This week, we've had our first cool night on the East Coast, which got me craving something warmer for dinner. Savory beef with a soupy tomato sauce is my favorite Cuban country dish (with the exception of black beans and rice, of course!).
I've always wondered about the name, but realized the shredded beef does indeed resemble a twisted old dress shirt. There are several stories as to how the dish was named, but my favorite is about a very poor man who didn't have money to buy food for his family. He took some "ropa vieja" -- old clothing -- from the closet and cooked it in a pot with a lot of love. Miraculously, it turned into a rich and hearty beef stew.
Trekking across the Niagara Region for seasonal comfort food, pies and wines, and traveling through Muskoka for honey, coffee and family farming.
"Mad Men," their love of cocktails, and a recipe for a Betty Draper-inspired gimlet.
Sumac's sour, fruit-like flavor makes it a great substitute for a splash of lemon.
Open's 2008 Riesling-Gewürtztraminer is a fine summer wine, plus the run-down on Beringer's 2007 Cabernet Sauvignon ("a steal") and Prospect's Pinot Noir.
Thankfully we have discovered that the folks at Brooklyn's renowned shop Baked have been serving these delicious brownie-cookie-cake hybrids to Muggles under the extremely suspicious name of "Black Forest Cookies" for years, but they are well-known to wizards by their real name: Cauldron Cakes.
Easily stackable for that train ride to Hogwarts, these Cakes are utterly worthy of defending via wand-wielding showdowns, sword battles with giant water snakes, etc. The surfaces of the decadent treats become cratered and volcanic after a whirl in the oven, and bubble as if they've emerged straight from a cauldron. Break them apart to reveal a moist, dark-as-night center the texture of a brownie. It must be magic.
Eating one feels slightly wicked. Eating two is downright evil. Ten points to Slytherin, indeed.
Cauldron Cakes recipe courtesy of the magicians at Baked, after the jump.
If you're lucky enough to live near a farmers market, don't forget to thank your local farmer and gardener for that sparkling-fresh produce, especially those who grow heirloom vegetables and fruits. In addition to growing delicious produce, they're cultivating history, right on the vine.
Though there are some differences of opinion about its exact definition, an heirloom variety of fruit or vegetable is generally agreed to be one that has been cultivated for at least 50 years. Beans are an heirloom veggie ever-growing in popularity, but the food that truly sings of summer is the tomato.
Heirloom tomatoes are beginning to appear in gardens, at roadside stands and lining produce aisles. In honor of the unique flavors and colors of these beauties, beyond the jump is an original recipe for a summer tomato salad: history you can eat. But remember to save some seeds -- preserving them is the least we can do for these species that give so much to us.
As summer kicks into high gear, roadside stands and greenmarkets are bustling with fresh produce.
Fresh herbs, cut just that morning, perfume the air: sultry thyme, sprightly parsley and rosemary for remembrance. Sweet onions tumble out of bushel baskets and into burlap bags. Piles of peppers fight for your attention in red, green, orange, yellow and even black. And who can resist fresh ears of satiny corn?
As you lug all of your fresh produce home, don't worry -- as always, we've got your back. Beyond the jump is an original recipe to use that corn, those peppers and those onions to make a quick, fresh corn relish.
This relish has a Southwestern twang, but it can accompany virtually anything coming off of your grill for Fourth of July barbecues, from juicy burgers and seared steaks to perfectly smoked chicken. And if the summer corn is too irresistible to resist buying a bushel, you can double the recipe and send some home with your guests.
Bluefish with Fava Beans, Corn, Tomatoes and Fresh Herbs. Photo: Rebecca Flint Marx
Let's face it: ever since Hannibal Lecter sung their praises in "The Silence of the Lambs," fava beans haven't enjoyed the greatest associations -- particularly where Chianti and liver are involved.
And that's a shame, because they're some of the most flavorful and versatile treats that summer has to offer. In season for a few precious weeks, favas -- which have been enjoyed throughout the world for about 5,000 years and are packed with so much protein they've been called "the meat of the poor" -- can be used in everything from salads and purées to soups and pasta dishes.
When the flat, wide beans are shelled and blanched, they adopt a vibrant grassy hue and buttery texture that enriches any meal, and their rapid cooking time makes it easy to incorporate them into a quick weeknight dinner -- or into lunch the following day. While stringing and shucking the beans (which, unshelled, are about five inches long) is a bit labor-intensive, it's one of those activities that's all but made for summer, particularly if you have a porch, some time on your hands and a glass of something cold by your side.
Like paella, tortilla española is a quintessential Spanish dish. Ubiquitous on tapas bar menus, the circular potato and onion omelet is also versatile. Add peppers (as above) or chorizo for color and texture, or follow the lead of Michael Fiorello, chef de cuisine at Chicago tapas bar Mercat a la Planxa, who loves tossing in jamón Ibérico or seasonal mushrooms.
While labor intensive, basic tortilla española (an original recipe is after the jump) is well worth the effort for its inimitable flavor and flexibility. Adapt this recipe to suit your own needs -- perhaps finish it on the stove top, perhaps in the oven, as done at Mercat a la Planxa. Fiorello agrees: "You can cook tortilla using many different techniques." No matter how you slice it, tortilla española is addictive. If you can wait this long -- and you ought not -- it will keep for a couple of days.
You've seen that sliced-up green apple sitting up top aside the Slashfood logo. Perhaps you've pondered its culinary potential -- the crisp snap of that bright green skin, the half-sweet/half-tart flavor that is the special domain of the Granny Smith apple.
Voila. Slashfood sorbet!
In sorbet, a single element is distilled into an intense burst of flavor. It should be so vivid that only a bite is necessary. Perhaps you're most familiar with it as an intermezzo to cleanse the palate, in a fluted paper cone to hold while walking alongside your companion and his gelato or in scoops piled high in a frosty parfait glass almost too cold to touch.
After the jump, an original recipe for a gorgeous green apple Slashfood Sorbet. We challenge you to only eat one bite.
Like ramps and asparagus, morels are synonymous with spring, and an edible reminder of the season's brevity. It feels less like morels have a season than a quick, annual engagement: catching them at the farmers market is like catching a solar eclipse, or Tom Jones at the MGM Grand in Vegas.
Morels are wild mushrooms that grow in forested areas throughout many parts of the country, and generally begin appearing sometime in April. They're usually available until the early summer, but their season can vary by a week or two depending on the region and the amount of rainfall. They're slender, knobby things with intricately ridged and wrinkled skin, and look like they sprouted from the pages of the Brothers Grimm. Their homely appearance belies their heavenly flavor, which is expressed to spectacular effect in the company of dairy, fat and and asparagus. Scrambled eggs are thus an ideal way to enjoy morels -- think of it as less an egg dish than a vehicle for delivering the best of the season to your very happy stomach.
Read the recipe for scrambled eggs with morels, asparagus and spring onions after the jump.
Every spring, ostrich eggs appear at Whole Foods, where they nestle in beds of straw alongside the more diminutive and mundane quail and duck eggs. Glimpsing one is a little like watching that video of a pig suckling some tiger cubs: a novel and slightly surreal display of the animal kingdom's quirkier side.
Most shoppers pause to look at them quizzically, perhaps remembering the "Top Chef" contestant whose doom was sealed by an ostrich egg quiche. Others pick them up, marveling at their weight (about 3 pounds) and size. Very few people actually seem to buy them -- aside from the "What on earth do I do with this thing?" factor, there's the additional deterrent of the price tag: each egg, which is the equivalent of about 18-24 chicken eggs, costs $39.99. That's is a lot to pay for breakfast, even if it will feed 10 of your closest friends. But according to one Whole Foods manager, the eggs are oddly popular, particularly among those cooking for office parties. Apparently hummus and carrot sticks just aren't what they used to be.
Though their size may be intimidating, ostrich eggs are surprisingly easy to cook. Their shell is literally their biggest barrier, and that can be easily breached with the help of a hammer. Once you're in, you're pretty much free to do as you please. The watery consistency of the yolk and albumen lends itself to easy blending, and combined with a couple tablespoons of olive oil, some good cheese and whatever other fillings you prefer (the one here employed one bunch of kale, chopped up and sautéed in olive oil, and half a pound of Zingerman's Cheshire), the egg is perfect for scrambling. Its texture is lighter and fluffier than that of a chicken egg, and it has a milder, faintly sweeter taste that's incredibly delicious. It's little wonder that places like The Rooster Cogburn Ostrich Ranch, which sells the eggs for $15 apiece, are trying to increase their popularity. With a little bit of PR savvy, these beauties could be the next breakfast of champions -- or at least the toast of office parties nationwide.
I do most of my cocktail inventing around the holidays. The reason for this is twofold. One, I always visit my parents and they possess a liquor cabinet that shames some bars, not only in actual number of bottles, but also in the array of top-shelf and/or rare liquors. Two, when does one find oneself in need of a drink more than the holidays?
Whether it's the merriment of celebration, the release of stress, or simply the desire to take a breather from all the socializing by indulging in a brief respite behind the bar, December is the time for mixing. And also for giving, so allow me to give you my two newly-invented cocktails for 2008: the Ginger-Pear Cocktail and the Nihilist.
I love cooking on Sunday morning. Sunday is usually the one day of the week I can do whatever I want, so they're pretty laid back and slow. It's only been a recent discovery that I enjoy cooking on my one easy day of the week, as opposed to a bowl of cereal, but I'm glad I finally did come to that realization.
Some of you may remember a post from earlier this week about Nazuki, a spice bread from Georgia. Well, everyone's been pretty busy this week, so the second loaf was starting to go stale. Of course one of the best ways to use up stale bread is a nice bread pudding, and that's what I made for my Sunday morning. My first thought was to make a savory bread pudding with some tomatoes that I need to use up, but I just couldn't see using a sweet bread in a savory dish. The flavors wouldn' mesh.
After breifly flirting with making French toast instead, I mixed up some milk and eggs with some cinnamon and brown sugar, then pourd it over the crumbled Nazuki in a baking dish. The bread pudding didn't take very long to bake, and it was delicious when it was done. It was a sweet dish, but not any more so than French toast and less so than sweet syrup on pancakes. If you don't have any Nazuki on hand, I bet this would be great with cinnamon raisin bread. The recipe is after the jump.
Pie doughs are usually either flaky or mealy. Mealy dough is more compact and crisper, while flaky dough is, well, flakier. Both are tender. Mealy crusts are preferred for wet fillings, especially if you're going to fill the pie without partially baking the crust beforehand (blind baking). For mealy crusts, mix the fat longer so that the mixture looks like a course cornmeal before the liquid is added.
Flaky crusts can be used for wet fillings, but should be blind baked first. If you're doing a cream pie, bake the crust first then coat it with chocolate or cocoa butter to help prevent sogginess. You get flakiness by mixing the fat for less time, leaving it in bigger chunks. This creates layers of fat when the dough is rolled out, and a flaky texture in the finished product. Just keep in mind that this type of dough needs a little more hydration.
15oz pastry (or all purpose flour) .75 oz sugar 1.5 tsp salt 11 oz butter, cold and cut into cubes/chunks 4.5 oz cold water
Mix the flour, sugar and salt to evenly distribute everything. Cut in the cold butter with a fork, your finger, a pastry knife or the paddle attachment on a mixer. mix until you get the desired size chunks of butter. Add the cold water just until incorporated. Rest the dough in the fridge for at least four hours to allow for proper hydration of the flour. Then you can roll out as usual.
I know chocolate is a pretty darn popular flavor any time of the year, but it seems that I've seen an unusual amount of chocolate recipes on the blogs this week. There were two on one blog that generally focuses on bread! Here are some of the interesting chocolate dessert recipes circulating in the blogosphere.
1. Chocolate cake made from sourdough starter I found at Bakers Banter! 2. Zucchini and chocolate cake also from Bakers Banter. 3. A spiced up brownie from Smitten Kitchen. 4. Bacon peanut butter chocolate cupcake from Serious Eats. 5. Not quite a recipe, but some vegan chocolates from Almost Vegan. 6. Ok, the recipe is from Chocolate and Zucchini from 2003, but the post is from this weeks the Kitchn. 7. I guess chocolate whirligigs aren't that unusual from a site called Chocolate Gourmand. 8. Though technically not a chocolate recipe, this cute butterfly cupcake uses chocolate as a decoration.
I've grilled all varieties of peaches, plums, nectarines and apricots. I've also exposed slabs of pineapple to the dying heat of a barbecue. But never, in all my grilling life, have I stuffed bananas with chocolate and put them over the coals. And now, having been shown that it's a possibility, I am kicking myself that this ingenious idea never occurred to me.
This recipe comes from Andreea of Glorious Food and Wine. She got the idea during a recent trip to Champagne, when she was served a similar dessert and now she's played with it and made it her own. The instructions are simple. Just slice open a fairly firm banana length-wise, making sure not to open it at either end. Then stuff it with chocolate (Andreea alternates between dark and milk, but you can do whatever you like). Place it on the grill as the coals die down. You'll know they're ready to be eaten when the peel is black, the banana is soft and the chocolate is all melty. I imagine that you could do this in the oven, at a low temperature, if you don't have a grill.
Andreea, thanks for sharing such a wonderful idea!
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