The Amateur Gourmet

A Pre-Thanksgiving Thanksgiving

2009-11-19T16:21:05Z

In case you haven't noticed, food blogs, food magazines, food networks and the like love Thanksgiving. They love it because, for once, the nation is intent on cooking dinner. For 364 days out of the year, that's mostly not the case--what with fast food and frozen dinners and all the other instant options at our fingertips. But Thanksgiving? Thanksgiving is something you've gotta cook. That is, unless you're me.

Me, I prefer cooking those other 364 days out of the year. It's not that I don't like preparing Thanksgiving dinner--I've done it twice before!--it's just that I don't like dealing with Thanksgiving stress. The stress of shopping, the stress of timing, the stress of catering to everyone's dietary needs.

So this year, thankfully, we'll be Thansgivinging with my sister-in-law's family in West Palm Beach. Tali's dad is an enthusiastic cook (he helped me carve the turkey two years ago) and I'm excited to eat (and relax!) at his house this time around.

But where does that leave you? Fear not, gentle reader. I, your beloved food blogging friend, crafted a pre-Thanksgiving Thanksgiving the other night to test some recipes that you might consider for your own Thanksgiving table.

Ignore the chicken: that was just there to take the place of turkey since turkey is actually rather expensive and I couldn't justify that expense cooking, as I was, for two. I prepared the chicken simply by coating it with softened butter (about 4 Tbs), stuffing it with a lemon and a bunch of rosemary, and then chopping rosemary and sprinkling it all over the bird along with salt and pepper. I put it in a cast iron skillet and roasted it for about 1 hour at 425.

But that's irrelevant because you can't serve chicken at Thanksgiving can you? No, you cannot. Which is why I'm grateful for my new favorite food site, Food52. It was there that I found the most tempting recipes for Thanksgiving sides; one of them a big winner, and the other very good, but not as good as what I'd made at my own Thanksgivings past.

Let's start with the latter. That was the stuffing.

I used the recipe for "What We Call Stuffing: Challah, Mushroom and Celery" by Mrs. Wheelbarrow.

For the full recipe, click the link, but essentially, you cut up challah bread (or brioche) and if you don't have time to dry it out overnight, you toast it.

Then you saute onions and celery and mushrooms (I left out the mushrooms because I only like mushrooms when they get caramelized and here I thought they'd just stay kind of mushy) with herbs (rosemary and thyme) in LOTS of butter:

Then you toss together the vegetables, the bread, MORE butter, vegetable stock, salt and pepper and place in a baking dish (I actually tossed it all together in the baking dish):

You bake at 350 for 45 to 55 minutes and here's the result:

This stuffing is really good, don't get me wrong. The challah adds a lot to it--making it rich and sweet and buttery--and the other elements give it kind of a woodsy, earthy kick. But I still prefer the stuffing I made two years in a row, a cornbread stuffing from Epicurious with sausage, leeks and cranberries (here's the recipe).

But, fear not Food52 fans, the other recipe I tried was so outrageously good, I'm a total convert---I think everyone should make it this year.

And that's the recipe for Gingered Cranberry Fig Chutney.

It really couldn't be easier. Into a big pot (or Dutch Oven) you add all of your ingredients: your cranberries, your orange juice, your chopped up ginger, your cider vinegar, your raisins, your black mission figs, your mustard seeds and brown sugar.

You bring to a boil, lower to a simmer and cook for 20 to 25 minutes. That's it!

What you are left with is a cranberry sauce (or chutney) for the ages; something complex, exciting, spicy, mysterious, and an absolutely perfect complement to all that rich food that'll be crowding your plate otherwise. I can't recommend it enough.

And thus, this Thanksgiving Recipe Tester tips his hat to all of you cooking Thanksgiving dinner this year. New readers may be glad to know that I have a PDF from two years ago that gives you a whole Thanksgiving game plan (click here). Otherwise, for those who are cooking and those who aren't, I salute you all and wish you very moist turkeys one week from today.

Ordering in from Otto

2009-11-18T18:37:40Z

As a New York based food blogger, I often make an effort to vary my posts so that those of you not in New York--which, I imagine, is actually the large majority of you--can feel like I'm speaking to you too.

But this post, despite its New York specificity, has what I imagine is universal appeal--mostly because of a chef that I've loved and admired for as long as I've been interested in cooking. That chef is Mario Batali.

Mario's show "Molto Mario" was the show, along with Sarah Moulton's "Sarah's Secrets," that coaxed me out of my law school slump and lured me into the kitchen. I vividly remember making a braised lamb dish that Mario made on his show (I still have the recipe protected in a plastic sleeve (I should make it again!)) that was so intoxicatingly good, it was like a gateway drug that propelled me into a world of hardcore cooking and eating from which I have no plan to escape.

Which is why, last week, when Craig was in North Carolina for a film festival and I couldn't muster the energy to cook ("Wait? Didn't you just say in your last paragraph...?" "Shut up!") I began looking up delivery options in my new 'hood. I'd ordered previously from the West Village Grand Sichuan and I must say, as much as I wanted to love it, it was really disappointing. My heart will always belong to the Grand Sichuan on St. Mark's.

After some clicking around, though, I made a discovery: Otto--one of Mario Batali's earliest New York restaurants--delivers. Not only that, I was in the zone for delivery; I could get Mario Batali food delivered to my door.

See why this is so exciting and universally relevant? Because everyone can relate to the excitement of having food cooked by their chef hero delivered to their door! And, true, this food wouldn't be cooked by him directly; but it would be food overseen by him or, at the very least, inspired by him. I began studying the online menu with great enthusiasm.

And the food that I ordered was food that I felt best reflected the TV Mario who inspired my oh so many years ago (8 years ago, in fact, if you do the math). I ordered cardoons with bagna cauda--a vegetable and a sauce Mario addressed numerous times during his reign--and a pizza Napoletana with Tomato, Anchovy, Capers, Chiles, Mozzarella.

Ok, so the pizza didn't necessarily reflect Mario, but I felt better about ordering a pizza delivered than pasta; I make pasta all the time and even if it's Mario inspired pasta, I can't imagine after journeying the fifteen blocks or so that it'd taste very good. That's why I chose pizza.

And so here it is, the food unwrapped:

Let's start with the cardoons. To be able to order such an unusual vegetable delivered to your door is a privilege. If I remember correctly, a cardoon looks a lot like celery, only with a rougher exterior that must be peeled off. The cardoons here were cooked well--not too mushy, still al dente--and paired really well with the bagna cauda (a sauce made with garlic and anchovies melted in oil). Was it a revelation? No, not really. It had a certain refrigerated quality to it that was hard to overcome. But for food delivered to your door, it was pretty impressive.

As for the pizza, what can I say? I quote the great Regina Schrambling who, on Twitter, in response to my Tweet about ordering from Otto, Tweeted back: "Wakeup call coming. Let me know if pizza crusts still taste like communion hosts."

I wish I could say that she was wrong, but that was one cardboard-y pizza. The toppings were nice: the anchovies a higher grade anchovy than you might get from a traditional pizza joint, ditto the olives and the sauce. But as a whole, this was one sad, cold pizza.

What's the moral here? Don't put pizza on a pedestal before you eat it? Or: no matter how much you admire them, even your heros are fallible?

Nah, I think the moral is one that isn't so universal after all: when ordering from Otto, don't order pizza.

Pot Roast

2009-11-16T18:40:55Z

When I think pot roast, I think Americana, I think 50s sitcoms and a beleaguered housewife who intones: "Oh, darn it, I burnt the pot roast!"

It's not a dish that I ate much growing up, eating--as we did--most of our meals out. My first real pot roast memory, actually, comes from Atlanta. I ordered pot roast at one of my favorite, kitschy restaurants there--Agnes & Muriel's--and got very sick afterwards. I don't blame Agnes & Muriel's, but I did blame pot roast. I avoided it for years.

Then, a few weeks ago, one of the eminent food world figures that I follow on Twitter--John "Doc" Willoughby (@jdocwill is his Twitname)--Tweeted the following: "Since winter seems to be early, I'm making comfort food -- my grandma's pot roast with caraway seeds and green apples over mashed potatoes."

When people ask me "Why Twitter?" I often answer, "So you can follow people that you admire and interact with them." Such was the case here when, after reading that Tweet (which made me pretty hungry), I replied and asked for the recipe. And, in respectable Twitter fashion, he replied and said that I could find it in a book he co-authored with Chris Schlesinger: "How To Cook Meat."

And thus, through the magic of Twitter, I found myself a few weeks later making John "Doc" Willoughby's grandmother's pot roast on a cold autumn night. There are so many peculiar twists and turns to the recipe--caraway seeds? cider vinegar? APPLES?--but, as I trusted they might, each element revved the dish up significantly and the end result was a fork-tender pot roast with a nicely tart and acidic sauce and luscious, meaty apples. In the book, he suggests that you serve it with roasted potatoes and that's precisely what I did. And, since it's a braise, there's very little chance that you'll burst out, like a 50s housewife, with: "Darn it, I burnt the pot roast!" Instead, you'll say, like a housewife of the 00s: "I made a very good pot roast and I have Twitter and food blogs to thank."

Lazy Sunday Pot Roast with Caraway and Green Apples
by John "Doc" Willoughby (& his grandmother)
from "How To Cook Meat"

Ingredients:
2 Tbs vegetable oil
1 4 to 5 lb boneless cross-rib pot roast or other chuck roast
2 medium onions thinly sliced
1/2 cup cider vinegar
3 bay leaves
1 Tbs Caraway seeds
1/4 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 cup fresh marjoram (or 2 Tbs dried)
2 to 2 1/2 cups beef stock
4 Granny Smith apples quartered, cored and peeled

1. Preheat oven to 300.

2. In a Dutch oven, heat oil on high heat until very hot. Pat meat dry and season with lots of salt and pepper. Brown well, 8 to 10 minutes a side. [Note: this is the MOST important step. This is where all the flavor comes from, so really let it get brown like this, ok? Promise?]

3. Remove meat to a plate. Pour off fat or add as needed so there are appx. 2 Tbs in the Dutch oven. Add onions and saute until translucent, 7 to 9 minutes:

[I think I made a mistake here; I salted the onions when they went in, and they let out so much liquid it took forever for it all to evaporate. So my suggestion is, add the onions, let them turn translucent, and then sprinkle with a little salt. It's good to season as you go with a dish like this.]

4. Add vinegar, bring to boil, scrape up brown bits. Add the bay leaves, the Caraway seeds, the sugar, and the marjoram. Place the meat back in and add enough beef stock to come up the sides of the meat halfway.

Bring to a simmer, skim off fat, cover and put in the oven for 2 hours and 15 minutes.

5. At this point, add the apples to the pot:

15 minutes later, the apples will be done.

Remove them from the pot and start checking the meat for doneness. Continue cooking, with lid on, until fork tender--15 to 30 minutes more.

6. When finished, remove meat from the pot, cover with foil, and let it rest ten minutes. Skim fat from the liquid and taste: for more flavor, boil it until it coats a spoon. [I did this, and it makes the sauce taste great.]

7. Slice meat and serve with the apples, the liquid and the onions. Enjoy!

Steam-Scrambled Eggs

2009-11-13T16:54:35Z

Those of you with cappuccino makers, may I have your attention? I have a weekend project for you. When you make your scrambled eggs this weekend, instead of melting butter in a pan, beating the eggs with a fork, plopping them into the foamy fat and stirring them round and round, why not find inspiration in the picture above? Those eggs, you see, are the work of renowned New York chef Jody Williams. I ate them last Sunday with my friend Jimmy at her lovely little restaurant, Gottino, and they were so cloud-like and delicious I thought they might float right off the plate. But the best part was how they were made...

...they were made with the steam wand of a cappuccino maker.

(COLLECTIVE GASP)

Yes, it's shocking, but also rather brilliant. Think about it: what do you want your scrambled eggs to be? Light, fluffy, airy--you want them to be all of those things, but it's hard to achieve that in a pan. So, instead, Chef Williams uses a magic wand--a steam wand. Not only does it make sense--again, these eggs were outrageously good--I bet it's really fun to do. There's even a how-to video on the site Food Mayhem that shows you Chef Williams's technique. She places 3 (beaten?) eggs, softened butter and a dash of salt in a porcelain jar, dips the wand in the egg mixture, turns on the steam, stirs it around until it's just cooked (and still runny). And that's it. Your kids will love it! And look at the results:

Those eggs (the ones Jimmy ordered) were served with cream fraiche, smoked salmon and caper berries. My eggs (the ones at the top) came with oven roasted cherry tomatoes (mind-blowingly good) and goat cheese. The ones she makes in the video are topped with lots of freshly grated Parmesan, pepper, and prosciutto.

So those of you with steam wands in the house, give this a whirl this weekend and tell me what you think. If you're successful, take a picture of you with the finished dish and send it to me at amateurgourmet AT gmail DOT com. Or better yet, make a video, upload it to YouTube and send me a link. If there are enough submissions, I'll do a round-up on Monday. As for me, as someone who does not own a cappuccino maker, I know where I'll be eating my eggs this weekend. I just hope if I order an actual cappuccino, it isn't yolky.

Lunch with Lidia Bastianich (and my dad)

2009-11-11T15:34:36Z

It's my fault, really. My parents were in town and my mom asked me, early in the week, if I'd babysit my dad for lunch on Tuesday while she met some of her friends. I said, "Sure." Then, the day before, I received a confirmation e-mail from Lidia Bastianich's publicist reminding me of a lunch scheduled at Lidia's restaurant Felidia the next day. I'd RSVPed for two (I was going to bring a more talented photographer friend (why? see picture above)) and so, after some clever thinking, I decided to take my dad.

"What is this again?" asked my dad when I told him about it. "Who is this person?"

"Lidia Bastianich," I explained. "She's one of my favorite TV chefs. And she's hosting a lunch promoting her new cookbook."

My dad's a relatively shy dentist and so I assured him he wouldn't have to do much at this lunch, just sit there and eat. I was a little nervous we'd be at a big communal table, but I kept that thought to myself. I was hoping we'd all be at our own tables, Lidia'd come out to speak, and that would be that.

Well.

We got there at the designated time and walked upstairs to the private dining room. There was a big table of cookbooks and then, across the room, a long communal table. Two other women stood in the room with us and that was it. Then Lidia walked in.

"Eek," I thought to myself. "What if it's just the five of us? What if my dad has to talk? He's never seen Lidia's show! He doesn't know who she is! And how will I explain why he's there?"

"Hello," said Lidia, waking around the room, shaking hands. My dad shook her hand and said his name, she smiled, nodded and moved on to me. More people came. And pretty soon we were at the table, with Lidia at the center, and my dad at the head. Once the table was full, one fact was clear: my dad and I were the only men there.

The pressure was off, though, because Lidia began monologuing in a way that put the entire room at ease. She talked about her new book, "Lidia Cooks from the Heart of Italy," a book that inspired the meal we were about to eat; she talked about the book's pictures, taken by Christopher Hirsheimer, and her attempts to branch out on to the web. And that's when she turned to us and asked us to go around and say who we were, this being a room of bloggers, web people and my dad.

I glanced nervously to my right where my dad gave me a look like: "ruh roh."

There were people there from Daily Candy, my friend Sara-Kate from The Kitchn, and then it was my turn.

"I'm Adam from The Amateur Gourmet," I said bravely. "And this," I said, indicating my dad, "is David Lebovitz."

My dad looked confused.

Just kidding. I introduced him as my dad, Lidia smiled and said that "family is very important, I bring my mother with me everywhere."

Phew! A relief.

Then the wine started coming...

And a menu was presented...

The first course was a celeriac salad with apple and a sliver of meat (I can't quite recall what the meat was):

It was tasty and refreshing, though I noticed my dad picking around it nervously.

The next course my dad devoured: butternut squash risotto.

I loved the zip of balsamic vinegar on top.

The main course was beef braised in beer, a real triumph:

Lidia said, "You can cook chicken like this or even turkey. Imagine how good that would be at Thanksgiving!"

The dessert was a simple rustic dessert of bread, chocolate and whipped cream:

It looks complicated and fancy, but Lidia assured us it was cheap and incredibly easy to do--the recipe, of course, is in the book.

What I haven't emphasized yet, in this post, is how excited I was to be in Lidia's presence. Her show is probably the most prominent on my Tivo line-up; I look forward to new episodes each week and think of Lidia's family as my own, which is why it was so cool that not only did I get to meet Lidia but also present was Tanya, her daughter.

I began to ask questions, emboldened by alcohol. "Sometimes on the show," I said delicately, "you and Tanya have... disagreements. How do you settle them when you work on a book together?" (Tanya co-wrote the cookbook.)

Tanya answered this one: "We have six recipe testers so every recipe is tested and tested and tested to the point that by the end, we pretty much know what we all think is the best."

Fair enough. When the conversation turned to Italian cooking vs. French cooking, I asked--again, delicately--why Lidia thoguht there weren't any four-star Italian restaurants in New York yet? "Well," she said, "Italians have the most stars combined." (I'd never thought of that, but if you add up Babbo's three stars to Marea's three stars and so on, you'd get a lot of stars.)

Finally, I asked the obvious question, which anyone who's been following Lidia's career for a while would be hard-pressed not to ask: "What was it like cooking for the pope?"

"It was the pinnacle of my career," said Lidia, "both personally and professionally."

She described the security she had to go through to get to where the pope was staying; she explained her strategy. "I know he's from Germany, so I decided to cook him food that he'd find familiar. I made schnitzel and I made strudel. And at the end he paid me the highest compliment--he told me it made him think of his mother's cooking."

From the pope to my dad, Lidia's cooked for some of the all-time greats. After the desserts were cleared away, Lidia bid us adieu (or, rather, "ciao"), signing books for us and posing for pictures. And how could I resist snapping a picture of my dad and his new best friend?

He was dubious at first, but by the end he was won over.

"She's a very impressive woman," said my dad, as we were leaving. "You can see why she's successful, being able to talk to a whole table like that. If I had to do that, I'd die."

Two worlds collided at Felidia that day, but they produced a new world, a world where dentistry and cookery can co-exist in absolute harmony, as Lidia and my dad sing out together--as she does at the end of every show: "Tutti a Tavola a Mangiare!"

Pork on Fire (The Spiciest Dish in New York?)

2009-11-09T17:37:25Z

On Friday, I sent out the following e-mail to my pork-eating friends:

Dear Friends,

Today I was reading the New Yorker profile of the only food critic to win a Pulitzer Prize, Jonathan Gold. In it he says of a spicy Thai food dish: "It was glowing, practically incandescent. You bite into it and every alarm in your body goes off at once. It's an overload on your pain receptors, and then the flavors just come through. It's not that the hotness overwhelms the dish, which is what people who don't understand Thai cooking always say, but that the dish is revealed for the first time--its flavor--as you taste details of fruit and turmeric and spices that you didn't taste when it was merely extremely hot. It's like a hallucination."

This passage inspired me to confront what is supposed to be the spiciest dish in all of New York, the Pork on Fire at Rhong-Tiam. I've already done battle with spicy food at Rhong-Tiam (see this post), but now I'm ready to face my fears. And I thought it would be fun to get a group together THIS SUNDAY NIGHT to face the fire. The only rule: if you come, you have to order PORK ON FIRE. For more info on PORK ON FIRE, read The New York Times description here.

The money quote: "It's not so much a dish as a session: an hour spent suspended exquisitely between pleasure and pain, craving and fear." [The article also calls it a "contender for spiciest dish in the city."]

Do you have the guts to join me?

I was thinking we'd meet there at 7 PM. It's right near NYU.

NO need to respond to this unless your answer is YES!!

Bravely yours,
Adam

For the rest of Friday and all of Saturday, I waited for the responses to come pouring in. How often would my friends have the opportunity to eat the spiciest dish in all of New York with the spiciest person they know? I waited and waited and waited and then I got an e-mail from my friend Jimmy: "Have fun - this sounds like my worst nightmare."

What was wrong with my friends? Didn't they read that quote from Jonathan Gold? What were they afraid of? "Fiery diarrhea," answered Craig.

And then my prayers were answered when a relatively new friend, Chris Dufault, said that he'd come but that he wouldn't be eating Pork on Fire. He'd bring a friend, however, who would eat Pork on Fire so I wouldn't have to eat it alone. I was too dispirited to throw the rules back in his face so I agreed.

On Sunday night, I brought Craig (who came when he knew he didn't have to eat Pork on Fire either) to meet Chris and his friend. His friend, it turned out, was named Doug and Doug's roommate is a food blogger I like: Ganda of Eat Drink One Woman.

"So I was thinking," I said as we sat at the table. "Maybe we should just order one Pork on Fire for the table and then each of us can get our own entrees and try it."

"Nu uh," said Chris Dufault (pronounced du-foh), "you have to order it for yourself. You can't back down now!"

"At least you're in this with me," I said to Doug.

"I'm going to order beef salad," said Doug. "But I'll share it with you and eat some of your Pork on Fire."

Beef salad!!? What was happening!? Was I going to have to face Pork on Fire alone?

The waiter came to take our order. Craig ordered the drunken noodles, Chris ordered larb-gai (the dish that burned my face off last time), and Doug ordered his beef salad. When it was my turn, I proudly announced my order: "Pork on fire!" I shouted. The waiter shot me a look like "no! no! it can't be!" But I nodded: "Yes! Yes! It CAN be. It MUST be. This is my fate, my destiny." He nodded solemnly and walked away.

"Are you ready? Are you scared?" asked Chris.

I entered a zen-like state and crossed my legs in deep contemplation. To face this dish, I'd need to use every tool in my belt, every cooling agent in my soul.

At last, the dish arrived. Here it is, in all of its dangerous glory:

"Ooooh," cried the crowd.

"Are you ready?" asked Chris.

"Here," I said. "Take a video." This is the video of me taking my first bite:

For those of you at work who can't watch that video (and I'm starting to think that's a large number of you), my reaction was basically: "Oh, this isn't so bad." Then a few seconds go by and I start to feel it.

But, funny enough, even after eating lots and lots of it, the heat was a peculiar sort of heat. It wasn't a burning sensation, really, like you get with Tabasco or Sriracha; it was more of an exquisite pain, an illumination of sorts--the inside of my mouth felt alive and tingly and slightly numb. Look, with a little help from Doug, I finished the whole plate!

Chris, the Great Taunter, the one who forced me to order Pork on Fire for myself, didn't fare as well. By all accounts, his dish--the larb-gai--was even spicier than mine. (Remember how it almost burned my face off?) The last laugh, I'm afraid, was on him:

But I thank those brave souls who joined me to confront a dish I'd be too afraid to confront alone. Now that we've formed a scary food society, I look forward to their joining me next week for live octopus, pork uterus and ant larvae salad.

Arnold Schwarzenegger at Le Pain Quotidien

2009-11-09T16:02:38Z

My friend Tom snapped this picture of Arnold Schwarzenegger yesterday at Le Pain Quotidien in Santa Monica. Says Craig, in his Arnold Schwartzenegger voice: "Hasta la vista roast beef with caper mayonnaise, diced tomatoes and scallions!"

MIchael Symon's Spicy Tomato & Blue Cheese Soup

2009-11-06T16:59:16Z

At the end of yesterday's video podcast with Michael Symon, you may have heard me sheepishly express doubt about adding blue cheese to tomato soup. For some reason, I thought the result would be grainy and gloppy and just kind of gross. Instead, this tomato soup was absolutely the best tomato soup I've ever had--and the best part about it is you'd never know that blue cheese was what was making it taste so good. It adds depth and creaminess but it doesn't taste funky and you don't notice the texture.

I had to make two substitutions that you may find useful. First, Chef Symon is very specific about the blue cheese he uses--Roth Kase Buttermilk Blue cheese--which I couldn't find at the Gourmet Garage. So I bought a creamy blue cheese (I think it may have been sweet gorgonzola), emphasis on the creamy. I figured a creamy blue cheese would blend up better than a harder blue cheese and that instinct was very sound; the cheese disappeared into the soup.

The second substitution was one that I was sad about. In my last apartment I kept Sriracha in my fridge, I didn't take it with me when we moved, and when I went soup shopping the other night there was no Sriracha to be found. So I bought Tabasco, figuring that not only would it play a similar role--adding heat--but that it would pair nicely with the blue cheese as it does with chicken wings and blue cheese sauce.

Finally, I used a hand blender to blend it up instead of a blender blender and it didn't all get super blended, but that was fine. I paired the soup with some crusty bread and a simple salad of apple, fennel, lemon juice, olive oil, salt and pepper.

Give this soup a whirl and don't tell anyone what the secret ingredient is: see if they can guess. You'll make blue cheese soup converts out of everyone.

Spicy Tomato and Blue Cheese Soup
from "Michael Symon's Live To Cook" by Michael Symon

Serves 4 to 6

Ingredients:
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 medium red onion, finely chopped
Kosher salt
4 garlic cloves, sliced
1 28-oz can San Marzano tomatoes, with their juice
1 1/2 cups Chicken Stock
3/4 cups heavy cream
2 tablespoons sriracha sauce
1 tablespoon fresh oregano leaves
1/2 cup Roth Kase Buttermilk Blue cheese

Heat the olive oil in a 4-quart pot over medium heat. When the oil is hot, add the onion and a three-fingered pinch of salt and sweat for 2 minutes. Add the garlic and continue to sweat for 2 more minutes. Add the tomatoes, their juice and the stock and bring to a simmer. (I added a little more salt here too). Add the cream, sriracha sauce, and oregano and simmer for 45 minutes.

Pour the soup into a blender, add the blue cheese, and blend until smooth, working in batches if needed.

Strain through a fine-mesh strainer into a clean pot, taste, adjust the seasoning if necessary, and reheat to serve. The soup will keep, covered in the refrigerator, for a few days.

A Video Podcast with Michael Symon

2009-11-05T18:41:43Z

Yesterday I had the opportunity to chat with Iron Chef Michael Symon outside the Standard Hotel in New York's meatpacking district. Chef Symon's in town to promote his new cookbook, "Live To Cook" which he co-wrote with this blog's good friend Michael Ruhlman. Here's our lively chat edited down to just 4 minutes:

As for the tomato soup I mention at the end, I made it later that night and it was so fantastic I'm going to share the recipe in a separate post (look for it tomorrow). And if you want to watch the video of me cooking with Chef Symon in his kitchen at Lola, click here.

Floating Away

2009-11-04T20:44:44Z

DeNiro did it for "Raging Bull," and now I've done it for this month's banner. That's right, check out the new plus-sized me floating up there in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. Once again, kudos to Lindy Groening for another stellar illustration, and to Justin for puffing the air into all those balloons.

Where To Buy Ethical Meat?

2009-11-03T15:29:03Z

My friend Rob wrote me the following e-mail yesterday and because it's such a good question, I thought I'd answer it right here on the blog.

Hey Adam, I was reading reviews of [Jonathan Safran] Foer's new book "Eating Animals" on being a vegetarian and renewing my pledge to only eat "humane" meat -- free range, cruelty free, local, organic, etc. But I cannot for the life of me figure out which places are "approved." Is there any way to figure this out? Would this make for a good blog? It seems to be a topic a lot of people are talking about... - Rob

Dear Rob,

This is a tricky, sticky issue and one that I struggle with all the time. For example, on a very small scale: eggs. When I go to the supermarket and stare at all the different egg options I am baffled. Do I buy free-range eggs? Organic eggs that aren't free-range? If I buy local eggs at the farmer's market are they free-range and organic? What is an organic egg? Is that better than a local egg? Is that better than a free-range egg? And so on.

But you are asking, specifically, about ethical meat. That gets even MORE confusing, for starters because you can't trust the words you see on the meat at your supermarket. Did you know, for example, that there's no one regulating the word "free-range" as it applies to chicken? So even if your "organic, free-range" chicken is labeled as such, there's a good chance that that chicken isn't very free at all. In Michael Pollan's "The Omnivore's Dilemma" (which is basically the Bible on this subject), Pollan goes to visit some "organic, free-range" birds and writes: "Compared to conventional chickens, I was told, these organic birds have it pretty good: They get a few more square inches of living space per bird (though it was hard to see how they could be packed together much more tightly), and because there are no hormones or antibiotics in their feed to accelerate growth, they get to live a few days longer. Though under the circumstances it's not clear that a longer life is necessarily a boon."

The answer to your question, then, is clearly not the supermarket (though I am guilty, I must admit, of buying free-range, organic chickens at the supermarket anyway, because of convenience) but rather, the farmer's market.

If you want ethical meat in New York, get thee to Union Square. On Saturdays, especially, you will find many ethical meat options. You can talk to the farmers directly and ask them about their practices; some farmers even flout their ethical practices as a way to entice engaged shoppers like you!

The only problem is, it can be prohibitively expensive. One of the best meat purveyors in Union Square, Flying Pigs Farm, raises heritage breed pigs as humanely as possible (see this Oprah article for details). Because their pigs are treated so well and the pigs themselves are such superior breeds, any pork you buy from Flying Pigs will taste wildly better than the shrink-wrapped unethical pork you'll buy at your supermarket. But a package of pork chops from D'Agostino's (according to their website) will cost you $5.49, at Flying Pigs a package of 2 chops will cost you $18.75. So buying ethical meat on a regular basis, unless you're extraordinarily rich, may prove to be financially impossible.

The solution, many would argue, is to eat less meat and, when you do buy meat, to buy the expensive ethical meat from the farmer's market. As our friend Diana likes to point out, "Meat SHOULD be expensive. It's only factory farming that made meat cheap in the first place." At the very least, go to the farmer's market and buy one thing, go home and cook it and see if you taste the difference. From my own experience (check out these meals I cooked with Flying Pigs meat: pork ribs, pork shoulder) just knowing that the meat was well-treated makes a HUGE difference. You feel good about yourself while you eat it.

After that, I leave it to my readers to offer their advice. Help us out, ethical eaters--where do you buy your meat? Tell us in the comments.

How To Make Doughnuts

2009-11-02T14:39:46Z

There are two kinds of people in this world: those who can delay gratification and those who can't. The following video, our latest from Food2.com, explores this subject with two recipes for doughnuts; one for those who like slow authentic doughnuts (recipe courtesy of Emily Isaac from Trois Pommes Patisserie in Park Slope) and the other for those who like 'em fast and dirty (recipe courtesy of our friend Krisse, my director Josh's wife (you can see her making them in an old post here)). These recipes are like mirrors; whichever one you choose will reveal the real person within. So which are you: slow and authentic or fast and dirty? Choose a doughnut and choose YOUR DESTINY.

Gina DePalma's Zucchini Olive Oil Cake

2009-10-30T15:16:59Z

You say "chocolate cake," and the masses come; you say "olive oil zucchini cake" and there's a bit of a silence. "Ummm," a timid voice emerges a few seconds later. "What kind of cake did you say?"

It's olive oil zucchini cake, timid-voiced person! Or, rather, zucchini olive oil cake. It comes from Babbo pastry chef Gina DePalma's book "Dolce Italiano" and one bite will make a convert out of you. It's moist, it's got terrific fall spices (cinnamon? check. ginger? you got it. nutmeg? who's your daddy?) and there's a "lemon crunch" glaze on top that'll make you pucker your lips in delight. Craig's friend Alena was dubious at first, but after one bite she declared "this is AMAZING" and asked for a second piece. The defense rests.

The only tweak I made was I left out the walnuts; not because I'm allergic or anything, just because I was trying to save a little money (they were $5.99 at the store) but I bet this cake would taste even better with them. Also, I'm an advocate for using whole nutmeg that you grate yourself: maybe it's a subtle difference, but God is in the details of subtle differences. That's the saying, right? And so, without further ado, your weekend baking project: Gina DePalma's Zucchini Olive Oil Cake.

Zucchini Olive-Oil Cake with Lemon Crunch Glaze
by Gina DePalma, from "Dolce Italiano"

For the cake:
1 cup walnut pieces
2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon kosher salt
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
3 large eggs
1 3/4 cups granulated sugar
1 cup extra-virgin olive oil
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
2 1/2 cups grated zucchini (about 2 small zucchini)
Confectioner's sugar, for dusting (optional)

For the lemon crunch glaze:
1/4 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1 cup confectioners' sugar

To make the cake: Preheat the oven to 350 and position a rack in the center. Grease a 10 cup Bundt pan [I just used a regular cake pan] using nonstick cooking spray or butter, then dust it with flour to coat it completely, tapping out the excess flour.

Place the walnuts in a single layer on a baking sheet and toast them until they are golden brown and aromatic, 12 to 14 minutes. Cool the walnuts completely, then finely chop them in the food processor and set aside.

Sift the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and spices into a medium bowl and set aside. In an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the eggs, sugar, and olive oil together on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes, then beat in the vanilla extract. Scrape down the sides of the bowl with a spatula after each addition. Beat in the dry ingredients all at once on low speed until they are thoroughly combined, then switch the mixer to medium speed and mix for 30 seconds. Beat in the zucchini and the walnuts on low speed until they are completely incorporated, scraping down the sides of the bowl.

Pour the batter into the prepared pan, smoothing the top with a spatula.

Bake the cake for 45 to 50 minutes, rotating the pan halfway through the baking time to ensure even browning. The cake is done when a tester inserted in the center comes out clean and the cake has begun to pull away from the sides of the pan.

While the cake is baking, prepare the glaze: In a medium bowl, whisk together the lemon juice and granulated sugar, then whisk in the confectioners' sugar until the glaze is completely smooth.

Allow the cake to cool in the pan for 10 minutes, then carefully invert it onto a wire rack. [At this point, I flipped it on to ANOTHER wire rack so the top of the cake (which was nice and crusty) was the part that I glazed] Using a pastry brush [I used a metal spatula] immediately brush the glaze over the entire surface of the warm cake, using all of the glaze; it will adhere to the cake and set as the cake cools, Allow the cake to cool completely and the glaze to dry completely.

Transfer the cake to a stand or sering plate and, if desired, lightly dust it with confectioners' sugar. Any leftover cake may be wrapped in plastic and served the following day.

Momofuku's Ginger Scallion Noodles

2009-10-28T16:15:18Z

Bow down before me, mortals, it's time to face facts. David Chang is one of the most celebrated, important chefs in New York, right? Right. His cooking is hardcore and bad-ass isn't it? It is. So what does it mean that a mere amateur like me, a tiny speck on the giant tapestry of New York gastronomy, not only created one of Chang's signature dishes at home--his Ginger Scalllion Noodles--but that I did it so accurately? So triumphantly? So magnificently? It means, I surmise, that I am the King of Awesomeness! BOW DOWN BEFORE ME, YOU HEATHENS.

Actually, no bowing is necessary. The truth is that this recipe is easy, breezy; so easy, that I gleaned it just from flipping through the new Momofuku Cookbook (a book that'll be prominent on my holiday wish-list this year). It made me happy to see how easy this recipe was because Ginger Scallion Noodles are my favorite noodles to order at Momofuku Noodle Bar; they're intensely flavored and yet really light and refreshing.

There are many surprises in the recipe, too. For example, the pickled cucumbers that come on top of the Ginger Scallion Noodles? They take 20 minutes and they're made with salt and sugar.

That's actually where you should begin if you want to make these noodles at home. Buy one or two Kirby cucumbers (though I'm sure other cucumbers might work too); slice them super thin. In a little bowl, combine 1 part salt to 3 parts sugar (NOTE: This is based just on my memory, I may be a little off; but that ratio worked---definitely double check in the book if you want to be super, super accurate).

Sprinkle the cucumbers with the salt sugar mixture. Toss around. Let sit for twenty minutes and taste. If they're too mild, sprinkle with more salt and sugar. If they're too intense, rinse with water, taste and re-season. It's kind of fool-proof.

Next, make your dressing: the dressing should sit for at least 20 minutes too so making both this and the cucumbers first is a good way to go.

To make the dressing, you just combine a bunch of stuff in a bowl: 2 1/2 cups thinly sliced scallions, 1/2 cup minced ginger (I just grated the ginger on a box grater, it was easier), 1/4 cup grapeseed oil (I bought this just for this recipe and I'm glad I did: it has a nice, clean, neutral flavor), 1 1/2 tsps Usukuchi light soy sauce (I couldn't find Usukuchi, so just used Kikkoman), 3/4 tsp sherry vinegar, and salt to taste.

You will find, when you make this dressing, that at the end you'll have what looks like just a big bowl of wet scallions. Have faith, though--those wet scallions will work wonders.

Now's the time to start cooking. Get a pot of water boiling (big enough to hold your noodles) and start browning cauliflower.

This part's super easy. Take a non-stick skillet, add a splash of grapeseed oil (so it coats the bottom), heat until you can't hold your hand over it and then toss in a big handful of cauliflower florets. Sprinkle with salt, toss all around and cook until golden brown and tender. See?

Just don't add too much cauliflower at once or it'll steam and not brown.

And that's basically all the work you have to do to make this dinner. If you can find ramen noodles, add them to your water now; I couldn't find ramen noodles (or at least unflavored ramen noodles) so I bought Soba noodles which worked perfectly well. Boil them for 5 minutes or so (following the package directions), taste to see if it's done, drain and rinse and then drain again really well (I pressed down to get all the moisture out). Place in a large bowl and top with the dressing:

Toss all around and taste. I found that it needed a little more soy and a little more sherry vinegar, so I added it.

Lift into bowls and then top with the pickled cucumbers and the cauliflower. Voila!

You too can be the King or Queen of Awesomeness, just as long as you credit me as being the Supreme Ruler of Kings and Queens of Awesomeness. Deal? Deal.

The First Meal

2009-10-26T15:38:06Z

The first meal that you cook in a new apartment is very, very important. We all remember what happened last time, don't we? I attempted to inaugurate our Park Slope apartment three years ago with Edna Lewis's fried chicken (fried in butter and lard) and didn't get the fat hot enough. The result? Gooey, gloppy, undercooked chicken and a cursed apartment that gave us bad heat over three harsh winters. (OK, I exaggerate: I liked that apartment. But the heat did suck).

For the first meal here in our new West Village digs, I had to play to my strengths. And my strengths fall into two categories: pasta and dessert. Everything else, eh, but pasta and dessert? That's where I really shine.

I may have said this before (Lord knows, after almost six years of blogging, I may begin to repeat myself) but my most comforting of comfort foods is fusilli with tomato sauce. It's easy to explain why: growing up, this is one of the few dishes I'd eat at home. More often than not, we'd eat dinner out, but when we were left at home with a babysitter, my mom would have a box of fusilli and a jar of Prego ready to go.

So I associate pasta and tomato sauce with comfort and home: a perfect first meal for the new apartment.

Craig, on the other hand, isn't a huge fan of pasta with just plain old tomato sauce. Before I met him, I'd make it really simple: just some garlic, maybe some basil, and a can of tomatoes. When I made that for him, he did not swoon. He kind of shrugged.

That's when I turned to Puttanesca. When I want to make a comforting bowl of pasta with tomato sauce these days, I use this recipe: it's got garlic, anchovies, capers and red pepper flakes. In other words, it explodes with flavor. Craig loves it, I love it, and my new kitchen loves it too. See how it looks cooking away on my new stove in my freshly painted orange kitchen?

The best part? I wanted Parmesan to grate on top (I know, I know, sacrilegious for some, but I think it works with this b/c the only fish is anchovy, which works with Parmesan in Caesar salad--so there!) and I wasn't happy with the Parmesan at the grocery store, so where did I go? Why I sauntered over to THE GREATEST CHEESE SHOP IN ALL OF NEW YORK Murray's cheese, just steps away. Pretty cool, huh?! I love our new apartment.

But that's not all I cooked on this night, the first night cooking in my new kitchen. I also decided to cook a universal people magnet: the Barefoot Contessa's chocolate cake (see here).

If you make this cake (a simple chocolate cake with a bit of coffee in there, to intensify the flavor) people will instantly flock to your apartment to eat it. And sure enough, our friends who live in the building--Rob, Kath, Ameer, and our friend Cary (who doesn't live in the building, but who directed an awesome movie, so that's kind of like living in our building (huh?)) popped on over:

Our place was a total mess, but the chocolate cake made for much merriment and good cheer at this, our inaugural night of cooking and eating. Have you ever seen anyone in better spirits than Ameer eating his chocolate cake?

All of this bodes very well for the new place. If our first meal was this successful, who can imagine all the good things to come? And yes, Craig is still unpacking boxes and we haven't fully assembled our IKEA furniture (actually, Craig destroyed a nightstand in a fit of IKEA rage yesterday), but we're getting there. All it took was pasta and cake and we're off to a great, great start.