used to only find it in Asian specialty stores and the occasional enlightened Whole Foods, now it's on sale at nearly every neighborhood supermarket. Sriracha has now reached the pinnacle of popularity since being featured in the January 2010 issue of Bon Appetit. Since then, Sriracha recipes are everywhere. It's nearly impossible to watch the Food Network for 15 minutes without hearing a mention of Sriracha. So, I decided to give these wings a try, resolved to share my own wing recipe at the next convenient time. In the meantime I'll give you a recipe for crab cakes that, yes, calls for a dollop of Sriracha, but more importantly, will introduce you to Sriracha's more rustic cousin, Chili-Garlic Sauce.

The wings came out great. I ended up using lime juice instead of lime zest, which I think ended up amping up the lime flavor a bit, and not in a bad way. The wings were more or less perfect, any gripe with them would be merely stylistic. Of course, Chuck promised that they wouldn't be very spicy and I do disagree on that count. I loved 'em, but they weren't really for people who don't like spicy food. Just a warning. Then again, almost nothing that I cook is for people who don't like spicy food. Those people should go to Mickey D's for dinner.

Beyond my kitchen, I wanted to alert you to someone who successfully made french bread at home, rather than, like yours truly, merely attempting the endeavor twice and failing both times. OK, perhaps I am being hard on myself. My bread was totally better than store bought. But it didn't look like this! That is what I believe in the journalism business is called being "scooped". Looks delicious though and I think we all have something to learn from Kissmyspatula (not the least of which is that if I ever go to Paris, I should rent an apartment, rather than stay in a hotel).

Last but not least before we get to the crab cakes: These people make sausage! I love them. The world is better place when more people make sausage. And people who cure sausage, there is a special place in heaven for you!

Ok. Crab Cakes. Now, I make traditional crab cakes with the Worcestershire sauce and a bit of mustard served with tartar sauce. And it's great. But I wanted to do something different here. I did a few experiments and I ended up a spicy but slightly sweet teriyaki crab cake. They are necessarily smaller than regular crab cakes, mostly because I crisped the outside by frying them in oil. Normal crab cakes are also fried, but not as hot and not in deep oil. Mine were done in a pan of hot peanut oil. I wanted to crispness to lighten it up bit, which I think it did, although they are only as light as crispy fried food can be. I also tried just broiling the cakes and that worked as well. I served them with a dollop of sour cream and a dot of Sriracha on each cake. The sour cream was a superior choice to mayonnaise since my aim was to make the cakes seem less dense and heavy, which is my usual complaint about good crab cakes. (My complaints about good crab cakes are, obviously, different.) Upon completion, they were fantastic, lighter than normal crab cakes, and had a really unique and interesting flavor. Definitely worth trying if you are tired to the same old usual mid-Atlantic take on crab.

There are a couple of pointers about crab cakes in general that are worth considering. The first is that you get what you pay for with crab (I find this to be true of most food, except at the farmer's market). Want crappy crab cakes? Buy crappy crab meat. Want excellent crab cakes? Buy excellent crab meat. End of story. Second, use too much bread and your cakes can be dry, but use too little and they are hard to cook and don't stay together. If the pan is consistently spitting hot oil towards your eye (yeah, that really hurt) then your cakes are too wet, add more crumbs. Third, here is a great opportunity to use day or two old french bread for breadcrumbs. You can sub with a canister of 7 month old breadcrumbs, but it's better with better ingredients.

Terriaki-Chili Crab Cakes

Ingredients
16 oz. Premium Crab Meat
2 Eggs
1 1/2 cups packed French Bread Crumbs
1/4 cup Chili-garlic Sauce
1/4 cup Teriyaki Sauce
1 Tbsp Fish Sauce
1/2 cup Mayonnaise
2-4 Shallots, minced
2-4 cloves of Garlic, minced

For frying, 2 cups of peanut oil

In a large bowl, combine crab meat, eggs, chili-garlic sauce, teriyaki sauce, fish sauce, shallots, garlic, and mayonnaise. Mix well with a large fork or spoon. Next, mix in bread crumbs with your hands. Be sure all the ingredients are evenly distributed throughout the mixture, especially the bread crumbs and egg.

In a medium-sized cast iron skillet or another pan with high side walls, heat peanut oil to about 300 degrees. Pack the crab mixture into little egg shaped cakes. The cakes should also be approximately the size of an egg. Gently place each crab cake into the hot oil and cook for about 1 minute on each side. Cook the cakes in small batches so as not to cool down the oil too much.

When each cake is crisp from frying in oil, remove the crab cakes and place them on a foil covered baking sheet. Bake the cakes at 275 degrees for about 20 minutes if there is any concern that your crab cake is raw on the inside. This is generally only an issue if you oil is very hot but your crab cake is too large. The outside will be cooked but the inside will be raw.

Serve with sour cream and Sriracha. Alternatively, serve with sliced avocados and whole basil leaves. These make a great appetizer, or will serve 4 as a main course.

P.S. - I finally a logo for the site, I know its not perfect but it's a good start. Hopefully I'll get a chance to clean it up at some point in the future.

Food Co-op

2010-01-24T09:12:00.000-05:00

I finally did it. I joined a food co-op. We got our first delivery yesterday, mostly the basics: celery, carrots, some apples, and pineapple among other things. As of right now, we're just trying it out to see if we like it. I kind of like the idea of getting a box of vegetables and being challenged to try new things with it.

I'm also trying to begin doing Meatless Mondays. Lent is coming soon, and I'll be meatless on Fridays too during Lent, but as a general matter I've always found the Lenten Fridays to be precisely the days when I could use a steak. Monday is more a detoxification day. But, to be sure, I'll be doing both this Lent. I've actually given up meat entirely for Lent in the past, but I found that if the purpose of the Lenten fast is to get some perspective, then I somewhat miss the point if I spend 40 days feeling hungry and moody. Yes, I admit it. Going without meat made me cranky.

Anyway, back to vegetables. Once I got all this nice produce, I wanted to put together something that would use some of the veggies that I already had, as well as show off some of nice reds and greens in peppers and leaks (peppers and leaks that needed to be eaten soon, or thrown out). I also got a good deal on some wild caught shrimp at the supermarket, so I wanted to use that too. Of course, Fuchsia Dunlop comes to the rescue again. Revolutionary Chinese Cookbook, people! Get it! You need it!

I just flipped through the index for "shrimp" and found a nice recipe called "Fisherman's Shrimp with Chinese Chives". That was enough to inspire me. I fried up the shrimp in a small cast iron skillet so that I could get the shrimp deep into the oil without using a gallon of the stuff. Oil ain't free you know. I cooked some red peppers and leaks in a separate skillet and combined them at the end. If I had to do it over again, I would have actually never combined the fried shrimp with the veggies. Instead, I should have just put the shrimp on top of the veggies in the dish. Mixing them up with the moist vegetables made the shrimp a little less crisp than they were when I first fried them. It was still pretty fantastic though. Here's the recipe.

Spicy Garlic Fried Shrimp with Peppers and Leaks
Loosely adapted from Revolutionary Chinese Cookbook by Fuchsia Dunlop

Ingredients
1 lb. Shrimp, uncooked, cleaned, and de-shelled.
2 Tbsp. Flour
1 Egg White
1 cup Peanut Oil
1 tsp. Apple Cider Vinegar
1 tsp. Crushed Red Pepper
3 cloves fresh Garlic, minced
1 tsp. Fish Sauce
1 Red Pepper
1/2 of a Leak

Gently mix shrimp, egg white, and flour in a medium bowl to coat the shrimp. In a small pot or skillet, heat oil to around 300 degrees. Cook the shrimp in the oil in small batches for a few minutes on each side until the shrimp is crisp and fully cooked. Remove the shrimp from the oil and set aside on a paper towel.

In a separate, larger skillet, saute sliced leeks and thinly sliced red pepper in peanut oil over high heat. When the peppers start to soften up, add the minced garlic. A minute or two after the garlic is added, mix in fish sauce, vinegar, and crushed red pepper with the leaks and peppers.

Remove the vegetables and lay them along the bottom of a bowl or serving dish. Put the cooked shrimp into the large skillet and gently mix around the pan in order for the shrimp to soak up some of the seasoning and juices left over from the vegetables. Arrange the shrimp on top of the vegetables. Do not cover, otherwise the steam is likely to make the shrimp soggy.

I Make Broth and I Take Pictures

2010-01-15T17:17:00.000-05:00

I gather that noodle bowls are all the rage at Momofuku, or something like that. I've got the Momofuku cookbook now, but haven't had a chance to take a look at it yet. Anyway, I took some pictures the last time I made ramen and they were probably some of the best pictures I've ever taken of anything, so I had to show you the pictures and tell you about one of my favorite lunchtime treats. I took a bunch of other, unrelated pictures that came out pretty well too and have scattered them throughout the post. Hope you like them!

It all started because whenever I eat something that I really like, I want to make it myself at home. I can't just have a favorite place to get pizza. I eat the pizza, and then I want to go home and make my own. And then, of course, once I make the pizza at home, then I need to make the sauce myself, and then the dough. Before long, I'll be trying to figure out if I can manage to make my own cheese (By the way, I haven't made my own cheese yet, but I'm still young and I emphasize the word "yet").

One reason I seem to keep drilling down to make the ingredients is because I think I can make it better myself. Of course my spaghetti sauce is better than something from a jar in the supermarket! Duh! But I find that I've been doing this more and more often now in order to avoid preservatives and all of the other bad stuff that is in almost anything that is not a fresh, raw ingredient.

Lately, for this very reason, I have been obsessively making broth. No, seriously, I've been tending to my broth almost everyday for months now. I have two batches going now, my Chinese pork broth, inspired by Fuchsia Dunlop's recipe for "everyday broth", and my chicken broth, which I use to make chicken soup and as well as flavor a whole slew of dishes, including one of my favorites: roast chicken with gravy.

Dunlop gives us a vivid description of "everyday broth" in her Revolutionary Chinese Cookbook, my favorite cookbook. It is a broth consisting of all sorts of meats, especially pork, which is kept simmering all day everyday. That's right, all day every day. It gets replenished, and it gets used. Street vendors cook street food in their everyday broth, which adds flavor to the meat, and adds some flavor to the broth, sort of a symbiotic relationship between sauce and entree. Dunlop claims that some everyday broths have been sustained for entire lifetimes, up to 50 years of taking some and giving some. And, of course, it is claimed that the older the broth and the longer it has been sustained, the better the flavor.

As for me, I keep mine in the freezer, and I thaw it and give to it and take from it as needed. It is seasoned with a little soy sauce, some fresh ginger, and five spice powder, then I strain it through cheesecloth to keep it nice looking. Add whatever you want though.

One of my favorite things to make with my everyday broth is ramen. Imagine all of the succulent goodness of a Cup Noodles, with none of the MSG and sodium and preservatives and god knows what else. Once you have the broth, it takes about 10 minutes to have a steaming hot bowl of deliciousness.

Freestyle Ramen

Ingredients
2 cups Everyday Broth
1 Leek
Ramen Noodles (any noodles can substitute)
1 Tbsp Soy Sauce per bowl
1 Tbsp Oil
optional: Chili-Garlic Sauce, Radishes, Scallions, Chicken, Pork, Egg, etc.

This recipe should be more inspirational than instructional. The important thing about freestyle ramen is that the broth be homemade. If you haven't already strained your broth, make sure you do so. It really makes the broth look nicer.

Beyond that, all there is to it is heating up your broth to a near boil, cooking your ramen in boiling water (not in the broth!), and slice up your leek. In each bowl, I add a dash of soy sauce, a dash of oil, and a dash of chili-garlic sauce (Sriracha is a fine substitute). Then I put in the leaks and any other fixins that I have lying around that might be good. Then I fill each bowl 3/4 of the way up with cooked ramen noodles. Last, add the broth. You can mix up the bowl a bit then to get the chili sauce and everything evenly distributed. Another way to do it is to add a dollop of Sriracha at the end. This not only flavors the broth, but also makes a nice garnish.

If you are using anything that really needs to be cooked before consuming, make sure you do that before adding it to the bowl. Egg is borderline. If your broth is hot enough, it will probably cook the egg, but it is kind of gross if it doesn't, so better be safe than sorry. If you do add raw egg to it, at least take the egg out of the fridge 20 minutes before using it so that its a little on the warmer side.

Epic Failure, but then Brie

2010-01-11T20:38:00.000-05:00

Since the arrival of our son, dinner has taken on a whole new meaning. At a time that now seems like distant, ancient history, the Mrs. and I would sit at the table over my painstakingly-crafted meal, say grace, and enjoy a fine meal and polite conversation. That was then; this is now. Now we scramble to make sure that both of us actually got to eat dinner. Usually I stuff my half-assed edible concoction into my mouth quick enough to give my baby-mama enough time to eat her food while it is actually hot. We have tried just having dinner while the little one is sleeping, but in a horrible twist of fate, he has taken after his old man and decided that sleep is optional and, to some extent, to be avoided.

That's not to say that I haven't cooked anything. I've made some stuff here and there when I can. But the stakes are higher now. I have to do more with less. Sometimes, it works. As a present to the Mrs., my mom bought her a small wheel of baby brie. It is a guilty pleasure of ours and something that she couldn't have while pregnant. Something about raw milk, I guess. Well, when we decided to have the brie, I couldn't just bake it and leave it at that. I wanted to make it special. And I did. The recipe below is the story of a long awaited wheel of brie, and a sauce made out whiskey and pecans. Hell yes.

But before we get the recipe, I have to confess of my colossal failure in the kitchen the other night. I had a great idea for a food experiment that I thought my wife would like, and that would have made a great post on the blog: Sweet Potato Pierogies. I'd made the dough, run it through my new pasta maker, and shaped some nice sized dumplings of sweet potato, seasoned with nutmeg and cinnamon. Well, I came, I saw, I sucked. What a disaster. Something was wrong with the dough. The memory of chewing and chewing and chewing and chewing on the same piece of pierogi dough is something that will haunt me for at least another hour and a half.

With the pierogies, I baked a Pollok fillet in red wine,some shallots, and garlic. It seemed that the fish cooked, but the wine didn't reduce, the garlic and shallots were almost raw, and none of the flavors melded together at all. What crap. I ended up just fixing up some mac and cheese out of the box to tide us over.

There are fresh new victories in my future. Of this, I am sure. But that night's meal was no such victory. Makes me want to stick my face in some Brie... Mmmmmm..... Brieeeee.

Baked Brie with Whiskey Pecan Sauce

Ingredients
1 shot of bourbon
2 Tsbp butter
1/3 cup of chopped pecans (mortar and pestle will do the trick)
2 Tsbp brown sugar
1 small wheel of brie

Preheat oven to 250 degrees. While the oven is heating up, now is a good time to chop or crush your pecans if they didn't already come that way. I used a mortar and pestle and it worked fine. A big sharp knife would be fine too. Once the oven is pre-heated, put the brie in an oven safe dish or plate and bake for 20 minutes or so. You'll probably notice the top of brie rise up as the cheese on inside melts. I like it super melty, but if you just want it soft, bake for less time.

While the brie is baking, in a small sauce pot melt the butter over low heat. Add bourbon to the melted butter. Once the whiskey starts to boil, whisk the sugar into the mixture. Next add the pecans. Be sure not to over cook, but boil until it is the desired consistency, say 5-10 minutes.

When your brie is baked, pour your sauce over the brie. Serve with crackers or french bread.

Postpartum Christmas

2009-12-29T12:44:00.000-05:00

Long time no post! I know, I know! As you might have guessed by now, the little man with an apron was born. He came home Christmas morning, and is happy, healthy, and HUNGRY!

We opened Christmas presents after we got home from the hospital, but not surprisingly the presents were pretty underwhelming compared to coming home with our baby. Parenthood is kind of like becoming a vampire. I spend a lot of time awake in the night; I'm aware that a very familiar part of my life is now over; but I know that this new state of being has given me some super powers. I am far more efficient now. I was never one for sitting around or not keeping busy before, but now I'm a whirlwind of errand-running, chore completing, home appliance repairing, and diaper changing.

In terms of my foodie life, I continue to need to eat, and I continue to insist on eating good things. So, while I haven't had a chance to bake any more bread, I have made about 5 gallons of sauce, roasted a turkey for (a day late) Christmas dinner, and churned out a steady supply of soup for the Mrs. and my Grandma, who, with 8 siblings and 2 children of her own, has plenty of experience and energy to help us get situated.

I got some pretty cool food related presents, among them a pizza stone, 8" and 6" cast iron skillets, a pasta maker, and two cookbooks, Momofuku and Basic Butchering of Livestock & Game. I'm really pumped try out some Momofuku dishes, and I'll be sure to share pictures and recipes when I do. Admittedly, a book about butchering will cover a lot of things that don't come up for me. For instance, I will likely not slaughter any cattle in my suburban apartment. But I wanted the book to learn about how meat is prepared. Plus there is a recipe for venison pate in there that I'm looking forward to trying.

Last, I have a recipe to share. It's an eggplant parmesan that I've become locally famous for. And by "locally famous" I mean by my friends and family. I like it because if you ever have to deal with vegetarians and omnivores at the same dinner table, this is something that you can serve to everyone without complaint.

As a general rule, I don't like eggplant parm. I find it starchy, difficult to digest, and not particularly tasty whenever I've had it. But this is different. The recipe is my own concoction, developed in an effort to impress my then girlfriend, now wife. She used to be a vegetarian, and suggested that I make eggplant parm. Rather than saying that I didn't like it and didn't know how to make it, I went and did it. It turned out better than anyone else's that I've had.

I say this is my recipe, but it is not as though the ingredients are non-traditional in any way. I think it is the approach to the eggplant that makes it really good.

Before you start though, just a note about the sauce. While I usually make homemade sauce for my eggplant parm, for the most part you can get away with a decent jar sauce. If you do choose to make your own, you'll want to make it a consistency that is similar to store bought. Don't make your sauce too watery, and don't make it too chunky, otherwise the sauce somewhat distracts from the eggplant/cheese interaction. In a bowl of spaghetti, the sauce is the star, but in a plate of eggplant parm, the sauce is a supporting character, and the eggplant and cheese are the stars.

Family-style Eggplant Parmesan

Ingredients
1 large eggplant
About 2-3 quarts of spaghetti sauce
olive oil
canola oil
2 cups of breadcrumbs
3 eggs
1/4 cup milk
1 cup of Parmesan cheese
1 lb. mozzarella cheese

Directions

Skin the eggplant and slice the eggplant longways as thinly as possible. I can't stress how important it is that the eggplant be sliced very thin. That's what makes my eggplant good. In a large bowl, mix the eggs and milk and whisk. Coat the eggplant slices in the egg wash and then coat the eggplant in breadcrumbs by tossing each slice individually in a large bowl of breadcrumbs. You might also add some dried basil and oregano to the breadcrumbs. Be sure to give each eggplant slice individual attention by coating with egg wash, then immediately coating with breadcrumbs. I usually bread the eggplant as space becomes available in the pan, rather than all at once.

Heat a large skillet (or two) on medium heat, add one part olive oil, one part canola oil. Use enough oil to moisten each eggplant slice, but not so much that you're deep frying the eggplant. Be aware that eggplant absorbs liquids, so the eggplant will suck up the oil. This softens the eggplant up, but be careful not to keep too much oil in the pan at once. You'll probably have to add more oil for every five eggplant slices.

Fry eggplant in skillet until golden brown, taking care not to burn the breadcrumbs. While frying the eggplant, preheat the oven for 300 degrees. Put cooked eggplant slices in a large casserole, laying them out in a layer on the bottom of the pan. When the bottom of the pan is covered in a whole layer of eggplant, cover the eggplant with sauce, then cover the sauce with some of the Parmesan cheese, then apply sliced mozzarella cheese on top. Add another layer of eggplant slices on top and repeat until you either run out of eggplant or space in your casserole. When completely assembled, cover in foil and put it in the oven for about 20-30 minutes, long enough to melt all of mozzarella cheese. Serve.

The important thing about the treatment of the eggplant is that you want to really break the eggplant down. You slice it thin, fry it thoroughly, then bake it. By the time you eat the eggplant, you get the flavor of the eggplant, without any of the starchy-ness.

Lost in the Sauce

2009-12-15T16:46:00.000-05:00

Here in New Jersey, Italian-American culture is somewhat ubiquitous. Growing up, I didn't know that most people aren't Italian-American. I just figured I was one of a small minority of non-Italians in the whole country. I never really came to terms with how different that is with the rest of the country until I tried to make Eggplant Parmesan in Texas. Finding Mozzarella cheese was a major ordeal. And, the meal was well-received, but thought to be somewhat exotic. Italian food, exotic? It was an eye-opening experience and made me a little sad to find out that people have been deprived of mozzarella cheese for so long. Then again, it comes right back around because the only place I know of to get really great Mexican food outside of Texas is in Mexico. I'm sure California and Arizona and New Mexico do fine too. Makes me think that there should be some sort of system whereby we send some Italian restaurants down there, and we get some Mexican ones in return.

This past week with me being busy for finals, and the Mrs. patiently waiting for the little man to arrive, I put together a lot of comfort food type dishes. Nothing fancy, but the kind of food that keeps you full and warm. One of my favorites is Lasagna. But we also had a really outstanding Spaghetti and Meatball night recently. On Meatball night, I baked some of the fresh homemade bread dough that I had living in my fridge.

The good news about my bread was that it was beautiful and delicious. The outside had that incredible crunch-crackle sound that only good bread can produce. The bad news is that I still haven't mastered getting it to be as light as a real loaf of french bread. Still beats the store bought stuff though.

So, with all of that said, I wanted to share with you a little bit of New Jersey's home cooking. I saw that the Amateur Gourmet recently gave a recipe for Sunday Gravy, a meaty version of your basic marinara sauce. It goes by a lot of names, but for simplification sake, I generally refer to it as spaghetti sauce (which is made of but not synonymous with tomato sauce). Some people call it gravy. Some people call it Ragu, or Marinara. You can call it whatever you want, but I usually either say red sauce or spaghetti sauce. Or, as my Grandpa used to say, "sketty sauce".

Anyway, Amateur Gourmet just gave you a pretty good sauce recipe, so I'm not going to do that. I wanted to do something a little different. The fact is, you don't really need a recipe for spaghetti sauce. I don't think I've ever actually measured anything while making red sauce. My recipe often consists of whatever I find in my closet and fridge. Sometimes I put wine in it, if I have some open red wine. Sometimes I don't. Sometimes I've got lots of peppers but not enough onions, other times, its the other way around. Either way I'm eating red sauce, and either way I'm putting in whatever I have. Sure I'd prefer to have this or that every time, but red sauce isn't the sort of the thing that I tend to plan out ahead of time. It's just something I throw together on a Sunday afternoon.

Instead of a recipe, I'm going to go over some basic principles that you should know about making the sauce. These are either common pitfalls, or little tricks that I've learned, or suggestions to make the sauce better. Much of it is common sense, but if you think I've missed anything, that's what comments are for.

1) The better your ingredients, the better your sauce.

Ok, this might be fairly obvious and truly does apply to all cooking, not just sauce. I bring it up though to remind you to try to strike the right balance between quality and price. Don't just buy a jar of pre-minced garlic, some dried out basil, and expect to have a noteworthy red sauce. You won't. But, on the other hand, we could blow $50 on red sauce ingredients if you got the best tomatoes in the store and had everything fresh and perfect. I don't think you want to do that either. You don't need organic shallots in your red sauce. Onions are just fine.

2) Don't use a cooking wine that you wouldn't drink yourself.

If you have "cooking wine" from the supermarket in your house right now, I want you to open up the bottle, and pour yourself a nice big glass of it. Have a sip. Disgusting, yeah? Why would you put that in your food if you can't stand the taste of it? I guess we're back to balancing quality ingredients, but this just had to be pointed out. Buy a bottle of red wine that is less than $10, and use that.

3) Treat your garlic the way you want to be treated.

Ever see the movie Goodfellas? There are a couple of lessons to learn about making sauce from that movie. First. Do you see those guys with a jar of pre-minced garlic? Hell no. They have fresh garlic, and they chop it really thin with a razor blade. They take pride in their garlic. They treat their garlic the way that they hope the garlic will treat them: with kindness and respect. You don't have to use a razor blade to chop your garlic, but chop it fine and with love. The Second sauce lesson from Goodfellas is my number 4 on this list.

Another pearl of garlic wisdom is that, like many ingredients in the sauce, they change character the longer they are cooked. Garlic is typically sauteed first as one of the first few steps of making a sauce. I do that too. But, I also chop up a little more garlic after the sauce has been cooking for a while. This garlic has more bite to it. The original garlic that you've added becomes a part of the character of the sauce, and has almost a smokiness to it. The second batch of garlic bites a little bit more and says, "Hi!, There's garlic in this!" You want to give it time to cook, so it won't be like eating raw garlic, but the second batch of garlic is just a little more awake than its long simmering brethren. Of course, if you don't care for garlic, don't bother with the second batch.

4) Stir-it, then Stir-it. Then Stir-it more.

The second Goodfellas sauce lesson is from the scene where Henry is being followed by the helicopter, making a drug run, and worrying about the sauce getting stirred. A good red sauce takes time. It would be a shame to put all that time in your sauce only to get a burnt flavor permeating the whole thing just because you didn't stir it. So, no joke. Stir the sauce. Otherwise, you'll be sorry.

When I start my sauce, I have all of my vegetables ready for sauteing. Prep comes first so that I am free to stir and stir and stir my veggies without risk of burning them.

5) Add your herbs and spices last.

There is a temptation to throw in all of your tomatoes and onions and garlic, then add basil, oregano, and whatever other herbs you plan on using. But save the best for last. Remember I said that garlic changes its character after cooking for a very long time? Well, so do herbs and seasonings. The flavor tends to die out after being cooked for very long. It's the difference between a raw chili pepper and a slow roasted one. Basil and Oregano are no different. If you cook them all day, their flavor will be significantly diminished. This seems to be more true of fresh herbs too. Dried herbs first seem to re-constitute, then eventually diminish too, but their sweet spot is a bit later than the fresh stuff.

6) Tomato Sauce vs. Tomato Paste vs. Crushed Tomatoes vs. Fresh Tomatoes

Always add fresh tomatoes if you can, but you can't, it is not the end of the world. You can still have a pretty good sauce with just the canned stuff. But, first you gotta know what all the canned stuff is. Tomato Sauce is a thin sauce that is very similar to the consistency of V8 juice. You can use this as your base, but you will need to thicken it up quite a bit. Tomato Paste is what you use to thicken the sauce. It is, you guessed it, a paste. A little goes a long way, and it needs to be stirred in order to meld with the sauce.

I rarely use tomato sauce in my red sauce, and instead opt for a combination of fresh tomatoes and a couple cans of "crushed tomatoes". Crushed tomatoes have a slightly chunkier consistency and make the sauce feel more like homemade than regular tomato sauce. I also puree some fresh tomatoes as the first ingredient after the sauteed veggies. With all of these tomatoes, but especially the fresh ones, you have to cook them for many hours in order to reduce their acidity. Don't even taste your sauce until you've been cooking it for at least a couple hours.

Both crushed tomatoes and fresh tomatoes tend to release a lot of water. This is what tomato paste is for. You add it and your sauce is less watery.

7) Meat? Yes. Or not.

Sausage, Meatballs, Pork ribs, Veal Shoulder, whatever. These are all great in your sauce. Try whatever you like. I usually just go with turkey sausage and turkey meatballs. You really can't go wrong.

Vegetarian? Add mushrooms, try eggplant. Zucchini has been done successfully.

8) Tomorrow is another day... to eat sauce.

Make as much of this stuff in one batch as you possibly can. It lasts a long time, can be frozen, can be used on a number of different recipes, and takes a long time to make. But best of all, magically, red sauce is always better the next day. After it has had some time to sit and mingle with itself your sauce will be even more fantastic than it was when you first tried it.

9) Ask your guests how they like it.

Everybody has different ideas about what red sauce should be and how they like it. I like a red sauce that you could pour into a bowl and eat by itself, very thick with lots of peppers, onions, garlic, and meat. The mrs. likes a less chunky, more pasty sauce. Others like a watery sauce. If you're having guests and plan on making some sauce for the occasion, ask them how they like it. Use tomato paste accordingly.

10) There is no wrong way.

Sure, it's possible to screw up red sauce. But there is no right or wrong way to make it. There is always some Italian guy who says "mutz-za-rel" instead of mozzarella and "mani-got" instead of manicotti and will tell you that the only way to make Italian food the right way is to make it the way that his grandma from Avellino used to make it. But, that's all wrong. Sunday Gravy is more about Sunday, spending time with family, than it is about gravy. The sauce is just something that brings you all together. If you like it, you made it right.

Beans are kind of like Meat

2009-12-10T10:29:00.000-05:00

People think I am meat obsessed. They are right. But, that doesn't mean I can't enjoy a fine vegetarian meal. Just not everyday please. The problem is that while I will eat nearly anything with fins or feet, my wife doesn't. We eat a lot of chicken at home, and quite a bit of turkey too. But, for the most part, beef and pork aren't what's for dinner at our house.

Most days I can live with that, but sometimes I feel like if I have to eat one more chicken I might explode. It's gets old, even if you love chicken. So, I'm always struggling to find stuff to cook that can break up the monotony without having to make two separate meals. Enter kidney beans.

Kidney beans have significant amounts of protein, which is important both for big men in aprons as well as pregnant women (we have one of each in our house). And, of course, they have no cholesterol and are high in fiber, which regulates blood-sugar, keeps you full longer, and is just all around good for you. Oh, and by the way, they taste pretty damn good.

So, I throw tofu into the mix sometimes to get us away from poultry for a day, and occasionally I just make a vegetable pasta dish, but right now I'm really into trying to find more uses for kidney beans, since they seem to pack a lot of nutritional punch and can be used in some dishes where tofu isn't appropriate. In general, I find that tofu is great when it's done well, but it's very easy to do poorly and that just makes me want to eat the chef who served it. Total dinner guest faux pas.

So, I've already given you a pork and bean noodle dish. But I think this one is better, and it has no meat in it. It is inspired by Orangette's recent recipe for Tagliatelle alla Romagnola, which is essentially pasta, butter, Parmesan, and prosciutto. I was so excited that Orangette had posted something and I really wanted to try it out, but I needed to find something to replace the prosciutto. I also had some leeks that were getting to the "love 'em or leave 'em" phase of our relationship.

Anyway, this dish could be served hot, as I did serve it, or it could be chilled and eaten as a salad. Then again, at 39 degrees outside right now, chilled pasta might not be at the forefront of your priorities right now.

Kidney Beans and Ziti in Butter

Ingredients
1/2 lb. uncooked Ziti
5 Tsbp Butter (4 Tsbp to melt with the pasta, 1 Tsbp to saute the garlic and beans)
1 Tsbp fresh chopped basil
4 Cloves of fresh chopped garlic
1/2 cup of coarsely chopped Leeks
1 15oz. can of Kidney Beans
Grated Parmesan Cheese to taste
Salt and Pepper to taste

Boil a pot of water. You can chop your garlic, leeks, and basil as well as drain and rinse the beans during the time the water is heating up. When the water is near boiling, melt butter in a pan over medium heat. As soon as the butter is mostly melted, add the garlic. Be sure not to let the butter get too hot before adding the garlic, otherwise it will burn. Stir the garlic into the butter for about 1 minute. Add Leeks, stir and cook for about 2 minutes. Add the beans, stir gently and cook for about 5 minutes. By the time you've added the beans, your water should be boiling and ready for the ziti. The ziti is best served al dente, so give it about 6-7 minutes in rapidly boiling water, uncovered in the pot.

When the ziti is ready, drain thoroughly and return to the pot. Put the pot on low heat and add the mixture of beans, garlic, and leeks. Also add the chopped basil and 4 Tsbp of butter at this time. Stir the pot gently, making sure to coat all of the pasta with melting butter, while taking care not to crush the soft kidney beans. As soon as the butter is completely melted, it is ready to serve. Best to serve immediately, since this dish is light and doesn't retain heat the way a heavier dish might.

Add Parmesan if desired. I didn't, but it would be good either way. Resist the urge to add more vegetables or ingredients. The beauty of this recipe is its simplicity. It's nice to actually taste the beans and the leeks. They both have a lot of flavor to contribute that would be drowned out if you added too many other ingredients. Serves 4.

Hunkering Down

2009-12-05T21:58:00.000-05:00

Somehow there is a lot to report, but not much that has gone on of late. We're still waiting for baby to introduce himself to the world. Not yet at the due date, but close enough to keep a close vigil for signs of the little man with an apron.

In the meantime, I'm cooking as usual. I guess I should have already mixed the bread dough if I was planning on putting it in the fridge overnight tonight, but I always like to think there is tomorrow for these things. It is officially exam season in law school, so while I tend to have very little time to mess around in the kitchen, I do get the benefit of not having to be in class during the day. Sometimes that results in a little extra time here and there.

This weekend, the Mrs. and I went to the Christmas tree lighting in Montclair, New Jersey, where we live. Afterward, we went to our new favorite pizza spot, Leone's. I swear it had a website not long ago, but I can't seem to find it now. You'd be surprised to find out that even though we live in an area that is choc full of Italian-Americans, it can still be challenging to get a truly good pizza. Too many places serve some doughy pizza-like substance. Not to mention, we're surrounded by Papa John's and Dominos. "Better Ingredients" my ass. The Papa delivers up MSG and partially-hydrogenated oil in his garlic dipping sauce and dressings.

So, imagine my delight when we discovered that a restaurant sitting on our list of those to check out in our fair city turned out to have awesome pizza. No kidding. Really awesome pizza. So, after the tree lighting, we went to Leone's for a pizza and some calamari. Their calamari was surprisingly good too. I prefer my calamari with spicy asian sauce, but they have a garlic-bomb marinara that while difficult to digest, was an absolute joy to consume.

On the home front, I've been toying around with a few ideas, and I might as well share a recipe for one of them. It's not perfect, but it was tasty.

Remember the roast pork I wrote about in my first post? I had lots of fun coming up with all sorts of ways to eat the leftovers. But, like any resourceful person, I also froze some for a rainy day (or in this case, rainy/snow).

So, while in mood for some of that delicious pork, I used the last of it for this Pork and Beans dish that I dreamed up. It came to me as many good things do, while flipping through the pages of Fuchsia Dunlop's Revolutionary Chinese Cookbook. If I could only bring one book to a desert island, and that desert island was well stocked with chickens, pigs, chili peppers and shao tsing wine, then this would be my one book.

Not to say that this recipe is in the book. It's not. But I just sort of flip through and close my eyes and get my imagination working. I look really silly when I do it. Also, the pictures have navy beans in the dish in addition to kidney beans. They were tasty too, but they didn't hold up to the stirring quite as well, so I didn't include it in the recipe. You could use black beans or any other beans you want for that matter.

Pork and Beans Noodle

Ingredients
2 cups of cooked roast pork, preferably leftovers, cut into bite size pieces
1 can of kidney beans
1/4 cup of shao tsing wine
1/4 soy sauce
2 cups of water or stock
2 Tbsp of Garlic Chili Sauce
1/2 cup of chopped leaks
5 garlic cloves, minced
2 Tsbp fresh ginger, minced
2 Tsbp fresh Basil, course chopped
1/2 lb. Shandong Ramen noodles
1/4 cup peanut oil

Boil water in a large pot first. When water is close to a boil, warm up a large wok or skillet on high heat. Add peanut oil and swirl to cover inside of wok. Add pork after the pan is warmed up a bit but before the pan gets extremely hot. Stir in the pan to coat pork with oil. Gently stir in beans, taking care not to crush or misshape too many of the beans. Put noodles in boiling water. Add garlic, ginger, leaks, and chili sauce. Stir gently. Add wine and soy sauce. Stir gently to coat all ingredients with wine and soy sauce. Don't let the mixture sit in the wok too long for any given time, be sure to stir often. After 8 minutes boiling ramen, strain the ramen noodles. Add the noodles, the water or stock, and the basil to the wok. Stir gently so that all of the indregients are mixed together, and the water in the wok is boiling hard. Turn off heat, continue to stir for another 2 minutes. Serve hot.