Glad it’s fall…
Last year I bought Claudia Roden’s wonderful, beautiful book, Arabesque. I got sucked in by the luscious photos, but after flipping through recipes from Turkey, Morocco, and Lebanon, I began to really enjoy making each new recipe a sort of adventure. I went in search of exotic (at least to me!) ingredients like sumac, gum mastic, and pomegranate molasses, almost all of which could be found at Pike Place Market’s, “The Souk.” Then I came home and cooked dishes like rice pudding markedly different from my mother’s cherished preparation, but just as comforting and delicious. (Turns out I am one of the weirdos who actually like gum mastic!!)
As far as I can remember, I had never tasted a quince, and so was longing for the chance to find some in the market and try out, at least for starters, the baked quince recipe in Roden’s book. I have been waiting for fall all year.
Poking my nose in the darker corners of Sosio’s Produce last week, I found a sad looking box full of dull, yellow, dusty, somewhat bruised fruit. Could this be it? Yes. The box was full of organic quinces picked from the solitary old quince tree behind the house of the guy who supplies Sosio’s ever-popular “grown in dirt” tomatoes. Don’t you love an ingredient with an evocative story? A solitary, crumpled box, reminding me of the fruit which sat all winter in my family’s garage, leftovers from Grandpa’s trees, the sweetest perfume I have ever known.
Sad looking and bruised notwithstanding, I bought three and roasted them with butter and sugar to have for dessert that night, still warm from the oven, with Greek yogurt, and for breakfast the next day with a grating of cinnamon along with my toast and coffee.
Like an apple-saucy-apple mixed with a lemon. Familiar, but a little different. And now what precious gifts will winter bring?
November 4th, 2009 | No Comments »
The New York Times dining section today features an article about Sam Kass, called “A White House Chef Who Wears Two Hats.” (I’ve almost decided that I should stop mentioning on this blog that Sam is MY COUSIN!). The article describes how Sam “who has no formal culinary training and has never run a restaurant or hotel kitchen,” is “reinventing the role of official gastronome in the Executive Mansion” as “part chef and part policy wonk.” Executive White House Chef, Cristeta Comerford, handles the formal gatherings, while Sam is the Obama family chef. But Sam’s other hat, as “food initiatives coordinator,” keeps him busy with the White House garden, child nutrition issues, and a myriad of other food issues from colony collapse disorder for honey bees to the use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides. Read the whole article here.
November 4th, 2009 | No Comments »
Here’s our queen of pasta, Martha Francis, kneading smoked paprika pasta dough for pappardelle. This will appear on Etta’s Chef Ron Anderson’s Dine Around Seattle menu this month as “Smoked Paprika Pappardelle with Rainbow Chard, Sherried Sultanas, Baby Carrots, and Pecorino Cheese.” Stop by Etta’s Sundays through Thursdays in November and check it out! Here’s the whole Etta’s Dine Around menu.
November 4th, 2009 | No Comments »
I have all the Saveur magazines, all the way back to issue #2 from ten years or so ago. Saveur certainly has had its ups and downs. From being a great food magazine to being quite a boring one, my interest in their stories have waxed and waned along with their food focus and quality. Lately, it’s been fair, and there is always something relating to the preservation of some cultural foodway or disappearing ingredient. The magazine’s topics through the years have emphasized quality ingredients made by hand, but Saveur’s also not afraid to praise kitchy, fondly remembered junk foods.
Imagine my dismay to see a huge two page ad for Norwegian farmed salmon in their latest issue (Nov). There is no question any longer regarding the pitfalls of farmed salmon. (See the great book, Bottomfeeder, for a great discussion.) The fact that this is so antithetical to all of the values portrayed by the magazine must be an indication of just how troubled print media is these days. Is the tainted revenue really worth it? I say no!
November 4th, 2009 | No Comments »
I started this project, but Tony and Kenan did most of the actual work preserving and canning. We did this because we were tired of not being able to use local produce in the winter time. We rounded up some preserving books and used the stoves in the pastry kitchen after hours. After we filled a large quantity of mason jars, we put up this shelf in the entryway to Serious Pie.
What did we preserve? Pickled yellow wax beans and Romano beans. Brandied Washington Pence Peaches. San Marzano tomatoes from Newaukum Valley Farms. Smoked gypsy peppers and sweet cayenne peppers from Alvarez Farms.
These preserved goods will show up mostly on the appetizer section of the Serious Pie menu.
November 2nd, 2009 | No Comments »
It all started with Nancy Oakes (Chef/owner of SF’s Boulevard) and the 62.5 egg in the immersion circulator at Tom Douglas Summer Camp. The egg was perfect, but the science geek in me loved the equipment. It was a bit much just for a perfect egg… until I learned of sous vide.
(Editor’s note: an immersion circulator is a professional piece of equipment that keeps a water bath at a precise temperature for a long period of time. Sous vide means slowly cooking foods in airtight plastic bags in a water bath well below the boiling point. )
Photo top: We borrowed this immersion circulator. We thought the equipment needed a little insulation, so wrapped the water bath container with a towel. Our first attempt was the 62.5 egg. I have to say the one hour wait at 62.5 °C was well worth it. The texture and creaminess of the yolk just can’t be described.
We then moved on to flat iron, pork shoulder, and ribs. You start vacuum sealing with a Foodsaver (photo, second from top). Four hours later at 140°F, you get a rather gray, unappetizing piece of meat (photo third from top). But a quick sear on a hot applewood fired grill and a Rub with Love Ancho Molasses glaze, and you get a wonderfully tender and flavorful result (ribs in photo fourth from top).
We originally thought it would be a lot of work, but with a little planning, sous vide cooking with an immersion circulator is simple. This is an excellent technique to prepare for a large dinner group, for sure. The main selling point for us is the tenderness, plus the flavors that permeate are retained throughout the process. Just did some Mangalista pork jowl and it was heavenly!
So… we got out own immersion circulator… these are short ribs…. (photo bottom).
Duck confit next!!
PAY ATTENTION to time and temperature control. Opportunities for bacterial grown are HUGE!!! Here’s A Practical Guide to Sous Vide Cooking.
November 2nd, 2009 | 3 Comments »
This last weekend I finally admitted that summer’s over and tore out my garden. I found myself with a bounty of green tomatoes. With apologies to my people back South- you can only fry so many, so I embarked on just one more canning adventure…
Much tinkering later, I have an, ahem, limited edition collection of green tomato chutney (after having my first jars blow out in the water bath.) I mixed ‘em with apple cider vinegar, cranberry, orange zest and juice, shallot, vanilla, salt, sugar and a weeeee bit too much Aleppo chile- all cooked forever to a thick consistency.
Potent and tasty!
I love canning because the simple act of opening a jar of cherry jam transports me right back to hot summer days and standing on a chair in my friend’s backyard, straining to reach the ripest cherries– or even my childhood, picking garbage bags full of pie cherries at u-pick farms in Michigan.
Top photo of jars, clockwise from top left: green tomato chutney, blueberry jam, sour cherry-vanilla jam, Burton-on-Trent style IPA (not pictured: a more American style IPA), raspberry jam, pickled hot peppers, and tomato with chilies.
Bottom photo: a small percent of the green tomatoes…
November 2nd, 2009 | No Comments »
Garrett (TDR Executive Pastry Chef) and Molly (Dahlia Bakery manager) constructed this beautiful cake for the Teatro Zinzanni Anniversary Gala Event which took place on Sunday. WOW!!!
November 2nd, 2009 | No Comments »
Here’s a photo of the congee I enjoyed at Dahlia for brunch on Sunday. Congee is a Chinese rice porridge. At Dahlia it is embellished with grilled prawns, scallions, ham hock, a poached egg, and Chinese doughnuts. A little ramekin of Chinese black beans with hot chili is served on the side for seasoning.
November 2nd, 2009 | No Comments »
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