The Good, The Bad, The Marty

Jonesing

noreply@blogger.com (Marty) — Thu, 04 Apr 2013 23:33:00 +0000

Four days of veganism and things are going fine. At the very least, wracking my brains for meal ideas has made me more conscious about what I eat. I have to actually consider the entire contents of my fridge and think about what might sate me, whereas before I'd just grab the nearest block of cheese and build a meal around that because I knew that it would sate me.

I don't want to use fake cheese and meat products to fool myself that nothing's changed but I still have cravings for many of their taste constituencies, namely mouth feel and umami. The two sort of go hand in hand in that glutamates stimulate our umami receptors which registers a savory, full taste in our brains. These glutamates can be created when proteins break down through aging and fermentation. Thus, aged cheeses, cured meats and fish sauce are excellent for satisfying umami cravings.

The Hunt
Since all three are off my current food list, I have to find my fix elsewhere. Here's a fun source: Sauerkraut! The basic idea is to take some shredded cabbage with some salt and put it in an oxygen-free environment for a few days so it can undergo lacto fermentation. The preserving process makes it sour and umami-licious (a term that will henceforth never be used in this blog).

I actually have a big 8-gallon ceramic water-sealed fermenting pot which works great but it's hard for one person to eat gallons of sauerkraut. I had this idea to use beer brewing air-locks with 1-quart Ball jars for smaller batches. Sure enough, people on the web have already done this. You can be up and running for under 20 bucks and it works like a charm - pickles, kraut, kimchi, etc.

This is the easiest way to get into DIY/homesteading/preserving. Set it and forget it. I highly recommend it. My current favorite is sauerkraut with mustard seeds.

The Chinese Deliver
Asians know how to find their glutamates. Fish sauce and dashi are classic sources as are many preserved soy products. One of my favorites is preserved chili soy bean paste. Small blocks are brined in glass jars. It has the texture of smooth mascarpone but tastes like salty, aged gym socks.

But it's delicious on rice or added to a braise. Today I had a sauteed vegetable and lentil wrap and where I would have put cheese and mayo, I put in a streak of bean paste on the tortilla and it was spectacular. Suffice it to say, a little goes a long way.

Another product that I've been reading more and more about is mushroom powder.

It consists of mushroom extracts and salt and is used in place of MSG. Mushrooms have a lot of glutamic acid so it's basically the same thing except it has a mushroomy flavor. So while most vegetable stocks are pallid substitutes for chicken stock, vegetable stock with mushroom powder is a formidable player. Soups, stews, popcorn, risotto, etc.

Only Temporary

Yes, it seems like vegan folly to compare salted cabbage to a slice of Parmesan Reggiano, but keep in mind, this is just a one-month experiment to broaden my palate. Not shut off parts completely. Look out, Prosciutto di Parma. I'll be back.

A Philosophical Question

noreply@blogger.com (Marty) — Wed, 03 Apr 2013 04:19:00 +0000

Is a pizza without cheese still a pizza?

A Month of Gustatory Austerity - Not an April Fool's Joke

noreply@blogger.com (Marty) — Tue, 02 Apr 2013 01:02:00 +0000

A year and a half ago, or so, I made an informal pledge to not bring non-aquatic meat in my house. It was not an easy choice as I love to eat and cook meat, but the reasons were too overwhelming: ecological, dietary, ethical, food costs, pigs are cute, etc. But I'm also a hypocrite, since I will eat meat at restaurants or friends' houses.

Initially, I felt healthier and smugger as I lost a bit of weight. But that trend sort of plateaued and reversed itself as I made excuses to eat out at pork dumpling restaurants and taquerias and developed a habit of adding molten chunks of cheese to everything I cook. Combine that with a steady stream of booze and an aging metabolism and suddenly I'm back up to here:

This puts my Body Mass Index (BMI) at 27.2, i.e., "overweight." In order to be of "normal weight," I should be around 15 pounds lighter, according to the National Institutes of Health.

The problem is that I don't really think about what I put in my mouth. When I make a meal, I instinctively go for hearty things like pastas and stews and greasy fried things accompanied by fistfuls of cheese and glasses of wine. Salads never even cross my mind.

I need to break the habit.

According to self-help lore, habits can be broken in around 30 days, so that's what I'm going to try: train my body to crave healthier foods. Here are the rules:

this applies only for the month of April
a completely vegan diet
nothing deep fried
no added sugar
no booze
no sugar substitutes (I'm talking to you, Crystal Light)
no meat analogs (texurized vegetable protein, faux ground meats, etc.)
no fake cheese (easily done since they all suck)
no fast food, vegan or not

I'm not expecting miracles, but we'll see what happens. This past weekend, I tried to prime my body to make it ready for a healthy change. This process consisted of eating four pizzas, cooking a fantastic grass-fed filet mignon that had been sitting in my freezer for two years (and thus grandfathered past my no-meat pledge) and downing a few bottles of wine. My liver wasn't happy, but the rest of me enjoyed it.

Next, I'll talk cooking strategies.

What I Learned over Winter Break

noreply@blogger.com (Marty) — Mon, 07 Jan 2013 21:47:00 +0000

Okay, it's been more than awhile since I posted, but it's not like anybody reads this. Also, this post will be uncharacteristically devoid of photography as the meal to which it refers was too stupendous to waste time with snapping photos.

At a party this past fall, a friend - let's call him Bill as that's his name - and I were discussing our mutual love of raw oysters. In a boozy, gregarious mood, I proposed that we have a night where we buy a few dozen oysters from the farmer's market and share them with a couple friends. At the next get together a month later, I said, "We still have to do that oyster night," and offered to steam a couple crabs and make clam chowder. Bill offered to make scampi.

At the next shindig, Michael and Cristina were included in the oyster-fest equation which now had a date, January 6. They are germane to the discussion because they are restauranteurs - like badass restauranteurs. They offered to buy the seafood for Crustacean Celebration (CC) through their wholesaler. Seemed sensible until I called Michael to place the order, which went a little something like this:

Me: So, I was going to make clam chowder, steam some Dungeness crab and Bill's making scampi.

Michael: O.K. So how about 15 pounds of cherrystone clams, 10 pounds of U12 shrimp, I'll bring some littlenecks to eat raw...how many crabs? Eight?

Me: ...um...that seems like a lot of...

Michael: Fine, five pounds of shrimp. Six crabs.

Me: ...Sure?

Michael: I'll bring over scallops, too.

Me: And I'll go to the Hollywood farmers' market to get the oysters.

Michael: O.K. So I'll just bring over six dozen Kumamotos.

Me: There are only going to be 12 of us.

Michael: Look, Marty: You can eat a dozen oysters in your sleep. Whatever we shuck will get eaten. Trust me.

Lesson One: Trust the Master.
It was a little intimidating cooking clam chowder for the first time for a chef about to open his second restaurant, a high-end seafood shack serving three types of chowder, but I had committed to the dish before I knew that. When I went to pick up the seafood from the restaurant the day before CC, Michael gave me the two-minute rundown:

Put the clams in the freezer for an hour to kill them to make them easier to open
Save the clam juice and store the shucked meat in the fridge
Make the soup the night before so the flavor penetrates the (Idaho) potatoes
Use bottled clam juice if you want - it's a good product
Serve heavy cream (reduced by half) on the side so people can have creamy chowder if they want
Just before service, chop the raw clams into the reheated soup so they don't get overcooked
Don't add flour, the starch from the potatoes will thicken the soup

This technique is fantastic and works with about any recipe. The fresh brininess of the clams shines through and even with cream, the soup stays light. The only difference was I had already bought Yukon Golds as per the Bon Appetit recipe I was using, but taters are taters, right?

Lesson Two: Knife Skills
Apparently, it's not enough to stick a clam in the freezer for an hour to kill it. Cherrystone clams are resilient creatures. Even though they had reached 26 degrees, they still hadn't died. They needed to freeze and thus refused to succumb to my pryings. That I was using a butter knife might also have been a problem. Thankfully, Bill and his wife brought a clam shucking knife which saved the chowder.

But I did feel like a badass with my bona fide oyster shucking knife. You just pop the tip into the hinge of the shell, lean into it and pray it doesn't slip and sever an artery, which is why they make them dull. Michael brought his own shucker, which was sharp enough to cut paper. He was popping open oysters like a Frat brother opens beer cans. It was a frightening blade, but really it makes sense since it gets into the gap so much more efficiently. Just like with regular cutting, a sharper, more effective knife will reduce the incidence of injury.

Michael and I both brought mignonette sauce and I was humbled once more. His shallots were chopped in perfect 1 mm x 1 mm squares while mine - which I had been proud of - looked they had been savaged by a cross-eyed psychopath. The divide between the professional from the enthusiast is vast.

Lesson Three: Trade Secrets
Despite feeling hopelessly incompetent, I was still eager to learn:

A shrimp boil is a misnomer. I tossed the giant shrimp into hot broth and turned off the heat. They will cook at 140 degrees or so. I sort of forgot about them but when I served them fifteen minutes later, they were perfectly cooked, moist and firm.

It was fine to store the crabs in the cooler overnight covered with wet newspaper and a couple ice cubes. 36 hours later, they were alive, albeit slow.

After you shuck an oyster, flip it with a cleaned knife so that the belly is on top. It's purtier that way.

Fresh is better (duh). Michael brought these scallops attached to their shell that were so fresh, when you flicked them, the muscle contracted. He painted them lightly with butter then grilled them face down. He then flipped them finishing them with a bit of butter, lemon and pimenton. The best scallop I've ever eaten.

A New Annual Tradition
Under the guidance of a master, CC was a massive success. Everything was delicious and all the oysters were, indeed, consumed. Cristina suggested we do this every year and even proposed a springtime Fin Festival (FF) where we charter a fishing boat and only cook what fish we caught that day. We shall see how that works out for a motion sickness-prone land lubber like me.

During post-feast poker, the one thing I lamented was that the chowder was on the thin side to which Michael responded, "I told you to use Idaho potatoes. You should have listened to me."

Plasma Mary

noreply@blogger.com (Marty) — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 02:13:00 +0000

Yeah, it's been awhile. But there you are.

I had a modest harvest of tomatoes this year, which for a single person is a cornucopia. With some of my extra pineapple tomatoes (sweet and flavorful with good acidity), I made a tomato water. I blended them, squeezed the juice through cheesecloth and then skimmed off the clear part after it settled in the fridge.

Then I added horseradish, Tabasco, Worcestershire and salt along with some ice and Sapphire gin. Stirred and strained and voila! A new style of bloody mary that is super-tomato-y but is super clean and light tasting. Quite spectacular.

Anyone have ideas how to make it even clearer?

I supposed if I were to do it right, I should coat the glass rim with celery salt. Next time.

The Next Big Thing (to bitch about)

noreply@blogger.com (Marty) — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 21:25:00 +0000

Because the world needs another Korean taco truck

It’s always fun to rant about the latest food crazes. A decade ago there was welcome backlash against stuffed crust pizza, Asian fusion and the Atkins diet. Today journalist, Jacquelynn D. Powers, railed against the newest trends and she makes some good points:

Food trucks – Here’s she’s spot on. A truck is an easy way to break into the food service business and it’s supposed to be cheap for us gourmands. But when you’ve got places like the Border Grill truck selling tacos for three bucks a pop and Mandoline Grill selling six dollar banh mi, I’m out. I can go down the street and get better tacos and banh mi for $1.25 and $3.55, respectively. Plus I can sit down at a table like a dignified human being and have access to indoor plumbing.
Bacon – Do I want bacon ice cream or bacon martinis? Not really. Would I be happy eating bacon every day? Absolutely.
Truffle oil – I love truffle oil. It’s such a distinctive and earthy flavor that can add amazing dimension to dishes. But chefs these days go way overboard, sprinkling it on fries and mac & cheese, just to inject some exoticism. Lazy. Ironically, almost all truffle oils are made synthetically.
Cupcakes – I don’t know what the big deal here is. Cupcakes are tasty and easy to serve. Just don't give me one with bacon in it.
Farm to table backlash – Powers seems to be upset that restaurants are co-opting the phrase without delivering the goods. I don’t know if this so much a food trend as everyday food marketing strategy. Just like food labeled “all-natural” doesn’t mean anything, “sustainable” and “farm-to-table” doesn’t mean anything.
Sliders – I’m indifferent about tiny burgers. If it means I can have more variety on the plate and they’re made well, then sure. Why not?

A real food truck

But while it’s easy to bash culinary fads, they exist for a reason. I have fond memories of eating tacos in the wee hours on the streets of Highland Park. I made a lackluster squash soup that came to life when I drizzled in a bit of truffle oil. Good food is good food.

The "It" chef

I’m sure it’s only a matter of days before we see David Chang-inspired food on every menu. I’m sure it’ll become tiresome, but that won’t change the fact that David Chang is an awesome, innovative chef. But I am curious: What current eating trends do you find especially annoying?

Food Nerdism on the Cheap

noreply@blogger.com (Marty) — Sun, 20 Jun 2010 23:08:00 +0000

Dave Arnold and Nils Norén teach cooking and food science at the French Culinary Institute and are uber-nerds. Though they bristle at the term “molecular gastronomy” – Arnold said in an interview, “Either every [chef] is manipulating molecules or no one is.” – it’s the easiest way to classify their work.

Arnold earned a degree in philosophy from Yale and Masters from Columbia but chose instead to geek out with old lab equipment he bought on eBay doing things like distilling individual flavors from complex ingredients like celery, basil or chocolate, slow poaching meats in tepid water baths for hours at a time or making ice cream from liquid nitrogen. In 2005, he was hired as the director of culinary technology at the FCI to essentially codify the avant-garde ciusine pioneered by chefs like Ferran Adrià, José Andrés and Wylie Dufresne. A year later, Swedish chef, Nils Norén was hired on as
Vice President of Culinary and Pastry Arts.

Jimmy Fallon - less annoying than I thought he'd be

They were on the TV a few nights ago. Watch the video and you’ll see why their stuff is so cool – they make food fanciful without being too fancy. The problem is that the equipment they use is prohibitively expensive for the home cook. For instance, a sous-vide set-up – an immersion circulator that heats water at ultra precise temperatures for cooking food in plastic bags – would cost at least a grand. There is a home machine on the market but it’s still five hundred bucks and would eat up a third of my counter space.

The SousVide Supreme

But I was intrigued by the quick pickling rig they had where they made instant martini cucumbers. The basic concept is you take a vegetable that has a lot of air packed in its cells and subject it to a vacuum while in a flavored solution, i.e., gin and vermouth. Within seconds, the air comes out and when depressurized, gets replaced by the flavor bath – instant pickle.
On sale for $1,099 at Cabela's

I spent a couple hours looking at equipment online and the good vacuum sealers and chambers all start at $1,200 and are huge. The only other option was using a marinating attachment with one of those food bagging things, but it’s not nearly as good and it still costs a lot and takes up valuable space.

Luckily, I stumbled upon a YouTube video where Dave Arnold shows a down and dirty method for doing the same thing with a syringe. I just happened to have a 60ml syringe around (don’t ask) and decided to try it out.

Make sure no air bubbles are in the syringe
I started with a very dirty martini. I figured the olive brine would add some needed salt. I put it in the syringe body with a couple slices of Persian cucumber and, with my thumb on the squirty part, I pulled out the plunger (keeping it pointed down so the cukes stay in the martini liquid).

Keep it pointed down

You can see the air bubbles expanding out of the slices; it just takes a few seconds. Sure enough, the final result tastes like a dirty martini and has almost all of the crispness of a fresh sliced cucumber.

Before and after

I tried the same with just a straight vinegar brine and it made a tasty pickle. Eating Granny Smith slices pickled in a cinnamon-sugar-lemon liquid was like eating a crispy slice of apple pie. I imagine that you could do it with any fruit or vegetable that can be eaten raw and floats (i.e., contains air). Watermelon rind, zucchini, carrots, onions, jicama, etc.

It doesn't actually shrink that much. The slice on the left is just bigger.

Obviously the downside is that you can only do a few slices at a time and they have to be small enough to fit in the syringe. More importantly, what would you use this for? I dunno. Culinary curiosity? Garnish for a dish? When you’re short on time and need a couple tiny pickles? Maybe a tray of cocktailed pickles? Imagine infusing fruits and vegetables with gimlets, martinis, whiskey sours, etc. Kinda sexy.

I’ll admit that a lot of the stuff Arnold and Norén do, like enzymatically peeling a grapefruit, seems like overkill, but it is all done in pursuit of creating delicious things in a creative way, which is the goal of any chef. I bow to them. Check out their awesome blog.

Seminal Dry Salsa

noreply@blogger.com (Marty) — Sat, 05 Jun 2010 04:13:00 +0000

So congratulations to Nina Garcia, owner of Nina’s Food, the roach coach that won this year’s L.A. Vendy Awards. What was critical to her unanimous approval, according to judge Evan Kleiman, was her dry salsa. Tasting Table was gracious enough to disseminate her recipe for said seed salsa.
The initial chiles (arbol)
Essentially what you do is fry some dried chiles in peanut oil, take the chiles out, toast a bunch of nuts and seeds in the pan, add back the now crushed chiles with some salt, and voila! Seed salsa.
The crushed peanuts and raw pumpkin, sunflower and sesame seeds
In my case, I didn’t have time to hunt down black sesame seeds (which taste essentially the same as white sesame seeds) but then felt the urge to add in some sunflower seeds, which seemed like they’d add a lot more variation in flavor than black sesame seeds.
The finished toasty product
Mine turned out great, if I say so myself. I had scoops of it on quesadillas, on its own, on grilled fish, etc. It’s wildly versatile and it shore looks purty on a plate.
How to make a pedestrian quesadilla…less pedestrian.
Like mole (which is also heavily seed/nut influenced), you could add any variety of nuts, seeds, herbs or dry chiles to accent your dry salsa. Why not cumin? Maybe epazote. Cashews. Toss in a crushed chipotle chile. Raisins. My point is it’s a very forgiving recipe and I’m sure that Ms. Garcia has her own secret touches she didn’t let the Tasting Table in on. Heck, I even added a squeeze of lemon to my concoction for a little acidic kick. I also added more seed and nut to dampen the heat. My arbols were hotter than I anticipated. Ha. “That’s what she said.”

MFC

noreply@blogger.com (Marty) — Wed, 19 May 2010 21:24:00 +0000

Today KFC announced that it would be extending selling its deep-fried meatfest, the Double Down, “for as long as customer demand remains high.” They expect to sell their 10 millionth breadless sandwich by the end of the month. I actually have no opinion about this; I am neither disgusted nor am I more curious about trying one.

It’s really not that surprising that something that combines cheese, bacon, mayonnaise and breaded goodness into one handy package would become a success. It’s basically a fistful of comfort food. I thought I’d try my own version without resorting to an obvious (and admittedly tasty) crutch as bacon. My version takes a much more subtle tack by substituting a thick slab of macaroni and cheese.

In prep, I made a pan of the custard-based mac and cheese I blogged about before. One advantage of this style versus the béchamel style is that it holds its shape when jammed in between two pieces of fried chicken.

I used the hand blender to make some mayonnaise (egg yolk, vinegar, salt, pepper, mustard powder – pour in canola oil while blending until it looks like Hellman’s) and then blended in some red pepper topping and a few dashes of chipotle powder. It’s really, really tasty.
Possibly the best part of the sandwich

Lastly, I pounded some (free-range organic) chicken thighs until they were flattish in between plastic wrap. I prefer thighs because they are more flavorful and juicy.
Poultry abuse therapy

Come fry time, I seasoned the thighs first with my version of 11 (more like 6) herbs and spices and then dipped them in buttermilk before dredging them in lightly salted flour and baking powder (1 tsp/cup of flour).

Then I just fried them in an inch of peanut oil, turning them a couple of times until they looked like…well, like something from KFC. Then I drained them and sprinkled on a bit of extra seasoning.
What isn't good deep-fried?

Assembly is pretty obvious. I suppose I could have added a couple slices of bacon and cheese, but I felt that would have pushed my “sandwich” from somewhat outrageous to wanton gluttony. Instead I added a side of collard greens to give the illusion of a balanced meal and to add some Southern cred.
Not easy to eat in the car. Oh well.

So how’d I do? What would you like to see sandwiched between two breasts? I have some ideas, myself. It’s impossible to write about the Double Down without resorting to such obvious jokes so I will not apologize. But seriously, if there's anything you want me to make, deep-fried or not, lemme know.

It Is Your Fault

noreply@blogger.com (Marty) — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 20:05:00 +0000

A fellow culinary adventurer, Dan, and I frequently head to the San Gabriel Valley for Chinese food. But it’s almost impossible to have an entire meal without encountering cilantro, which Dan cannot tolerate in any capacity. Even when we ask for its omission in dishes, about half of the time, it manages to appear on our plates. Dan cannot even stand to have cilantro-laced dishes near him at the table, his revulsion is so great. I understand. As a child, I thought that cilantro was the plant from where Ajax cleanser was derived. It wasn’t until I was an adult that I began to appreciate its herbaceous glory.

I suspect this has been Photoshopped
Yesterday, Harold McGee explored the biochemical explanations of why people hate Coriandrum sativum to the level that has inspired websites like bancilantro.com and Facebook groups like “I Hate Cilantro.”

Dan believes his intolerance is due to a genetic predisposition, which seems to fit with most people’s love-it-or-hate-it attitude towards cilantro, but McGee says that there isn’t a wealth of data yet that support this claim. He goes on to explain how the herb's soapy aroma could trigger a brain response that perceives it as a threat. “We react strongly and throw the offending ingredient on the floor where it belongs.”

Researcher Jay Gottfried on a cilantro high
He cites the work of Jay Gottfried, a Northwestern University smell-ologist and ex-cilantro hater. Through frequent exposure with good food, he found, “I began to like cilantro. It can still remind me of soap, but it’s not threatening anymore…”
Get excited, Dan!
So, despite the article’s headline, it is your fault, Dan. You need to expose yourself to more and more cilantro until you love it. Jeffrey Steingarten did that with all the foods he disliked to become a food writer. Initially, I couldn’t stand beer, but after repeated and multiple exposures, I developed a grudging tolerance for the sudsy stuff. To this day, I regularly ingest pints of ale and lager, stout and pilsner, hoping to my tolerance will evolve into love. So, Dan: if I continue to work on my beer issues, will you work on your cilantro issues?

U.S.A.! U.S.A.!

noreply@blogger.com (Marty) — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 19:53:00 +0000

The Colbert Report

Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c

Thought for Food - Mentally Ill Advertisers & German Cupcakes

www.colbertnation.com

Colbert Report Full Episodes

Political Humor

Fox News

Everybody’s been talking about the new KFC Double Down, the sandwich that epitomizes American deep-fried decadence. In lieu of bread, the sandwich uses two pieces of battered or grilled chicken breasts to hold together two slices of bacon, two slices of cheese and a mayonnaise-based sauce. Stephen Colbert called the concoction, “The warped creation of a syphilitic brain,” but then one bite later said, “Call me crazy but this is good.” It’s been getting huge press and I’m sure sales among carnivorous stoners have been brisk but how obscene is it really?

Fast food tester: my dream job
Consumer Reports said it was salty and with 1380 mg of sodium (half of your recommended daily intake), it is. But surprisingly – for the fast food world – it’s not off-the-charts fattening. It has the same number of calories as a Big Mac (540) and about the same amount of fat (32 grams vs. the Big Mac’s 29).
Leftover prop from a David Cronenberg film
There’s a worse culprit I learned of thanks to snippets.com. The Claim Jumper franchise, whose 45 restaurants are scattered throughout the West Coast and some of the Midwest, offers Beef Back Ribs on their menu that pack in a stunning 4,301 calories and 7,623 mg of sodium. That’s without sides.
In-N-Out's chef d'oeuvre - 4x4 animal style (a mere 1,050 calories)
Even on the road trip where I ate an In-N-Out 4x4 and a Double Double (essentially 6 patties, 6 slices of cheese), I didn’t reach half the caloric value of those ribs. They must be awesome! (Yelp members have informed me that, in fact, they range from “good” and “better than average” to “underdone” and “dry…been on the desert floor for years”)
This is more fattening than the 4x4
But there are other items on the Claim Jumper menu if ribs aren’t your jam. There are 19 items that contain over 2,000 calories and 57 that have over 1,000. Feeling peckish? Just have the blue cheese wedge salad and the seared ahi appetizer. That’s 1,114 calories in the salad plus 562 for the app. The tuna has more calories than a KFC Double Down.
This + 400 calories = Claim Jumper appetizer
So the question is, would I go to the Claim Jumper? Would I have a Double Down? Nah. For me, there is no novelty in eating thousands of calories in one sitting. I do plenty of that at home.

Kitchen Tools

noreply@blogger.com (Marty) — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 00:29:00 +0000

Daniel Patterson puts his "tools" to work (with the help of an actual tool)

A few months ago I was listening to The Splendid Table, hosted by my new culinary nemesis, Lynn Rosetto Capser. Actually, the show is perfectly pleasant as is she, in a schweddy balls kind of way and they have some great guests. This episode was no exception as they had Daniel Patterson, whose Coi restaurant earned two Michelin stars. The show was fine until he was asked about his favorite kitchen tool. I listened eagerly while clutching my stack of Bed Bath & Beyond coupons. Would it be an ergonomic melon baller? Maybe a microplane ginger grater? A Kevlar butchering glove? Something Silpat? Nay. His answer? “My hands.” That’s like Usain Bolt explaining that the secret to his speed is, “My feet.” I would get this kitchen tool if the motor were faster

My least favorite kitchen tool? Daniel Patterson. What a bunch of hippie bullshit. If there is a device out there that saves time, money and improves technique, I wanna know about it. I already got hands, Chef Patterson. Thanks for nothing. Bill Buford demonstrates the suplex

It reminds me of that book, Heat, in which Bill Buford basically tries to get in a pissing match with Mario Batali as he learns more and more obscure Italian culinary skills. At one point, he wants to master pasta making to get that unique “wood on wood” texture that he insists can only be found in handmade pasta rolled by old Italian women. He eventually seeks out Miriam Leonardi, a culinary legend whose pasta he describes as, “life changing,” to coax her to reveal her centuries-old hand rolling technique. She says, “What in the world are you talking about?... No one does that sort of thing anymore. They’re too busy. Modern life. I use a machine.” My machine in action

The pasta machine fits perfectly into my personal criteria of a kitchen tool. It saves me the hundreds of hours I would have to spend learning the dead art of rolling pasta by hand. And it makes a uniform product every time. I got mine at Ross Dress for Less for less than $50 and didn’t use it for a year because it was so intimidating. But now I use it all the time. It’s a snap. Braun, despite rumors, was not involved in World War II

To test this “snappiness,” I made some ravioli. I pulverized some dried porcini mushrooms in my 400 watt Braun Impressions Multiquick Handblender using the handy-dandy blender attachment. Did I mention that its motor has a whopping 400 watts? Seriously, if you don’t have one, get one. The result of three seconds of 400 watt pulsing

Then I pulsed some crimini and fresh shitake mushrooms in the same blender and mixed my mycological mélange with some ricotta and parmesan cheeses along with salt, pepper and a scraping of nutmeg (using my box grater – awesome kitchen tool #3, bitches!).

I put that aside and cracked some eggs in a well of flour to knead my dough and brought into an ugly ball. I didn’t need to work it much because the pasta machine does the kneading for you! My wrist looks morbidly obese

The more you roll it, the smoother it gets! And then you work it thinner and thinner until you can see light. Try doing that with your hands. Point for technology!

Then I brought out gadget #4, a ravioli press I got online for twelve bucks and change. The dimples actually hold a useful amount of filling

You lay the plastic nubby thing onto a pasta sheet which makes little wells in the metal rack part. You fill ‘em, top ‘em and roll ‘em out (I’m going to count rolling pin as a kitchen tool). Chef Boyardee would be proud

I had almost 6 dozen before I ran out of filling. Thanks, knife

I used the rest of the dough to make three double portions of pasta of varying widths and tossed it all in the freezer to be used at a later date. Total time used including prep and cleanup: an hour and a half. Had I used just my hands? Ha. Abondanza...

My hope is that this is more useful to someone stocking a kitchen than some celebrity chef saying, “Make sure you get a pair of hands in there!” As for Bill Buford, he could have saved himself weeks obsessing about la cucina autentica had he spoken to Miriam earlier. Her secret to great pasta? “What’s important is the eggs.” Amen.

This Is Why I'm (getting) Fat

noreply@blogger.com (Marty) — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 02:40:00 +0000

Yes, I’ve even eaten Domino’s Three Cheese Mac-N-Cheese. I hate myself.

If mac & cheese is on a restaurant menu, I will order it. In my mind I rationalize eating such a rich and caloric dish as my duty in the never ending search for the platonic ideal of macaroni and cheese, but in truth I just like cheese and noodles in almost any form (as evinced by my previous post).

I enjoy my boxed Kraft almost as much as my own recipe, which until recently was béchamel sauce with tons of cheese and maybe a little roasted garlic and a pinch of dried mustard. It’s pretty good but the quality changes based on what cheese I have on hand and how much I decide to use. Sometimes I overheat the cheese or use too much of it which can make the proteins coagulate which results in a grainy sauce.

I always tell myself to keep track of my hits and misses so that I can get consistent results but it’s like, how consistent can a “cup of grated cheese” be from one time to the next? So recently I bought a kitchen scale and set about to make my cooking more uniform. It makes a big difference and it only cost $20. I highly suggest getting one.

Lynn Rossetto Casper: my new culinary muse, I guess

And then I heard mention of a mac & cheese recipe on “The Splendid Table” cooking show on public radio. When it comes to a dish as routine as this, I tend to pooh-pooh recipes so but the technique was different and the host spoke of it so glowingly. The recipe takes a custard approach to bind the pasta as opposed to the starch-driven béchamel style plus she uses cream cheese to help keep it smooth.

I was skeptical so I decided to make a version of each keeping all ingredients the same otherwise. In the béchamel version, I didn’t use cream cheese and instead added an equal amount of Monterey Jack.

Egg version on the left - can't you tell?

At a friend’s soiree, people said they enjoyed both equally, but the béchamel version went more quickly. The flavors were similar but I found the béchamel version to be gummy while with the other one the sharpness of the cheese was more prominent. I liked the custard version better. I don’t know why people finished off the other one first. Maybe it was in a prettier dish. More likely they were too drunk to care.

My friends are less discerning in party mode

I also like how the custard version holds its shape better. It makes for prettier serving. Lastly, this method is much less time intensive. You put everything in a blender, pour it over pasta, bake. Easy, peasy. My only problem was the amount of raw onion called for in the Splendid Table recipe made both versions overpoweringly oniony. Me not like.

So I set about to come up with a more definitive version that would allow for flexibility and not give you dragon breath. Here are the basic rules:

For every half pound of dried pasta add use half a pound of sharp cheeses – a blend of aged cheddar, Asiago, gruyere, etc. Whatever floats your boat.
For each half pound of dried pasta, use one cup of milk, one egg and four ounces of a creamy, smooth cheese, i.e. cream cheese, Fontina, or even Velveeta. I also add a little dried mustard, a bit of paprika and/or cayenne and a clove of raw or roasted garlic.
If I’m feeling sassy, I’ll toss in a nugget of blue cheese for a little extra punch.
Where the Splendid Table version uses 3/4 of a raw onion, I just use half and sauté it beforehand to get the stink out.
Elbow macaroni works best. Its thinner skinned than the traditional pasta shapes which makes for a more tender bite. It’s more Amurican.

Cheese smoothie!

Blend everything together, mix it with cooked pasta in a casserole dish, then top it with more cheese and bread crumbs and bake until nicely crusted.

What could be better than this?

It’s the best mac & cheese I’ve made by far. I think the starch in the béchamel dampens the cheese flavor whereas this version heightens it. Or maybe it's good because I finally used a scale and got some consistency. Or maybe I’m talking out my butt and I owe my thanks to the cloying-voiced lady on public radio for providing such a good recipe. Ugh. No, it’s got to be the scale.

Please share your thoughts on the subject. I love discussing macaroni and cheese almost as much as I love eating it.

I Suck

noreply@blogger.com (Marty) — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 05:16:00 +0000

Imagine a mushy, more orange version of this crammed into a styrofoam cup.
I went to a potluck party tonight and brought two pints of Kentucky Fried Chicken macaroni and cheese.

I have no excuse. I am a terrible, terrible person. I am ashamed.

That said, everyone ate it.

A (small) Pizza Revelation

noreply@blogger.com (Marty) — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 22:50:00 +0000

My new friend

I had pizza with a friend at Terroni, a Toronto-based restaurant group with a location out here in West Hollywood. It’s a somewhat upscale Southern Italian joint that prides itself on authenticity as evidenced by the prominently stacked cans of Italian tomatoes and olive oil. They also adopt some snobby eccentricities; you can’t substitute ingredients on their pizzas (thin crust, of course) and they won’t slice it for you as that’s not how it’s done back in the Old Country.

iPhone wants a flash

Thus, the first thing I did when they brought the food was cut the pizza radially into six slices, immediately placing the meal firmly in the U.S.A. Not Sicily, not Abruzzo, not even Ontario – Amurka. It was a delicious, albeit salty, sausage and rapini pizza bianca. But what elevated the pizza to a new level was the ramekin of red peppers they brought us. As opposed the dried flaky business you get at most pizzerias, these were actual minced red chiles in a bit of oil. So in addition to adding heat, the condiment also provided sweetness, crunch and flavor.

Less than a buck’s worth of jalapenos

Why didn’t anybody do this before? I’m sure plenty of restaurants have, but it was a first for me, so when I got home, I took a bunch of red jalapenos, seeded them (they kept the seeds in at Terroni, but I wanted less heat. I like spicy but even just typing about it is making me sweat profusely. Fer reals), minced them and mixed them with a pinch of salt and some olive oil.

Wash hands thoroughly after mincing, especially before going to the bathroom

Super simple, super cheap, but with an air of exoticism. I keep my ramekin in the fridge and have since had it on pasta, bread and even on its own in petit, measured spoonfuls.

Just Bragging About Dinner

noreply@blogger.com (Marty) — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 05:17:00 +0000

As part of my procrastination routine today, I decided to make chicken pot pie for the first time. I had a chicken brining in the fridge that I smoked for a few hours until it was 30 seconds from fully cooked.

My trusty Brinkmann

I boned the chicken into bite-sized strips and then sautéed some mire poix, mushrooms and frozen corn. I made a few cups of thick béchamel except I used one cup of milk to two cups of chicken stock and then mixed everything together in casserole dish.

There might be a bit of dried oregano and thyme, too.

Then I rolled out a cheddar-buttermilk biscuit crust on top. 30 minutes in a 350 degree oven and presto: chicken pot pie.

Cheese Biscuits!

1-1/2 cups flour 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon sugar
1/2 stick of cold butter, chopped
1 cup of shredded sharp cheddar
3/4 cup of buttermilk

Mix all the dry ingredients thoroughly, add the butter and pinch it in the flour until it’s the consistency of a coarse meal. Mix in the grated cheese thoroughly then blend in the buttermilk and knead until it just forms a dough. Overkneading will make the biscuits tough. At this point you can make biscuits (baked in a 400 degree oven for 12-15 minutes) but here I rolled my dough out until it covered the casserole pan.

Delicious overkill

Maybe it’s overkill for a solo dinner, but it was rather tasty.

The Horror...The Horror..

noreply@blogger.com (Marty) — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 04:01:00 +0000

One of the three in this photo is not having a fun time (hint: it's the one without an Oscar)

There has been a considerable amount of research done about whether crustaceans feel pain or not. Is this actually under debate? When you stick a crab in a steam pot, I’m pretty sure the ensuing clanking is triggered by unmitigated agony and not because they’re dancing a jig. It’s one of the reasons I don’t like cooking crabs and lobsters; it’s never the yuk fest promised by Annie Hall. I want the death of the animals I eat to be as swift and painless as possible and I have yet to find a way to provide that for crustaceans. Chefs suggest freezing them, putting them in fresh water (a slow death that takes over 12 hours) or putting a knife through their heads. The latter method seemed to make the most sense and a few months ago, I tried it.

This sure as hell don't look humane.

I was making grilled lobster with herb butter so we split the lobsters from head to tail. The results were not convincing, probably because the brain halves were still connected to the body halves so the lobsters continued to twitch and squirm as I slathered their insides with butter. At least the dinner guests enjoyed the meal. Then I read about Simon Buckhaven, the Temple Grandin of shellfish. A few years ago, the English lawyer invented the horribly named, Crustastun, a metal bin that sends 110 volts through whatever you put into it – Dungeness crab, crayfish, spiny lobster, a large guinea pig – bringing about death within a couple seconds. Sounds great except the base model is the size of a Xerox machine and costs over $4,000.

It also plays a lilting lullaby right before they're zapped

Enter eBay, where you can get a pocket-sized rechargeable stun gun that delivers 2.7 million volts for under $20. So I did. This doesn’t mean that the stun gun has thousands of times the killing power of the Crustastun; stun guns only deliver milliamps where the Crustastun chamber hits its targets with 600 times the current (4-6 amps). My hope was that the delicate crustacean nervous system wouldn’t be able to tell the difference. I decided to name her "Mercy"

The day the post office delivered my instrument of death, I hightailed it over to the crazy Chinese market where they had stone crabs for a few bucks a pound. I took a couple of them home and then thought, “Oh shit. What do I do with them until killing time?” It’s not like I have a saltwater holding tank next to the sink. So I tossed them in the fridge and walked away, rationalizing to myself that they were napping peacefully. Yay, death with dignity!

I highly recommend using rubber gloves.

When it came to cooking time, I made sure the steam pot was hot and ready to go should the crabs survive their tasing. I took them out of the fridge and zapped each of them for a few seconds. The animals barely reacted despite the arcing current and tiny wisps of acrid smoke. After that, they seemed thoroughly and completely dead. Rather than do an autopsy, I tossed them in the pot where they cooked away soundlessly. Mission accomplished.

Now that’s what I call a dead crab

I made my friend shell the carcasses while I rolled out pasta and I made a green curry-like sauce substituting cream for coconut milk and tossed it all together with some corn and cilantro. My plating sucks

While stone crabs don’t yield as much meat as a Dungeness crab and they’re more of a pain to shell, they were nonetheless delicious and I didn’t have to shell squat (thanks, Steve). Boiled down with shrimp shells to a paste for a future bisque

Obviously, there is nothing scientific about my method and maybe it didn't even work. Maybe the tasing put the crabs into a state of paralyzing agony. But it seemed more humane than any method I've tried in the past. And since lobsters die from electrocution even more quickly than crab, I can't see why it wouldn't work on them, too.

My only regret is that I didn’t tase the giant shrimp I also cooked. They didn’t die as instantaneously in a hot pan as I thought they would. But if it’s any consolation, they might have been the best peel and eat shrimp I’ve ever eaten – tossed in a hot wok with ground pasilla and chipotle powder, cumin, sliced red jalapeno and garlic and salt. Sweet, spicy, sucked the heads...amazing. Sorry, shrimpses.

Jamie Oliver: This Is Why You're Fat

noreply@blogger.com (Marty) — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 19:20:00 +0000

Jamie Oliver apparently ate his $100,000 prize money

At the most recent TED Conference (technology, entertainment and design), celebrity chef, Jamie Oliver was given some kind of award for his work in food and obesity education. How that connects with technology, entertainment or design, I’m not quite sure, but he’s hip and telegenic so he fits right in.

To encapsulate his 18-minute talk: people are fat because they stopped cooking food and eat processed crap instead. Nothing groundbreaking, but the message is delivered with Oliver’s manic enthusiasm so it’s fairly watchable without being too sanctimonious. The presentation happens to coincide nicely with his upcoming TV show, “Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution,” where he goes to America’s most unhealthy city and tries to get them to eat a green vegetable. He is so sucking in his gut.

He makes a couple interesting points: At the 11:15 mark he plays a clip from his show where kids in a kindergarten class are unable to identify beets, cauliflower, eggplants and even tomatoes and potatoes. He believes that people won’t eat food that they can’t identify and will therefore never eat healthily unless they’re better educated. Fair enough. A companion to Michael Pollan’s rule, “Don’t eat anything that your great-grandmother wouldn’t recognize as food.”

an ABC promo for the show

Continuing, Oliver maintains that for the past three generations, the family tradition of cooking skills being passed down has ended. His goal as an educator is to get every child to learn 10 recipes so that they can live independently, healthily and economically as adults. Neat idea. As a kid, I learned to make soup from a can of V8 juice – add Worcestershire sauce and Parmesan cheese from a green tube et voilà! In high school, I took Independent Living where I made an apron and learned how to make (bad) bran muffins. So by the time I turned 18 I could make really salty soup and greasy baked rocks. Two recipes - 20% of the way to an independent life according to Jamie Oliver’s vision.

Obviously, he doesn’t mean a specific list of exactly 10 dishes, but these are what I would choose:

Spaghetti sauce – that just seems like a gimme. It’s cheap and easy and everyone likes it.
Chili – Again, cheap and easy. Feed a family of 4 for a few bucks.
Stir fry – I suppose this is more of a technique than a recipe but it’s healthy and has infinite variations.
Rice – This could accompany the above two recipes, I suppose. Billions of non-Americans subsist on rice. We can, too.
Roasted chicken – I’m not a huge chicken eater, but I like a good roast chicken. Plus, you can scale this up for a turkey and be the star of every Thanksgiving.
Pasta – Here, I specifically mean the Italian method of sautéing a few ingredients and then adding pasta and some pasta water in the last minute of cooking. It’s one of the first things I learned how to cook well. Essentially the Italian version of stir fry.
Steak – This is technique more than recipe, but good to know for cookouts and hot dates.
Meat stew – Knowing how to braise is a cheap way to live well.
Chicken soup – So people don’t waste their roast chicken carcasses.
Macaroni & cheese – Yes, this is a dish that contributes to American obesity, but, come on, can’t we live a little? We have Chef Jamie's blessing.

Did I miss any?

Preparing for the Apocalypse (or Surprise Dinner Guests)

noreply@blogger.com (Marty) — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 07:05:00 +0000

Your guess is as good as mine If you were to look at my freezer, you’d think I was a really sloppy Mormon . In truth, I probably don’t have food for more than a couple weeks, but in those two weeks, I’d live like a goddamned king. I’ve got lamb stew, veggie chili, various meat stocks, frozen scallops, bacon, and tomato sauce, not to mention the dried goods – the saffron, chiles, porcini mushrooms and fermented black beans. My only issue is that I need to be more vigilant in labeling my foodstuffs. Too often, what I thought would be spaghetti Bolognese turned out to be brisket on noodles. No matter what the caption, you'll think salted duck eggs are disgusting but they're not. Honest I think this hoarding behavior stems from my mother who used to keep stores of brandied fruit and salted duck eggs in the cupboards so us kids would never be wanting for (weird) food. The brandied fruit really sticks in my memory. It was stored in this very ‘70s smoky purple glass jar – a fermenting mass of various canned and fresh fruits every week by equal amounts of additional fruit and granulated sugar. We’d have it on ice cream or on pound cake; it was a convenient and handy way to make a pedestrian dessert instantly exotic. Or at least alcoholic. As an adult, as I developed more of a taste for the savory over sweet, I decided to try keeping a store of duck confit. Basically, these are cured duck legs, cooked in duck fat and stored for several weeks in the fridge in duck fat. When done correctly, they are luscious, salty and gorgeous, with a fantastic depth of flavor that comes only from meats that are cured, cooked in fat and stored for several weeks in flavorful fat.This isn't the actual spice mix (it's one for bacon), but it's a pretty picture, no? Recipes abound. But the key elements are: cure the duck for a day or so in salt and very aromatic herbs, cook the duck in duck fat for a couple hours at a low heat, then store in the same duck fat in the fridge for at least a couple weeks. In my herb mix, I used coriander seeds, pepper, bay leaves and Szechuan chili peppers known for their distinct flavor and tongue numbing qualities. In the final result, the numbing effect was deadened, but the distinct floral-herbaceous notes were very present. Duck cooked in duck fat now crisped in duck fat. Jon Cryer beware But the biggest obstacle was keeping the duck legs in the fridge without eating them. While most recipes say that the legs will keep for up to a month, I read somewhere that Nancy Silverton (or was it Alice Waters? How embarrassing, but seriously, all you white women chefs look alike to me) liked to serve duck confit after three months or longer, as the legs become more tender and complex in flavor. Alice Waters, Nancy Silverton, clearly separated at birth I managed to wait three months at which point I served mine over blanched Brussels sprout leaves with a really gummy and lousy mustard/blueberry sauce. But any flaws in the presentation were mitigated by the reheating of the duck legs – crisped in their own fat to a golden brown on both sides. In my mind, this is the best way to serve them though you can also use them in a cassoulet or shredded on pizza or in stuffed pasta or some other chi-chi preparation. In the crispy incarnation, the sauce and bedding become completely cosmetic and superfluous. It's hard to go wrong.Please ignore the gooey smudge in the background The crisped legs were truly gorgeous, if I do say so myself. I’m sure some native from the Dordogne would scoff at my Asian treatment of the duck, but that was my choice. I’m Chinese. Bite me, François. I’d encourage readers to ignore the Frenchies use their own spice mix. It's really not that hard yet it's something you'll never get in a restaurant because, in general, they can't afford to keep food that long. Your results may vary but if you find a combo that works, please post.

Street Food Thuggery

noreply@blogger.com (Marty) — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 04:28:00 +0000

Yay, civilization! Several friends emailed me about the Los Angeles Street Food Festival that occurred this past Saturday. With the explosion of gourmet food trucks – gourmet fries, gourmet grilled cheese sandwiches, gourmet sundaes, etc. – it promised to be an exciting and trendy occasion. I had a friend visiting from out of town so I purchased us VIP tickets, which meant that we could enter all civilized-like through glass doors as opposed to a cyclone fence gate and use flush toilets instead of Port-O-Lets.

I picked up my friend, Steve, who did not have VIP tickets, but we stupidly figured it wouldn’t be a huge deal. As we neared the venue a few minutes after the event started, we started to worry as teams of hipsters swarmed in the same direction while sizable numbers of disappointed, but sensible looking people headed in the opposite direction. We found the VIP entrance first, a line 60-people deep and moving slowly. I waited there while Steve went to scout the loser line, but given the mobs of people, we figured it wasn’t likely he would make it inside before dinner time.

While I was waiting, I thought about why I was there. People told me, “I’m sure you’ve tried most of the food trucks already,” to which I laughed humbly and looked down at my feet. But the truth is, I haven’t tried any of them. O.K., awhile ago, someone brought me a plate from the Kogi truck, which started the whole craze in L.A., but they weren’t even at this event. If I were a 23-year-old out partying and needed a food fix, I might have made the rounds, but I’m not. I’m an old fart who likes to eat with metal flatware while sitting down. I like tables and napkins and not waiting in lines.

The other thing is, I can’t imagine that the food is that great. How can the slice truck produce pizza that is better than out of a wood burning oven at Mozza or Bollini’s? Putting kimchi on your cheese fries doesn’t instantly make them better. This isn’t to say that they’re not making good food, but I don’t want to wait in several lines in the sweltering February sun (um, yeah. It was really hot) to find out if I’m right or wrong.

But the biggest issue I have is that these cupcake/crepe/Asian-Latin fusion trucks don’t represent actual L.A. street food. I admit that’s a condescending thing to say and, in fact, they did have two Mexican food trucks at the fair, but neither of them represented the taco trucks from my life. For that, I recommend Daily Taco, which has a comprehensive review library of local taco trucks and I couldn’t find reviews of the two that were at the fest.

So when Steve reported back that it would be a 2-hour wait (two goddamned hours!) for the non-VIP ers to get in, I suggested that we abandon the lines and get some real food. I handed my tickets off to some friends I ran into and we went to Boyle Heights for some birria – stewed goat.

The restaurant was perfect: booths, beer, and an oral menu consisting of birria, quesadillas and cabeza tacos (made from cheek meat). That’s it. The goat was almost as delicious as the homemade corn tortillas and we were sitting down in Naugahyde booths, not like Neanderthals walking around eating out of flimsy cardboard trays. Sadly, a hungover Steve did not enjoy the talented table-side Mariachis as much as the rest of the clientele, but he enjoyed the meal otherwise.

Afterwards we visited El Mercado de Los Angeles, a three-story marketplace where you can buy everything from Disney knock-off toys to cowboy boots to exotic culinary ingredients. I got the stink eye when I took this delicious photo. Unfortunately, the vendors didn’t care for me taking pictures so I only have a few, but the moles looked just as delicious as the toys looked creepy.

Again, for some reason I got the stink eye when I took this photo. I appreciate that a sorbet truck arriving outside a night club at 1:30AM has a certain mystique but to me, a bakery that sells heart-shaped loaves of bread for Valentine’s Day has way more street cred. Can you feel the love? I'm interested to know what food trucks readers would like to see on their street. Thoughts?

Back in the Saddle

noreply@blogger.com (Marty) — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 17:44:00 +0000

Many apologies for not being more vigilant in my postings. The new goal is to try to post shorter bits with more frequency with a weekly in-depth posting. Today's a shorty. Several years ago, I joined a cookbook club to expand my culinary knowledge and to help fill an appallingly empty bookshelf. This club has a great selection of famous cookbooks and so I stocked up and now I have a fair-sized library covering the essentials and a bunch of regional cookbooks and some celebrity chef tomes with pretty pictures. Problem is, I don't really read any of them. It could be because I'm not a big reader (ergo empty bookshelf) or it could be that I didn't pick the right books. I actually like his show, despite his sometimes cloying enthusiasm. Gastronerd, Alton Brown today listed his top five cookbooks. I thought I'd weigh in on them briefly to see if I could gain any insight on my own cookbook illiteracy.

1) Joy of Cooking - I remember my thumbing through my mother's tattered edition as a child. I used it a few times and it gave me the impression that all cookbook recipes involved condensed cream of mushroom soup and/or mayonnaise and could be made in either a casserole dish or a bundt cake pan. I might get it today but only for kitsch value. Does that make me sound like a snob? Yeah, well...

2) The Frugal Gourmet - I watched his cooking show once and it was about truffles. He boiled a batch of spaghetti and drizzled a bit of truffle oil and said, "That's all you need to do." I watched half an hour of PBS for that? He did not earn much kitchen cred for that. On the other hand, he did dedicate one of his cookbooks to my grandmother so I have to give him some props.

3) Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking - This was one of the books I bought from the cookbook club but when I tried making Marcella Hazan's bread, I ended up baking flour bricks. She listed some weird technique of slamming the dough on the table which seemed scientifically dubious. I think the bigger problem was that there was a paucity of pictures. For me, cooking technique is better learned visually. But aside from technique, the recipes look tasty enough. I should try one someday.

4) Outlaw Cook - I'd never heard of this book, but it seems more my style. Its goal seems to be to stimulate curiosity in the home chef as opposed to guiding them with a series of instructions. It looks to be as much a book of essays as a book of recipes so because I'm a pedantic twat, I don't think this qualifies as a cookbook.

5) Ratio - This book looks right up my alley. Geeky and technical, where you learn the basic skills of cooking so that you can move beyond recipes. I should check it out. That said, in my previous experience with Michael Ruhlman, his recipe said that 8 grams of coriander was the equivalent to a tablespoon. He was off by a factor of over 2.5 so I can't help but scoff at the book's title.

Here's what I think: Alton Brown listed the five books that were seminal in his personal development as a food lover but not his technical development as a food professional. I don't think any of these are necessarily essential for one's library. With the exception of the Hazan and Ruhlman books, I'll bet he hasn't cracked any of them open in the past decade. In my library, I consistenly refer back to two books: McGee, which I've written about earlier, and the CIA's The Professional Chef . Yes, I know On Food and Cooking is not a cookbook, but it's an essential guide to understanding the cooking process. The CIA cookbook, however, contains great recipes that thousands of CIA grads use on a daily basis. I've used it to make mother sauces, identify cuts of meat, make croissants, desserts, stocks, etc. The no-nonsense photos make understanding technique straightfoward and it's organized very intelligently.

The recipes are sized for restaurant service so you have to scale them down but that's easy to do with a spreadsheet, if not in your head. Also, they eschew volumes (i.e., teaspoons and cups) in favor of masses (grams and kilos), which results in greater accuracy ([shaking fist] Ruhlman!) so I'd suggest investing $20 in a kitchen scale, too. It's a chunk of money to invest along with the book, but it's a helluva lot cheaper than enrolling in the CIA.

I'd be interested in hearing about other people's thoughts on essential cookbooks, which is my subtle way of saying, "Please leave a comment."

My New Chili Standard

noreply@blogger.com (Marty) — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 23:59:00 +0000

Chasen's Chili - a classic, but not historically accurate. There was a video made by my sister some time ago when I was maybe 11. You won’t find it on YouTube; it was filmed on Betamax and remains in that format. In it, I play a young fellow named Dennison who is a fan of canned chili. I eat a bowl of Hormel’s and the sounds of flatulence (and hilarity) ensue. As a fan of videography, my sister went on to become a successful director. As a fan of canned chili, I went on to become a successful glutton with a blog nobody reads. Back then, I knew of two types of chili: with beans and without beans. From those two cans, I formed my concept of what chili was. As my palate became more sophisticated in college, I learned to make my own chili, substituting fancy little black beans instead of vulgar kidney beans, and ground turkey meat instead of industrial grade beef. It’s a pretty basic recipe: ground meat, browned with some onions and garlic. Add some cooked beans, canned tomatoes, chili powder, cumin, maybe a little cocoa, more chilis, fresh peppers and some liquid (a beer and some bean juice) and after an hour of simmering, you’ve got chili. I was eating lunch at the school lab when a woman from Texas scoffed at my Tupperware bowl saying, “Real chili doesn’t have tomatoes or beans.” I shrugged through a mouthful of deliciousness, “So?” I kick myself that it’s taken me 20 years to get to the root of what she meant. As it turns out, the roots of chili are found in 19th century Texas, where it was made as a stew from cheap meat. Similar stews were made previous to that but it wasn’t until the 1850s that there were reports of a “brick chili” made of pressed mashed chile peppers, beef and spices that was often reconstituted and eaten on long journeys. This happened to emerge at the same time that there was an influx of Polish immigrants into Texas. Coincidence? I think not. Think of how paprika was such a big deal in Europe thanks to Columbus and subsequently, the influence of the Austria-Hungarian Empire. The immigrants came here and used the next best thing: Mexican chiles. The chili vendors of San Antonio To be honest, I’m totally talking out of my ass. I have no evidence to back up the Eastern European roots of chili but it kind of makes sense, right? Goulash? Chili? Both are bowls of red? I now continue with my out-my-ass history: Chili became popular in Texas and then traveled northward to the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago. In its six-month run, 27 million people attended the fair and witnessed firsts like the Ferris Wheel and alternating electrical current (yes, I read Eric Larson’s Devil in the White City). Those same millions also had the chance to try “San Antonio Chilley” at the Texas exhibit. From there the dish slowly gained in popularity. "Cincinnati Five-Way" or "Five More Reasons to Never Visit Ohio" In 1902, William Gebhardt began selling Eagle Brand Chili Powder (now owned by ConAgra. Yay!) and nine years later was the first to distribute canned chili nationwide. In 1922, the Empress chili parlor opened in Ohio, which helped popularize the Cincinnati style of chili, which is a tepid, blandish version served over mushy spaghetti. But there were other Midwestern versions that predated them, like in 1913, Chili John’s opened in Green Bay, Wisconsin where it still exists today. Their only other franchise is in Burbank, California, where they serve hot and mild ground beef chili as well as a bean variant. It's a slightly gutsier version of the Cincinnati style (as gutsy as a spicy dish from Green Bay could be). But the ground meat tastes so institutional. My guess is that the ground beef so popular today came out of laziness – it takes a long time to stew chunks of meat vs. ground meat. And beans came out of cheapness. These were lean times in American history and the spices married pretty well with beans. Why not add it to stretch out the beef? Gladwell on Moskowitz (if you haven't seen this, you should) Thus it’s no surprise that chili took off in the canned food revolution, from which, thanks to food expert, Howard Moskowitz, we have 12 varieties of Hormel’s chili, 12 of Stagg and 9 of Dennison’s. Not to mention all the other generic and froofy chilis. This explosion of made up varieties is when I entered the chili fray. But to me, the different cans all tasted basically the same – fine, but vaguely dog-foody. The Los Angeles regional fast food version of chili is a pasty goo slopped from a metal spoon glistening with bright orange grease on a shriveled hot dog. Maybe edible at 2AM while you’re trying to sober up, but it’s not what you would call “good.”

As appetizing as it looks In the face of all these less than tasty versions of chili, my recipe for black bean and pasilla chile chili became my ideal chili. Until I learned more about true Texas chili.

The basic recipe is take a few pounds of beef chuck (or sirloin or something similarly stew-friendly), slice it into 1 to 1 ½ inch cubs, season and brown them in batches. At the same time, toast 2-3 ounces of dried chiles on a hot pan on all sides. I used ancho, which are pretty mild. I might mix them with a couple hotter ones for a little more kick next time.Every braise starts with a good browning. Stem and seed them then toss them in a blender with some water, garlic, oregano, a bit of sugar and toasted cumin seeds. Back in the main pot, sauté a finely chopped onion, then add the browned meat, the chiles, some beef stock and a couple tablespoons of corn meal (for thickening) and simmer for a couple hours. After that, taste it, adjust the seasonings (add cayenne for more heat, or whatever) and add a tablespoon or so of white or cider vinegar to liven things up. Cook it another few minutes and adjust seasonings and thickness (add more water if it’s too thick). I usually cook it a day ahead of time to give time for the sauces to permeate the meat.

My new chili standard The result is stunning for such a simple preparation. Where my ground meat chili is all about secret spice blends, fresh peppers, exotic beans, outrageous hotness, weird meat mixes and other culinary obfuscations, this Texas chili is just about the beef and the chile. That’s all you can see and taste. This past weekend I made it for a campout and I spent most of dinner just sopping up the sauce with cheap white bread. It was a revelation.

Out-Chef Chef Boyardee!

noreply@blogger.com (Marty) — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 00:35:00 +0000

How can anything tasty fit in those itty-bitty things? I almost never order filled pastas at restaurants. Growing up eating dim sum and xiao long bao I’m used to a large ratio of filling to wrapper. Comparing shiu mai to a dinky tortellini is like comparing…something really juicy and delicious and pork-filled to something that isn’t. A menu item like Asiago pumpkin ravioli always sounds yummy and flavorful, but inevitably it just tastes like a wad of pasta because of a paucity of filling and too-thick pasta. Mozza gets it right The exceptions – like Mozza Osteria’s Fresh Ricotta & Egg Raviolo, whose filling includes an entire oozy egg yolk – are reminders that the problem with most filled pastas is in the execution, not the concept. So when I make ravioli, I don’t mess around. I don’t make them obscenely large or overstuffed but I don’t want people to say, “Uh, I think I can taste the mushrooms.” Fillings-wise, I’ll occasionally do the ricotta-based ravioli. It’s ricotta, some Parmesan, a pinch of nutmeg, sometimes parsley, and then whatever sexy foodstuff I have in mind: minced mushrooms, roasted butternut squash, chopped prosciutto, ground meat, etc. But I’m more inclined to fill it with just the sexy foodstuff. I’m a big fan of braised meats in ravioli, like shredded short ribs, or I’ll do seafood. Last night, it was crab. I’ve steamed and shelled my Dungeness crabs before, but it’s a huge pain in the ass. I have to drive a ways to get the live ones, then I have to go through the ordeal of cooking the poor little things and then it takes me a good hour to shell two crabs. It’s so much easier to walk down the street to Trader Joe’s, grab a one pound can of Chicken of the Sea claw meat and pop it open. Plus, it costs less than half as much and tastes almost as good. Blue swimming crab ain’t no Dungeness and its sustainability is in question, but we can't all be Alice frickin' Waters. I forked up the crab, added some green onions, red pepper, lemon zest and a little egg white, which probably isn’t necessary but I had it leftover from the salad dressing. And that’s it. I suppose it really doesn’t matter how you season it so long as the crab is good. Some sort of vegetable is helpful to add texture.Make sure it's the refrigerated kind I’ve retreated to my Asian roots and used gyoza wrappers for my ravioli many times but last night I was feeling show-offy and brought out my pasta roller. I had that thing for a couple years before I actually used it. It seemed like such a messy headache. But it’s actually a pretty easy and forgiving process. And my mess factor was greatly reduced once I got a pastry scraper. If you don’t have one, you should get one. Remember Steve Buscemi’s leg in Fargo? I’m no pasta expert and there are probably a thousand better instructions for making it but here’s how I do it. The basic ratio is 3 large eggs for every two cups of flour. You make a little well in the flour, crack your eggs in it, mix it with a fork while doing a mad dash to keep egg goo from dripping out the well and onto the floor. Eventually, you get a doughy ball that you start kneading to incorporate the rest of the flour. It’ll be hard and rough looking but that’s fine.Cut it in fourths (with your trusty pastry scraper) and start feeding it one of the fourths into your pasta machine (set at 1, the widest setting). It’ll come out ugly, but after you fold it and re-feed it, it will knead into something smooth and manageable. At that point, you feed the pasta through the machine a successively higher numbers on your pasta machine. By the end, you should have a long, wafer thin ribbon of pasta. For once, not cut with a dog food can Time is of the essence as the pasta will dry out and crack within a few minutes so you should have your filling close at hand. I use a pastry ring whose diameter is half the width of the pasta sheet but I’ve also used empty soup cans, dog food cans or whatever works. I lay out a strip of the pasta, put out spoonfuls of filling on the bottom half, using the pastry ring to space them apart. Then I wet the pasta around the filling with water (not egg wash) and fold the top half over. Press to seal the ravioli and cut ‘em out with the pastry ring. At this point, I take each one to check the seal and ensure there’s no air in the ravioli. Air pockets are bad. Then I layer the ravioli with parchment paper and store them in the freezer to keep them from getting mushy. If you store them for longer than a couple hours, make sure they're in an airtight container or they'll dry out and crack. Two cups of flour should make around 60-70 ravioli, which should match a one pound can of crab. Let them eat kibble I rarely sauce ravioli with marinara because tomatoes are pretty dominating. Browned butter is delicious but in small doses. I usually stick with broths or cream sauces so that the flavors in the filling can stand out. For the crab ravioli, I sautéed some shallots, added some cream and saffron, cut it with a little white wine, and cooked it until it turned yellow and fancy. I suppose you could strain it but I think the orange saffron strands are cool looking plus it lets everyone know that you used the real thing. Note the exquisite and rare saffron stamens Boiling the ravioli is a critical step. Once you put them in boiling water, you want to make sure it doesn’t boil violently or your ravioli will rip. A slow bubble works just fine. It should only take a couple minutes and then you plate, sauce and garnish. Or...open a can of this.

On Authenticity

noreply@blogger.com (Marty) — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 06:46:00 +0000

I have a subscription! During a summer dinner for friends I served gazpacho. It was a warm evening and I had tons of tomatoes, so it seemed like the perfect starter. It’s pretty simple: you chop tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, onions and a bit of garlic, then add some vinegar and olive oil and mushed up bread and tomato juice. Give it a two second pulse from the hand blender et voilà. One of the more cosmopolitan diners looked at the chunky soup and said, “Oh, so it’s not real gazpacho.”

True Andalusian gazpacho is mashed in a mortar and pestle (or at least a blender). It’s smooth and velvety; not like my coarse, vulgar slop. The thing is, I knew my soup wasn’t authentic and I even thought about introducing it with that caveat. But I didn’t because I don’t need another reason to be labeled a “foodie,” a.k.a. “food-douche.” I served it all chunked up because that’s the way my mother made it from some Sunset magazine recipe when I was a child. And I prefer it that way. It has texture. Each bite has a different ratio of tomato to cucumber. It looks more appetizing than the pink, pasty appearance of the “authentic” version. The current Sunset recipe but back in the '70s it was chunky. It was! Yet it still irked me that I was called out on my bastardization of a venerated Spanish tradition. Stuff like that bugs me all the time. Like how when I mention my affection for Abbot's Pizza, die hard New Yorkers will scoff, “They use bagel flour in their dough. It’s not real pizza.” To which I say, “It still tastes better than 95% of the pizza that I ever had in Manhattan. So suck it!” Maybe I don’t say those exact words, but I’ve thought them.

I've never eaten lutefisk nor have I wanted to Why is authenticity so damned important? I suppose it’s a connection to history, just like chunky gazpacho connects me with my childhood. But if not for culinary innovation, we’d still be eating charred meat, nuts and berries. At some point, we have to acknowledge that sous vide whitefish, a modern preparation, tastes better than lutefisk, a preserving method involving lye that dates back to the 16th century. Not surprisingly the editor of Cook's Illustrated There is a limit to bending tradition. If you read Cook’s Illustrated, you’ll know what I’m talking about. This is this pedantic culinary bi-monthly where they supposedly show the better way to cook. Their mission is, “to test recipes over and over again until we understand how and why they work and until we arrive at the best version.” Their definition of the “best version” is based on some borg-ian concept where they measure the amount of time it takes for a vinaigrette to separate. Their recipe held its emulsion for a whopping 1 ½ hours! But…can’t you just shake up the dressing right before you pour it? Who takes 90 minutes to eat a salad?

If you don't use unbleached organic parchment paper, it's not true en papillote This past spring they presented their improved version of cooking en papillote, a method where you bake vegetables and fish in a paper wrapper. The crack staff of Cook’s Illustrated contends that aluminum foil seals better than parchment paper and that the recipe works best if you parcook vegetables beforehand. But the whole point is that it’s a quick and easy way to cook fish with a dramatic presentation. If you have to cook the vegetables beforehand and serve it in foil, you’re spending too much time to serve what looks like a fancy TV dinner. Their complaints of too much juice or slightly undercooked vegetables are what I consider to be the characteristics of the dish.

Fold it in half and crimp the edges tightly in a semi-circle Basically you create a bed of small chopped vegetables for a lightly seasoned fish fillet upon which you add a little butter or olive oil. You wrap it in some parchment paper and cook it in a 375º oven for 20 minutes and then put it on a plate. Everyone oohs and aahs as they unwrap their gustatory gift. Maybe the kale is a tad crunchy or the zucchini juices accumulate on the plate but it still tastes really good and you only spent 15 minutes preparing the thing.

This was just for me on a Tuesday night so it's not as sexy looking as it could be So what’s my point? I dunno. Don’t make such a big deal of things? I mean, I have respect for authenticity and tradition; I’m more likely to buy a raw milk Brie de Meaux than some Wisconsin cheese product called “Bree.” But I’m also a huge fan of Rouge en Noir, a Sonoma cheesemaker who makes a perfectly delicious Brie that’s often cheaper than its Frenchy counterparts.

I’m also grateful to the nerds. I do get some value out of Cook’s Illustrated. They’re the dorks who will make scores of batches of biscuits to find out the perfect ratio of butter to lard. They are like the not-quite-as-smart cousin of Harold McGee who doesn’t know quite when to shut up. You kinda take the basic concepts from them and then tune out all their extraneous efficientizing bullshit. So, yeah. That’s where I stand. Thoughts? Anyone? Anyone?

Sausage Hang

noreply@blogger.com (Marty) — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 22:11:00 +0000

I think I mentioned Paul Bertolli’s Cooking by Hand before, but it’s worth mentioning again. Reading it makes you want to run off to a Tuscan villa and eat handmade pastas from homegrown wheat all day long. Lately I’ve been obsessing over the salume chapter. How great would it be to make your own prosciutto? Pretty awesome until you read how you have to hang your salted and massaged pork leg in a 40° humidity-controlled room for six months after which you need to clean it and coat it in kidney fat (available at most 7-Elevens) and Italian rice flour and let it hang in a 50° cellar for another six months before it’s ready to eat. Sadly, my temperature and humidity-controlled rooms are in somebody else’s house right now. So I decided to start out on a culinary bunny slope by making fresh sausage. It’s pretty straightforward and requires relatively simple climate control. Thank you, Mr. Pig The first step was buying an 8-pound pork shoulder. Most recipes call for extra back fat but this shoulder had a fair amount of fat through it and it’s not the easiest ingredient to find. Food nerds like McGee say that the back fat has a better texture and melting point but the idea of trimming shoulder fat out and replacing it with back fat seemed wasteful and, more importantly, labor intensive. Of course you need a meat grinder, too, like the attachment for a trusty KitchenAid. But I also needed the sausage stuffing attachment which I picked up at nearby Sur La Table. The store was right next to a bookstore so I poked my head in and perused through Michael Ruhlman and Brian Polcyn’s Charcuterie. Taken with a spy camera in Barnes & Noble His recipe for hot Italian sausage seemed oddly spiced – i.e., no sage – but who was I to question such a fancy looking cookbook? Back home, I was still dubious. Spice overkill? I decided to mix my spices using the dry weights provided in the recipe, thinking that would be more accurate. But when I mixed my spices with the meat before grinding, it seemed very well…spiced. Again, who was I to question a book endorsed by the great Thomas Keller? Play-Doh for grown ups The grinding was lots of fun. There’s something incredibly satisfying about sending chunks of meat through whirring steels blades. Very Fargo-esque. I probably made a mistake to make sausage on a 100 degree day as you’re supposed to keep everything cold, but it went by pretty quickly. After that it was into the paddle mixer where you mix the meat until it’s cohesive and sticky. Then it was time for a taste. You’re supposed to check at this point to adjust for seasoning but the sausage was spiced and salty I almost went out to buy another hunk of pork to dilute it. I even used less seasoning than the recipe called for. But checking the recipe again, I noticed that their volume-to-mass conversions seemed off. The 8 grams of coriander they called for seemed to be substantially more than the one tablespoon equivalent in the recipe. Turns out, a tablespoon of coriander barely weighs 3 grams. All of weights were heavily overstated. How the hell did that happen? I can’t take out the salt they told me to put in. Who's to blame? Who can I sue? But I soldiered on and got my sausage rig on the mixer and started stuffing away. Here I hit another snag: the KitchenAid attachment sucks ass. The idea is to cram a steady stream of meat into the machine so you can have nice, even sausages but what actually happens is that occasional bits go through the mixer and the rest comes oozing back around the edges of the crammer. At the same time, the sausage casing fills up with air bubbles. More comes out the top than into the casing The other big flaw with the sausage stuffer is that the sausage comes out a foot off the counter which means you constantly have to hold all the sausage as it comes out. You can’t just let it dangle. Vacuum sealed by my lips But after much sweating and hassle, I managed to cram all 8 pounds into pig intestines, packed them in Ziploc bags and got them in the freezer. In the end, they turned out O.K. I still think they’re on the salty side and the coriander is very prominent but everyone seems to like them. They’re juicy, too, so I don’t think I lost anything from omitting the back fat. Maybe it’s not the 30% fat that most recipes call for, but I’ll say it’s in the high-20s. Sliced when frozen makes it perfect for pizza So what are the lessons I learned? Trust Bartoli over Ruhlman. Don’t feel bound by the recipe. I think any kind of seasoned fatty pork will taste pretty good as long as one doesn’t overdo it. Most importantly, I imagine it’s much easier as a two-person operation; one to stuff the meat hopper, the other to handle the sausage. It’s really, really frustrating to do it on your own. And if you can afford it, get a real sausage maker. Screw you, KitchenAid. On my Christmas list