Category: Food

March 4, 2008

CA, What we ate, Part II

In addition to Jai Yun, we enjoyed the following culinary adventures in the Bay Area:

Chez Panisse Cafe
Finally! Comparing this meal with our experiences at Suzanne's and Auberge in the first part of our trip, it is clear what makes Chez Panisse classic. While everything could be said to be cooked perfectly at all three restaurants, and the style of the dishes were all quite similar, Chez Panisse stood out because of the harmony of flavors on the plate. The side dishes were simple, but perfectly matched to the flavors and cooking technique of the meat, and a simple sauce served to further unify the parts into a whole. To top it off, our waiter was super-nice, and the meyer lemon ice cream BLEW MY MIND.

Ferry Building and Farmer's Market
I can't imagine anything more decadent than the morning I spent here. I spent an hour walking around, taking photos and buying fresh, delicious things, and then about four hours sitting in a wine bar inside the Ferry Building with friends coming and going, drinking red wine and eating rabbit terrine, rich yogurt and sourdough.. and then champagne, oysters and stinky cheese... and then white wine, pastries, and sausage... and then milkshakes, blood oranges and Vietnamese dumpling soup. Seriously, a spa could package this treatment.

El Farolito
When it comes right down to it, I am not a mission burrito fan. For some reason they always seem a little bit bland... I think part of it is a lack of lard - refried beans are not standard, and I never remember to request them. Anyways, El Farolito was great, just not my style.

The Pork Store
The perfect hangover breakfast, and really fantastic sausage. Pretty good hashbrowns too.

Boudin Bakery
I ate a loaf of dutch crunch for dinner. Just dutch crunch. It was that good. I need to find a recipe for this.

Pacific Catch
Fish. It was fried.

Tartine
The best croissant I have ever had. Ever. Also, I do not like cinnamon rolls, unless they are the one Greg had at Tartine. Wow. Might move to San Francisco and gain 40 lbs.

Swann's Oyster Depot
I love oysters, but the highlight here was a fresh sea urchin, served in its shell... like nothing I've ever tasted. Smooth and creamy to the point of sensory deprivation, incredibly mild with no hint of the ocean, and an aftertaste of flowers.

Fraiche
Looking to piggyback on Pinkberry, this place serves frozen yogurt with fruit, but it should ditch the overly-sweet frozen stuff and focus on their excellent fresh yogurt, which is rich and tart.

Ewia
This Mediterranean restaurant in Palo Alto has gone downhill since we were there last, but they still serve a number of tasty appetizers, like tender octopus, small sweet beets, and rich soft beef tongue. They also serve real Greek frappes, even black (although the waitress thought I was crazy), which are probably my favorite way of drinking coffee.

About Food, by Erica McDaniel at 9:09 PM | C (0) | TB (0)

February 13, 2008

Jai Yun - What did I eat?

UPDATE: Chowhound thread

On our first night in San Francisco, we joined our friends for dinner at Jai Yun, a reservations-only restaurant that is reputed to serve the most authentic Chinese banquet food outside of China. It's so authentic, in fact, that no one there, chef, server, or bus boys, speak English. That made for a bit of an adventure, but we managed to communicate. At the end of the meal, the chef came out and we effusively thanked each other without actually exchanging any complete sentences - but I think he understood how much we enjoyed the meal.

The other quirk of this place is that you don't order - you just tell them how much you want to pay, and they start bringing out dishes. It is pretty awesome, and I'd be happy to eat this way more often. But the problem with not knowing what you're getting and not speaking the same language is that... we still don't really know what we ate! We could identify most of the primary components, but there are a couple that were completely mystifying:

A dish that looked like noodles in an egg sauce, except that the noodles were chewy like squid. They tasted mild and eggy, however, without a hint of seafood flavor, and absolutely delicious. MYSTERY SOLVED! This dish was abalone in egg whites.

The second mystery was something that looked like chicken knees, tasted like pork, and was clearly mostly cartilage... but a nice, chewable cartilage. MYSTERY SOLVED! Chowhounders weighed in, and it looks like it might just have been chicken knees after all!

Anyone have any clues?

About Food, by Erica McDaniel at 7:29 PM | C (3) | TB (0)

February 3, 2008

CA Trip Part 1, What we ate

Crossposted on Chowhound

On leaving for California, I had a list of something over 30 restaurants I wanted to try. For a 10 day trip. Obviously, I didn't get to check everything off my to-do list. Greg's list, on the other hand, was finished off on our first night in town, when, after we arrived late due to a delayed flight, we hit up IN ‘N’ OUT for a quick dinner. It’s not the best burger in the universe, of course, but there is a reason there are lines out of the parking lot. Personally, I love the buns, enjoy the burgers, and don’t care for the fries.

We spent the next day snowboarding in Big Bear, and the best thing I can say about the food at Bear Mountain is that by the time you eat it, you are so sore and exhausted that just about anything would be delicious!

That night, however, we ate at CHOSUN GALBEE. While I love Korean food, this was my first experience with real Korean BBQ (not counting a couple encounters at somewhat questionable pan-asian buffets), so I wished we had a veteran there to advise us. We ended up ordering bulgogi, chosun galbee short ribs, seafood pancake and job chae. This, along with the bountiful banchan, was more than enough for three people.

The meat was very good, nicely marbled and really good rich flavors. The seafood pancake was probably the best I’ve had, with a high ratio of seafood to batter and a real harmony between the different seafood flavors and the batter. Job chae is probably my least favorite Korean dish, and Chosun Galbee didn’t change my mind – it was bland and oily. The banchan included some really fantastic kim chee, good cucumber, and fish cakes, and five or six other things, all tasty. While it was a great meal, I don’t think I would eat here often – the prices really kept us from ordering as much meat as I liked (though of course there was more than enough food). I suspect I would be happier at one of the other options discussed on the board for Koreatown.

The next day we spent in Ojai. Lunch was JIM AND ROB’S FRESH GRILL. I’ve been living in or visiting Ojai most of my life, and I’ve usually enjoyed Jim and Rob’s for basic cal-mex. But since my last visit there, they’ve moved into a new building, and I think they’ve lost a lot of charm as well as flavor. I had a carnitas taco and a fish taco. The fish taco was disappointing – the fish was clearly not that fresh – but the carnitas was decent. Unfortunately, neither lived up to meals I’ve eaten there in the past, nor did my husband and mother’s meals.

After a hike up Sisar Canyon, we went to SUZANNE’S CUISINE. My expectations for Suzanne’s were pretty high, as it has a great reputation around town. I ordered trout, which was deliciously cooked and seasoned. Unfortunately, it was served on a bed of plain white rice. It was actually kind of distracting, taking a bite of trout and then the rice – just not a successful combination. Brown or wild rice would have been a much more complementary flavor, but I have to say that one of the reasons it turned me off is that I expected something more complicated or subtle from a restaurant with a reputation for fine food. Around the table it was the same story – the meat or fish was perfect, but the sides were a let-down.

On the positive side, however, the space is gorgeous, a very pleasant place to eat.

We topped off the night with dessert and wine at MOVINO. I like Movino, it is always a good place to kick back with some wine, but I’m pretty sure their desserts are premade/outsourced, so we ordered the chocolate cheesecake rather than the cake, and it was surprisingly good.

On Tuesday we headed down to Ventura to visit family, and due to a time crunch we ended up eating lunch at OZEKI SUSHI. The sushi was blah, the rolls were mediocre, with poor flavor/ingredient balance, and to top it off, the tempura ice cream had this absolutely terrible cakey batter that was thick and undercooked. I would have been happier if we stuck with nigiri and sashimi only.

That night, we went to WOK N’ SOUTH. Mongolian BBQ is my favorite made-up cuisine. I just love it, and I can’t seem to find it on the east coast. Wok n’ South is not the best I’ve had, but it is more than serviceable when you’ve got the craving. It serves up all the essentials (sesame pocket bread, lamb, cilantro, and garlic are my must-haves) in a no-nonsense, no-frills manner.

On Wednesday, we were back in LA to sightsee. We made a detour to San Gabriel to eat lunch at LUSCIOUS DUMPLING. I wish there had been more than three of us, as I wanted to order everything on the menu. We settled on chive, pork, egg and shrimp dumplings, soup dumplings, pork knuckles and bok choy. The bok choy and the pork knuckles were both simply amazing. SO GOOD. The pork, especially, had this hint of five-spice flavor that was just right with the cool, chewy slices. As for the dumplings, the fillings were fantastic, but I prefer the thinner-skinned varieties. If I could go again (and I will, I hope), I would order the dumplings pan-fried, which I prefer for the thick-skinned dumpling. I would also try the soup, which looked great. An older couple next to us ordered two giant bowls of soup with sides of dumplings, plus three other orders of dumplings – all together, that’s about twice what we ordered for three people - and all I could think was, man, I wish I were that hungry!!

That afternoon, we made an attempt at sightseeing, but the MOCA was closed and it started to rain pretty seriously, so we found refuge and cucumber sandwiches at the BILTMORE. They serve a delightful full-on tea, complete with tea-cozies, champagne, and a wide variety of treats. The sandwiches were adorable, with all the right ingredient ratios. The tart shells were perfectly crisp and flakey. Cakes, scones, and chocolate strawberries were all great. The perfect escape for a rainy afternoon, and after all, the tea room is practically a sight in itself, with its ornate ceiling and arches.

That night, as if we hadn’t already eaten enough for three days, we had reservations at AUBERGE in Ojai. I guess this restaurant is under new management, and has been making some waves. I don’t usually care one way or the other about service, although it is nice if it matches the atmosphere of the place, but I definitely noticed that the waiters seemed over-trained and under-experienced here, as if they were new. That may have been due to it being a slow weekday night. As far as the food, it certainly was a contrast to Suzanne’s. All of the meat was again, perfectly cooked. My husband claims that my steak was the best dish on the table, while I voted for the rich, tender pork he ordered. My mom’s lamb was also great, and it had a subtle and delicious Mediterranean spice blend. The side dishes were what made the difference - they were complex and, frankly, hit-or-miss. My mom’s grilled vegetables were well-paired to the lamb, while my bitter, burnt radicchio and sautéed mushrooms and onions did not go with my steak. The mashed potatoes studded with fava beans that came with the pork were good, but would have been better if the favas had been separate. We finished with a chocolate cup/soufflé thing, cooked while we waited and devoured immediately. It was incredibly rich and absolutely delicious.

About Food, by Erica McDaniel at 8:36 PM | C (0) | TB (0)

February 7, 2007

Steamed cheeseburger from Ted's

On Saturday, Greg and I went down to visit the family in CT, and on the way we stopped at Ted's Restaurant in Meriden, CT. I had heard about it a few times, and then when I saw this Hamburger America video featured on Serious Eats, I knew we had to go next time we were down there. I was just hoping I'd like it more than the other regional CT culinary variation I've tried: fried dough with tomato sauce instead of sugar or jam. That's just misguided.

But they're on to something with the steaming. The burger was excellent. The meat had a nice texture, due to the course grind, as mentioned in the video, and a very strong beef flavor. The cheese was good, and there was lots of it! It was milder than I expected, but with a well-rounded flavor. I also have to give them kudos for the bun: it's a roll with real bread texture and flavor, not a tasteless sponge.

So, if you're in the area, try Ted's!

About Food, by Erica McDaniel at 5:30 PM | C (2) | TB (0)

January 28, 2007

Persian Nougat, or Gaz

My current favorite food is gaz.

Last week, one of Greg's coworkers gave him a box of mysterious flat patties packed in flour. Dusting off the flour reveals a chewy disk of white nougat studded with tender, sweet pistachios. Gaz (or Gazz) is a traditional Persian sweet, mainly produced in Esfahan (or Isfahan), Iran. The nougat is flavored with rosewater, and some sort of plant extract.

It's a little hard to pin down exactly what this plant extract is (especially since the box is in Persian), but it seems like it is usually a sweetener and thickener derived from astragalus adscendens, or sometimes from hedysarum, via the action of insects who ingest the plant and leave behind a hard secretion. This substance, variations of which can be produced by several different plant/insect combos, is also sometimes known as manna. This is the clearest explanation I could find of the extract, which pretty clearly indicates what I was up against in the research department. Wikipedia further supplies articles on gaz in the Khansar region of Esfahan, Manna, and nougat. Thanks to Wikipedia, I also now know that Iran - or at least my box of gaz - uses Eastern Arabic Numerals, something entirely different than what I grew up calling Arabic numerals.

Fascinatingly enough, reading up about this reminded me of the mastica of Chios, Greece. Turns out that the mastic plant is in the pistacia family - as are pistachios - so maybe it is not surprising that the flavor of the gaz reminds me slightly of it. Ah, Wikipedia, how many hours have I sacrificed to your temple of incomplete and uncertain information!

About Food, by Erica McDaniel at 11:43 PM | C (3) | TB (0)

December 19, 2006

Cookie Catch-up

I am sick, again - certainly brought on by the combination of insomnia, holiday parties and overtime put in on cookie-related activities. I am hoping it will clear up by the end of the week, when I hop on a plane bound for CA.

In the meantime, I finally have the time, holed up in my bathrobe in bed as I am, to tell you all about the cookie extravaganza of the past couple of weeks. First there was the shopping: days spent tracking down Lyle's golden syrup, plugra butter, crystallized ginger, good vanilla, and about 10 pounds of nuts. There there was the mixing, the chopping, the melting of sugar and syrups. Many things were caramelized. Frozen dough took over our fridge, our dining table was claimed by cooling pools of brittle, and even our bed became a cooling rack, as there were no other surfaces available. Nine batches of cookies - thats something over 400 cookies, although I stopped counting after 178 gingersnaps - three batches of cardamom mixed nut brittle, and two batches each of rustic nut bars and salted chocolate caramels. And all that was before the cookie party!

About Food, by Erica McDaniel at 2:54 PM | C (3) | TB (0)

November 16, 2006

Welcome to the holidays!

There is nothing that kicks off the holiday season like a good marathon night of Thanksgiving shopping! I hit the jackpot today, and found almost all the exotic supplies I need for pies, jam, and other holiday treats. I even found three different kinds of specialty fats to try in my pie crust. The cooking starts tomorrow morning, when the turkey for Saturday's Pre-Turkey Day celebration begins brining, That night a couple pies come together, while the turkey dries in the fridge. Then on Saturday, it's jam and veggies, and then the prolonged gorging session commences! I promise photos once I recover from the food coma!

About Food, by Erica McDaniel at 9:22 PM | C (0) | TB (0)

November 7, 2006

Energy Bars

A while ago, I noticed that I wasn't really getting enough protein in my diet. Around the same time, I was taking classes, going to the gym during my lunch hour, and riding my bike everywhere I went - I needed meals and snacks that were portable and quick. Energy bars naturally presented themselves as the best option. But what started as a simple purchase out of necessity has become an obsession - since that time, I have tried over a dozen brands of energy bar, in over 30 flavors, and have another half dozen in my drawer at work at all times, waiting for a trial. I have an excel file to track nutritional facts and a section in my daybook for notes. Over the course of my obsession, I have learned many things, but mostly that energy bars are probably the least efficient way to add protein to your diet and the most efficient way to add high fructose corn syrup. However, I continue to find bars an alluring, tasty and satisfying food - or at least some of them.

I figured that my personal obsession should not go to waste, so I'll be posting my reviews here. My criteria: how much fiber and protein does the bar contain (as a ratio to the number of calories in the bar)? I gave each bar a number, based on the %RDA of fiber and protein and the calories in the bar - this number tends to work out to a nice 0-5 scale. This is based on my own feelings on the niche that the bar needs to fill in my diet - when I started that's what I wanted to figure out, so it may seem a little arbitrary. Then I looked into the ingredients; are they things I want to eat? how much high fructose corn syrup? How filling is it? How does it TASTE?

So far, with only a couple exceptions, the bars fall into four categories: Soy crisp bars (Luna, Balance), Protein powder bars (Promax, Atkins), Grain, nut or seed based bars (Go Lean, BumbleBar), Natural smoosh bars (Clif, Lara). Soy crisp bars are made of, you guessed it, soy crisps, usually coated with chocolate, caramel, yogurt, or some other composite substance. Protein powder bars are a sludgy mix of powdered protein, real or artificial sugars, and something goopy that I don't really want to think about. Seed, nut and grain-based bars are the most diverse category, as there are lots of different ways to make grains and nuts adhere to one another. For example, Go Lean produces bars that resemble soy crisp bars, with grain blend replacing the crisps, while BumbleBars are mostly sesame seeds solidified with brown rice syrup. Natural smoosh bars, according to my oh-so-scientific categorization and naming protocol, are mostly composed of dates, nuts, and other natural ingredients in a combination that is moist enough to adhere and solid enough to hold its shape. The last two are pretty similar - they advertise "real food" compositions and are often organic - but the experience of eating them is quite different. My favorites tend to come from the last two catagories.

So, watch this space for my opinions and conclusions!

About Food, by Erica McDaniel at 9:27 PM | C (3) | TB (0)

November 2, 2006

Drool

I know that I have a habit of extolling products (particularly foods) that I can't really afford to, y'know, buy. Trust me, I am trying to put my money where my local, organic, offal - talking mouth is. But in the meantime, I can only drool. And if this article doesn't make you drool (and think twice about that bloated, hormone-laden sludge called beef in your supermarket - oh, I know, I eat it too) nothing will!

Coming soon to this space: my attempt to live solely off of bulk grains from Harvest Co-op, produce from Boston Organics and meat from Savenor's. I might go broke, but I'll be a happy, happy woman.

About Food, by Erica McDaniel at 7:53 PM | C (2) | TB (0)

September 14, 2006

My Favorite Lentil Stew!

This is my favorite way to make lentils – it’s really simple, filling, and super-healthy. It’s also, like most of my cooking, pretty free-form, so this is not going to be easy to follow, I’m afraid. But this is how it goes:

I cover a pound of lentils with water – a little more than would be needed to cook them normally – and turn on the stove. While the water heats, I chop 3-6 carrots into large bite sized pieces and add them to the pot. I keep an eye on this for the next 25 minutes or so, while I do the rest of the recipe, to make sure it doesn’t get too dry or scorch.

The second half is adapted from Indian cuisine: I chop one large onion, heat a splash (<1tbsn) of olive oil in a pan and add the onion, a couple bay leaves, 8 cardamom pods, a big pinch of ground cloves, and a shaking of cinnamon – maybe a teaspoon (this should be whole cloves and cinnamon sticks, according to Madhur Jaffrey, from whose Quick and Easy Indian Cooking I adapted this step, but I almost never have those on hand, and this works fine. It’s 4 cloves and 2 cinnamon sticks, if you have em – they do brown and bring out extra-nice flavors.)

Anyways, those all cook for like, 3 minutes, and then you add some chopped fresh ginger (to taste, usually a 1-3 inch piece), 5-6 cloves of garlic, chopped, and a tablespoon each of ground coriander and cumin. You can also add cayenne to taste – I used a little more than a teaspoon last time, and that was a pretty good bite. When the onion is translucent and browned, I add a 10 oz package of frozen chopped spinach (or fresh, but honestly, usually the frozen stuff), thawed and well-drained. When everything is warm and mixed – after another minute or two of cooking, I add the spinach-onion mixture to the lentils, which, if I have loitered around and delayed enough, are juuuuust about done. The whole thing cooks together until it is the right consistency – somewhere between a sludge and a soup – and the carrots are cooked through. That usually only takes about 5 minutes. Then I add a huge pile of salt.

This makes 10 servings : Calories 210, Fat 3g, Carbs: 34g, Protein 13g, Fiber 13 FRICKING GRAMS, MAN!!!

About Food, by Erica McDaniel at 7:23 PM | C (4) | TB (0)

July 12, 2006

Offal update!

While I haven't had a chance to do more offal cooking recently (or much cooking at all, frankly), I was happy to see this entire site on offal! Thanks, Megnut! By the way, while I had eaten tripe a few times before cooking it myself, I actually think the stuff I cooked at home was as good or better than anything I had at a restaurant, so I wouldn't avoid starting at home!

About Food, by Erica McDaniel at 8:30 AM | C (2) | TB (0)

July 7, 2006

Ethics of eating, prelude

I've been thinking a lot lately about the risks and ethics of food, and to what degree our government should regulate them. I have tried to write several blog entries about it, but I've discovered that I could probably fill a book, and in that book would be a lot of cussing. I'm still working on it, but I think it may take me some time. In the meantime, Megnut and her guest writer Micheal Ruhlman have been covering the foie gras issue very well, and I highly recommend that anyone who cares about their right to eat the stuff stop by there and get angry about it.

I am basically this ** close to going out and buying a bunch of raw milk and making my own cheese, and eating it with a nice big plate of foie gras while chained to the steps of the legislature, even if that meal would cost more than what I normally eat in a week.

About Food, by Erica McDaniel at 4:22 PM | C (4) | TB (0)

June 5, 2006

The Great Bagel Taste Test of '06

Everyone always says that you can't get a good bagel outside of NYC. Everyone is wrong, of course, but NYC bagels have an undeniable lure. What IS the big deal, anyways?

April and I decided to find out, so we enlisted Greg, did some research, and spent two hours driving up and down Manhattan, making five stops for bagels, plus one for cream cheese.

The contenders: Murray's, Ess-A-Bagel, Tal Bagel, Absolute Bagel, and Bagelry. One plain bagel from each entered the ring (two mini-bagels from Absolute).

The caveat: this test was done about two weeks ago, and none of us can quite agree on the identity of two bagels - Tal and Murrays. This is noted, along with my opinion of the bagel identity, in the Flickr set, which has individual bagel opinions.

The overall verdict (Fellow testers and bagel-lovers, feel free to correct me or add): Bagel fanatics bandy about all sorts of terms, like doughy, dense, chewy and fluffy, to describe their most loved and despised bagels. We couldn't even agree on what these words meant, but we divided the field into three categories - big, sweet, fluffy bagels (Ess-A-Bagel, also H and H), smaller, denser, and chewier old-fashioned bagels (like Absolute, and we believe Tal's) and like Lender's bagels, ewww (like Bagelry, Murray's, and your grocery aisle). The types were so different, it was hard to compare, but the overall winners were the mini-bagels from Absolute Bagel, with Tal's and Ess-A-Bagel both contending for second. The only thing all three had in common was a fairly crisp crust. And they were all shmeared with Russ and Daughters' phenomenal-I-am-a-convert cream cheese.

For Bostonians: Brueger's is my favorite bagel in Boston. They also serve up a bagel with a nice crust, somewhat bigger and lighter than an old-fashioned NYC bagel, but not at all approaching Ess-A-Bagel.

About Food, by Erica McDaniel at 9:59 PM | C (2) | TB (0)

May 26, 2006

Pies and byes

Ouch. Sorry, I couldn't help myself. Tomorrow Greg and I are taking off to Maine for a Memorial Day party weekend, but I thought I could squeeze in one more post about the pies I baked tonight.

I've been feeling a little lack of pie in my life lately, so it was great to have an excuse (a cabin full of hungry drinkers on a holiday weekend) to make a couple. I did one tried-and-true recipe, the raspberry-pear lattice pie, which is one of the best pies I've ever made or eaten, and one exciting new recipe, the grape and fig pie. There are more photos of both at Flickr. Both are from Ken Haedrich's Pie, which I am still working my way slowly through (ie, I haven't cooked a pie from anywhere else since I got it).

So, I'll report back on Tuesday with how quickly the pies got devoured, how many mosquito bites I have, and hopefully some great vacation photos.

PS - thanks for everyone's input on the bag! I've decided BROWN and ORANGE - woo hoo!

About Life, by Erica McDaniel at 12:03 AM | C (0) | TB (0)

May 25, 2006

Engageaversary Dinner

This past Sunday was the one year anniversary of our engagement - hard to believe it's been so long (and that we've gotten SO little done on the wedding!)

To celebrate, we had our engagement buddies over for a full-on Italian feast. Like the North End, only with better parking.

Unfortunately, I was too busy cooking and serving to take any photos, but on the plus side, all the courses arrived exactly on time - a very rare occurrence at my table. We started with an antipasto, followed by linguine alla carbonara (the first time I've made it the real way, with egg), then Milanese salad and veal marsala. All pretty simple dishes, but I was very happy with how they came out. They were also all from the big yellow Gourmet book (thanks Sue!!). Of course, there was espresso and cannoli (Capone's – the best!) with fresh berries for dessert.

About Food, by Erica McDaniel at 11:41 PM | C (0) | TB (0)

May 18, 2006

Menudo

I am pro-“variety-meats.” You know, livers, kidneys, feet, tails and whatnot? Not only do they give that primal “every part of the buffalo” satisfaction, they are also delicious. Really!

Eating out, I always have an eye out for livers and sweetbreads (no luck on that one yet), but I most often get my guts in the form of pho – I like mine with tripe, brisket and soft tendon… mmmm! Now in my own kitchen, my love of offal has heretofore been constrained to chicken giblets (yummy dredged in flour and fried), but I am beginning a campaign to reach out into other corners of farm animal’s innards. I thought tripe would be a good place to start, mainly because Market Basket always has about fifty pounds of it in their meat section. Then I read James Beard’s recipe for menudo in Delights and Prejudices, and knew I had to make it.

So last night I cut up two pounds of white, rubbery honeycomb tripe into bite-sized chunks. Raw tripe is an experience – unnerving at first, since the color and texture is so very not-like-other-meat. But after the first couple of seconds, it seemed normal. I actually think it’s great to cook things like tripe, or cut up your own whole chicken – it reminds you that what you are eating used to be alive, and is made out of meat, and you are alive and also made out of meat, and you are eating another animal to stay alive, and that this is all GOOD. Of course it’s good not to eat meat too! I happen to be a big fan, but I think that knowing where it all comes from is important. Eating too many hamburgers and no tripe is bad for the soul.

Aaaaanyways, the tripe goes in some broth in the crock pot (dutch oven, if I were really listening to James B.) with some pig’s feet. This was also my first experience with pig’s feet. And, yup, they’re pig’s feet. Trotters. They go in there with some onion and cloves and coriander and oregano and cook for about 8 hours, at which point everything is falling apart tender and melty. Then you pick out the pig bones, leaving the meat. The stew goes on the stove, and you add a can of hominy (oh, hominy, how I love thee!), and any spices you feel are lacking, and boil it down for about half an hour. Serve it with tortillas and garnishes for people to put on their soup: cilantro, chilies, onion, lime, whatever.

The thing that was remarkable about this soup was how filling it was. It had a mild flavor, and a soft, satisfying texture, and it was really tasty, although I feel like I could improve a little on the seasonings next time, but just a small bowl each and Greg and I were stuffed. And of course it was extra-satisfying, because there is nothing like a little Mexican flavor to make me feel like home.

Alright, so what’s next? I’m thinking tongue!

About Food, by Erica McDaniel at 10:13 PM | C (3) | TB (0)

May 15, 2006

OMG OMG DIM SUM

We finally made it out to the fabled Flushing dim sum mecca. Research showed that Gum Fung was the place to go (though it didn't show how to get there by car). We did find it eventually, and man, was it worth it! It was everything a dim sum palace should be: gilded, glowing, huge, brightly colored, and stuffed to the gills with buns, noodles, shrimp and pork.

Everything was good, but the high points were the fresh and gooey egg custard buns and the soup dumplings – thin-skinned and juicy with rich broth, easily the best soup dumplings I have had on the East Coast, although I haven't tried many in NYC. It wasn't so spectacular across the board: all of the dumplings with vegetables were just eh - they didn't have anything on Chau Chow City - and the shrimp noodles and shrimp dumplings were pretty much just on par. So were the prices, however, which is downright awesome.

Long live Dim Sum!!

About Food, by Erica McDaniel at 7:58 PM | C (3) | TB (0)

May 8, 2006

Mr Bento's inaugural picnic

Mr. Bento arrived on Friday, and since Greg and I were planning a bike and picnic on Saturday, its timing couldn’t have been better. I packed him up with turkey burgers and salad-makings, and we biked off down the Charles for a leisurely day of riding. Mr. Bento appears to be the perfect size – I had expected him (sorry for anthropomorphizing, but what else can I do!) to be bigger, and had been worried about how to fill him up, but so far it seems perfect. I like a lot of variety and a lot of veggie munchies for a day at work, so I’m glad I got a Mr. and not a Ms. For two people, though, I supplemented him with a salad box, which also held our fruit, condiments, and silverware. Now I'm really looking forward to trying out different ways of packing lunches for work in Mr. - I even bought an onigiri mold and have some exciting plans for it.

To top it off, we stopped in Harvard Square on the way home and bought a chimney starter for the BBQ and magically encountered the perfect pair of sneakers in the Urban Outfitter’s bargain basement. After that, my allergies chased us home, but all in all, it was a great weekend excursion.

About Life, by Erica McDaniel at 6:30 PM | C (4) | TB (0)

April 22, 2006

He's got huevos

My good friend Jason and I have been talking for some time about organic, non-organic and other varieties of eggs, and this week Jason did a test on the cake performance of several types of eggs – good eggs are important for good baking, and definitely have an impact on the texture and taste of the product – and he found that organic eggs were very slightly preferable. He is planning to use the leftover eggs in more tests - I can’t wait to see the rest of the results!

I firmly believe that organic eggs tend to be better than the non, and free-range organic better yet – the best being, of course, those eggs laid by chickens you raise yourself and who get to eat a delectable variety of garden worms and other pests, vegetable scraps, and a wholesome grain-based chicken feed, but I’m pretty sure my neighbors would not be down with that.

Here’s how I understand the whole egg thing: the main differences in the quality of eggs are the hen’s diet, which determines the nutritional value/taste/texture of the egg, and the freshness of the egg. Most commercial chickens, organic and non, are fed just regular old grain feed, without the supplement of those tasty vegetable scraps and little bugs the chickens love so much, and the eggs take a while to get to your door. But I suspect that the differences arise because organic eggs are fed a higher-quality, more varied grain diet, and since they are smaller companies, are often closer to your supermarket. ¹

In general, the darker the yolk color, the better (richer in green/yellow veggies) the hen’s diet is – but commercial henhouses can add stuff to their feed to fake that. As for brown vs. white, by the way, the difference is purely symbolic. Since the shell color is due to the breed of chicken, not to their diet or lifestyle, the main difference is that as a country we used to prefer white eggs, so that is what commercial farms produced, and now organic egg companies are cashing in on the fact that brown eggs are seen as more “natural.” You can tell something from the shell density and texture, though, since that is also dependant on the hen’s diet.

Occasionally one runs into a limp egg whose shell is thin and brittle, whose yolk is a sad pale yellow, and whose white is like bizarre alien mucus, and you just KNOW it’s going to taste like crap.

1. I think organic/free-range hens are also treated better, although I’m not fooling myself into thinking that their lives are entirely happy ones: chickens are often mean and stupid, especially when living in close quarters, and they tend to do things like pecking all the feathers off the less popular hens. You know what they say: hell is other chickens.

Ok, sorry.

About Food, by Erica McDaniel at 12:04 PM | C (5) | TB (0)

April 18, 2006

About the baking

Ok, so this one time I made the disastrous mistake of ordering a slice of ricotta pie from Modern’s in the North End instead of a cannolo or a lobster tail, which are Amazing. The pie, on the other hand, was dry, bland, and gave the impression of being entirely as unhealthy as one of the aforementioned tasty treats, minus the tasty.

So why I felt compelled to make a Neapolitan Easter pie, I do not know. It could have been the lovely illustration in Sax’s Classic Home Desserts, my growing interest in Italian food in general, or the hint of possibility in that bland, chewy pie. But when Ape pointed out the pie a week before Easter, I knew I had to make it.

The exterior is a sweet pastry, like a traditional pie crust with tons of sugar and eggs instead of water. The filling is fresh whole milk ricotta, eggs, candied fruit (I went with tiny bits of multicolored orange and grapefruit) and wheat berries (presoaked and boiled with a touch of butter). There is a splash of orange flower water in the Classic Home Desserts’ recipe (and every other recipe I saw), but according to the wonderful and reliable folks at my local Italian specialty shop, that doesn’t usually “go in there”. Oh well. I went for it, and I think it really added just the right hint of flavor. The pie came out moist and tender and balanced in flavors – not bland and chewy, but mild and textured. Not to brag, but my soon-to-be father-in-law declared it just as good as the real deal – his native-Italian cousin’s version! And that is good enough for me!

The egg-studded challah pictured below was less interesting – just a plain challah. The eggs were dyed raw and baked with the bread, which was pretty cool. The ones in the middle are just regular hard-boiled ones piled on there for serving. The bread came out a little dry, but makes fantastic toast. The dyed quail eggs were my Mom’s idea, and a genius one at that – so cute and dramatic with the speckles!

About Food, by Erica McDaniel at 7:35 PM | C (0) | TB (0)

April 17, 2006

Easter Baking

Tons of new photos of holiday baking and the wedding venue at Flickr. More details on the baking tomorrow.

About Food, by Erica McDaniel at 9:41 PM | C (2) | TB (0)

April 14, 2006

Central Kitchen

For my birthday night dinner we finally made it out to Central Kitchen. I've wanted to go there for ages. It's located right in Central Square, natch, under the Enormous Room and behind the nicest little dark-wood facade - the classiest storefront for blocks, really.
I had been forewarned that CK can be a bit pricey, and the menu is small, but I've seen far worse on both accounts. The food was really great, the waiter suggested a good wine, and the interior was as cozy and chic as the exterior.
Greg and I shared five small dishes, starting with a simple green salad with a light and fresh vinagrette, and an absolutely amazing antipasto platter that struck just the right balance of sharp, rich flavors and milder ones. Next we had tender grilled octopus on a molded round of new potatoes and fennel, comfortingly spiced with olives and herbs, and the central attraction, moules marinieres avec frites, a giant pile of mussels cooked in wine and butter, topped with a little hat of fresh, hot, thin fries drizzled with strong garlic mayonnaise.
For dessert, we shared a crème brulee - which I usually avoid because they tend to be too rich for me and often served too cold - but this one was perfect! Cool on the bottom, just-torched warm on top, light and smooth throughout, with a thin, rich crust and a delightful vanilla bean flavor.

About Food, by Erica McDaniel at 7:51 AM | C (0) | TB (0)

April 12, 2006

Bento!

Oh, will the wonders of Flickr never cease? Today I stumbled upon the Bento Box pool - how cool is that?

I love bento, partially because I love Japanese food, but even more so because I love packing my own lunch, and these boxes that people have are awesome! I need to get one of these things with 8 compartments that all seal together into a little box. They totally appeal to my obsessive streak in all sorts of ways. I don’t think I’ll ever get into the whole “making-cute-faces-on-your-rice-with-nori” aspect of it, but, you know, I’m glad it’s there too, because cute food has its place, and its place is totally in bento boxes.

More on the topic of bento: an interesting article about the history of bento, and how important bento boxes are for Japanese school-kids and their moms, a blog about bento – check out the equipment section! a Japanese bento blog, and some crazy-fancy bento-art – amazing!

About Food, by Erica McDaniel at 6:38 PM | C (2) | TB (0)

March 27, 2006

Steak, mmmm

A couple weeks ago, I had an amazing experience: I began to understand steak.

It used to be, when I occasionally got a craving for some nice, simple red meat, I would go to the supermarket and buy the cheapest cut of beef I could find (being a student, after all) and toss it into a pan over high heat. I would sear the hell out of it, turning constantly, and be frustrated when it was cold in the center. Then I would turn the heat down and put a lid on it in a desperate attempt to get it to cook through. The result would be well-done, tough and chewy and bland, with consistent texture throughout.

Well, no more! Thanks to the inspiration of Jeffery Steingarten and this fine instructional article, along with a few recipes from Cooking Light, I set out to recreate a steakhouse dinner at home. I bought nice, thick beef tenderloin steaks. I smeared them with olive oil and generously coated them with salt and pepper. I browned them gently on all sides until they caramelized. I took them out of the pan when they were still juicy and medium rare. I served them with potatoes lyonnaise, creamed spinach and a red wine and mushroom sauce. And they were delicious. While they were not the very best steaks I have eaten, they were in the top ten – and they outpaced anything that I have cooked myself by miles.

About Food, by Erica McDaniel at 9:30 PM | C (1) | TB (0)

March 8, 2006

Brunch

Sunday morning we had strawberry-apple crumble and eggs baked in herbed crepe cups with pancetta and mushrooms, according to fellow Bostonian La Tartine Goumande’s recipe. Those who witnessed me at 3 am the night before, drunkenly proclaiming to all attendant that I would be making eggs baked in crepes in a mere six hours, may not have believed me at the time, but I am proud to announce that I did, that they were delicious, and that they were only three hours later than planned.

About Food, by Erica McDaniel at 8:32 PM | C (2) | TB (2)

January 29, 2006

food blogging

Last week our fancy dinner was a roast herbed pork loin, spicy broccoli rabe and cannellini bean gratin – all from the big yellow Gourmet cookbook, which I am loving. Luuuurving.
I never would have thought of a bean gratin like this. The recipe used pureed beans to replace cream, was flavored with herbs and garlic, and developed a satisfying crunchy crust. It was great, but then, I’m always happy with bean dishes. Broccoli rabe is another story – I like its strong flavor, but it is a challenge to cook it in a way everyone will like. Adding red pepper flakes worked really well.
I have also been really into roasting meat lately. Our meat thermometer is a POS that actually cracked while I was measuring the temperature of this pork roast, so my timing was a little off, but it was still satisfyingly tasty and homey.
The real problem I’ve been running into in the kitchen is not a culinary one at all – I’ve been trying to take photographs of my cooking for a while now, and I am never happy with the results. I know my main problem is lighting: there just isn’t enough light in the kitchen. But I think I could also stand to improve my presentation skills and maybe even knuckle under and do some post-production on my photos. Maybe next time I’ll rig up some clamp lights over the counter.

About Food, by Erica McDaniel at 8:28 PM | C (0)

January 26, 2006

The Trip in Food

Maybe I was just hungry, but I loved almost everything we ate in CA last week:

Pascucci
From outside, this Italian place on State St. in Santa Barbara totally gave me the impression of being overpriced and stuck up. After a friend of Monica and Pete’s recommended it (during a crazy awesome coincidental meeting with them in the Paseo), however, we decided to give it a try. And, holy shit, this place saved my life. We were tired and stressed from looking at wedding venues. Pascucci was affordable, cozy and calm, and they provided the endless stream of diet coke refills necessary to revive me. We scored an adorable mini-booth in front of the fireplace and I had the most delectable butternut squash and pumpkin ravioli in sage butter. There were little bits of crispy, salty fried sage topping the dish, which married surprisingly well with the taste of cinnamon and nuts in the ravioli. Greg’s dish of pasta with a cream sauce and sausage was slightly less spectacular, but on the whole our experience was really pleasant. And those ravioli, they are like a new platonic ideal of comfort food.

Los Caporales
This is a nice authentic Mexican place in Ojai. I usually find their food to be good, but this time I had a dish that just blew me away. It was a simple soup of pinto beans and tender beef chunks, topped with stripes of green cilantro, white queso fresco and red chopped tomatoes (Mexican flag - cute). It was accompanied by amazingly soft and tasty corn tortillas. They called the dish Nectar de los Dioses, Nectar of the Gods, but, as accurate as that description is, I’m pretty sure that's not its common name..

Movino
After dinner at Los Caporales, Greg and I hit up Movino Wine Bar. We enjoyed a nice Chilean Syrah and the dim, sophisticated atmosphere of the small lounge. We had a great time there, but I’ve got to say, if there is one thing this place needs, it is a bumped-up dessert menu. They seemed to offer enough savory snacks, but the only sweet available was a mediocre chocolate “soufflé.” This place could be raking it in on flights of dark chocolate, fine cookie assortments or even fresh fruit concoctions like roast pears or simple tarts – things which are either kept on hand or easy to prepare and go well with wine.

The new(ish?) Mongolian BBQ place in Ventura.
Fantastic. Absolutely exactly everything that Mongolian BBQ should be. Because Mongolian BBQ is pretty much a made up cuisine, it has even stricter requirements than real ones – it’s a formula, sure, but it’s a formula that works, so don’t mess with it!
The formula is: 3-4 meats, frozen and shaved into thin slices. 8-15 veggies and additional toppings, most importantly broccoli, but often including squash, celery, onion, bell pepper, pineapple, noodles, peanuts etc. Cilantro – huuuge piles of fresh cilantro. Garlic. Sesame-dotted pocket breads that are tender and chewy on the outside and light and papery inside. The whole thing should ring up in the neighborhood of $10 for an all-you-can-eat dinner. $16.95 is NOT in the neighborhood of $10 (Fire and Ice, I am looking at you)
Most important: 3-6 sauces. A dark “BBQ” sauce (sometimes affectionately known as “Sauce A”). A sweet sauce (aka “Sauce B”). Cooking Oil (yup, “Sauce C”). That’s ALL you need. Add a little soy sauce, sesame oil, hot sauce or pepper oil, that’s fine, but I don’t want none of this Italian Herb Blend or Bob’s Cajun Fire sauce shit. That’s when this make your-own stir-fry thing gets ugly. See, certain flavors go together and others don’t. The point of Mongolian BBQ is that ANYTHING you can put in your bowl should taste good together. There is no way to screw up real Mongolian BBQ. There is also no way to dress it up. Mongolian BBQ does not own a nice pair of pants. It’s supposed to be cheap, simple, and eaten off formica tables. Since it is pretty much impossible to put all the ingredients that you need for a good Italian pasta primavera sauté and a good Cajun sausage scramble and a good Asian shrimp stir-fry, etc., etc, in one room, when you try, you just end up with a lousy pasta primavera and a lousy scramble AND lousy Mongolian BBQ. (Fire and Ice I am looking at YOU).

T.T. Shabu
The only problem with T.T. Shabu is that it is so great we must eat there every time we are in LA, which leaves a little less time for trying new restaurants. Plus, this time I overcooked the black mushrooms.

Tea Station
If this place were in Boston, the name would be a pun. But it’s not. They had good boba, and this divine concoction, which I can’t seem to find any other information about, called sugar butter toast. Or butter sugar toast? This is a slab of that thick, soft, bland rectangular Asian-style white bread topped with a layer of a paste made of melted butter and sugar (and maybe a touch of condensed milk?) And when I say a layer, I mean a solid quarter-inch of the stuff. Then the whole thing is toasted, so that the top and sides become slightly crisp and the bread is warm and squishy. The layer of sugar paste becomes a hot, gooey layer of melty butter and sugar. They also serve fruity jelly teas that have a combination of boba and solid jelly cubes, which makes for a surprisingly refreshing drink.

El Gran Burrito
OMG, WHY do I live in Boston? We grabbed a couple of burritos here, to share while waiting for our flight home, and they pretty much made me want to turn around and drive away from LAX, and the cold, cold lack of burritos that awaited me, at top speed. They were the best burritos (Carnitas and Pastor) that I have had in years! I mean, I’ve practically forgotten what a burrito should taste like, but... the meat was very, very tender, moist and full of flavor, the salsa fresh and spicy, the rice fluffy and the beans just right. The proportions were perfect. Now I am left with the tragic realization that it will be months before I taste anything remotely like it… Even worse, the friends who sent us there couldn’t remember the address of the “really great” place, so they sent us to El Gran Burrito because it was “good too.” There are even better burritos out there, mocking me!

About Food, by Erica McDaniel at 10:43 PM | C (3)

January 9, 2006

Bread Pudding

My current favorite in the kitchen is bread pudding. Last week, during Jason and Julia’s awesome New Year’s visit, I made bread and butter pudding from Classic Home Desserts, with another batch of the brandy caramel sauce, plus raisins, that I made for our holiday dinner. Yesterday I tried a savory roast chicken mushroom bread pudding from this month’s Cooking Light. How can anything be bad surrounded
by custard and good, toasty Italian bread?

Other culinary highlights of the past week included Jason’s tasty lasagna with fresh pasta from Capone’s. Julia and I used the leftover sheets of pasta to make cheese-filled ravioli. Mmm!

About Food, by Erica McDaniel at 9:07 PM | C (0)

December 23, 2005

Christmas Eve Eve Dinner

A romantic holiday dinner for two. The Menu:
Roast chestnuts, french bread and olive oil
Roast pheasant in apricot sauce
Mixed potato saute
Broccoli in lemon and olive oil
Grapefruit custard with raisin brandy caramel sauce

I adapted most of these recipes from Epicurious and the Food Network. The pheasant came from Savenor's, and was yummy and mild. Its texture was distinct and firm, and it had the oily dryness that one would expect from a game bird, but without being tough or stringy. The leg meat might have benefited from brining, but the breast was
as tender as you could want.

The star was the sauce, however. Dried apricots, dates and shallots, along with the giblets, white wine, vodka and mixed citrus juices, were cooked with the bird, then simmered into a chunky sauce. Delicious, and the rich flavor was a wonderful complement to the soft gaminess of the meat.

Dessert was a steamed grapefruit custard with a delicious flavor, but an imperfect texture. I'm not sure if the problems arose from trying to compensate for adding too much grapefruit juice or from over-cooking. Whatever it was, the thing was just too firm on the bottom. But, honestly, you can't really complain about anything covered with brandy caramel sauce with raisins.

About Food, by Erica McDaniel at 8:38 PM | C (0)

December 22, 2005

Chinese Five Spice Pear and Apple Pie

Although it didn't turn out pretty - not even worth taking a photo of - this pie was pretty fantastic. Another recipe from Haedrich, it's seven cups of apples and pears, sugar and cornstarch, essentially like a standard apple pie. Instead of cinnamon, however, the pie gets a healthy two tablespoons of Chinese Five Spice Powder.
I bought mine at Christina's, in Inman Square (an amazing spice shop that carries everything from Berbere to Ras el Hanout, not to mention a dozen kinds of salt, several dozen kinds of chilies, plus rare grains, teas and other specialty items) and it worked very well. Although five spice powder varies, and I'm not sure of the composition of their mix, the basic ingredients can include cassia, star anise, ginger, cloves, and Szechuan peppercorns, and that's about what it tasted like. The pie had a rich, round holiday spice flavor that started sweet, eased into gingery, then flattened out into a peppery kick. The heat was all at the end of the taste, a warm bite around the edges of the tongue, that neither burned nor overwhelmed the other flavors. Unfortunately the five spice powder was not as successful when I tried to substitute it for anise seeds in a recipe for Marsala wine cookies. Oh well.

About Food, by Erica McDaniel at 8:06 PM | C (1)

October 24, 2005

Mother of Bread

Yesterday, I baked bread for the first time. Oh, I've made the occasional famous (meltingly tender, eggy and sweet) Holm Christmas bread, and a few stabs apiece at foreign breads like naan, poori and injera, but I have never really baked bread.

On Saturday night, I made the preferments, mixtures of varying small amounts of yeast in water and flour, and covered them to rise overnight. Sunday morning, I lifted the napkins and was rewarded with that sweet yeast smell. Baking bread, I decided, is probably the closest I've come to having children. It needs your attention almost constantly, but in the end, you're proud.

I spent most of the day deflating, folding and kneading, with the occasional frantic turning on or off of the warm setting on the oven, trying to keep the interior at the optimum bread rising temperature (85 degrees, not exactly the native temperature in our kitchen in mid-October). In between, I whipped up two surprisingly intricate meatloaves. It was a seriously satisfying day.

By the evening, when the breads were coming out of the oven and the meatloaf going in, I was so used to running around that I started two more baking projects to fill the downtime – another kind of bread and a batch of hermit bars, a kind of molassesy, fudgy bar cookie. In the end, I was rewarded with two loaves of crusty italian, five baguettes and two giant potato-dill loaves, plus two meatloaves and two boxes of hermit bars.

The baguettes, which I was stunningly unprepared to make, required an exciting steam oven technique, using a 500 degree cast iron pan and a half-cup of boiling water to fill the oven with steam just as they went in. They turned out nice and crunchy with a soft interior. The Italian bread could be heard to “sing” as it came out of the oven, crackling softly. The potato-dill is moist and soft and needs salt. I am a very proud bread-parent

About Food, by Erica McDaniel at 10:10 PM | C (5) | TB (0)

September 19, 2005

Sriracha

Last night I found out that everyone's favorite asian chili sauce, Sriracha, is not only produced in Rosemead, CA (which one can learn, astoundingly, by reading the bottle) but that the chilis are grown in Ventura!

About Food, by Erica McDaniel at 7:43 AM | C (2) | TB (0)

August 29, 2005

California Trip, The Final, Belated, Chapter

On Friday, April and I drove down to join Naomi in San Francisco. That night we had a delicious dinner of pasta with eggplant, tomato and pancetta fried with breadcrumbs (the breadcrumbs stay crispy this way, unlike in eggplant parmesan). As we ate, we wondered… just how were Naomi’s downstairs neighbors planning on getting that giant turquoise castle out of their entirely enclosed backyard, let alone all the way to Burning Man, anyways? After dinner we watched the first half of Wizard People, Dear Reader. If you thought Harry Potter was entertaining before, just wait ‘til you hear Brad Neely’s grating voice narrating his secret drinking problem!

On Saturday, we set out with a mission – just how many soup dumplings (xiao long bao) could we track down and consume in one day? Xiao long bao are a bit of a white whale for me. Several years ago I had a variation on them in a dumpling shop in Alhambra/Monterey Park, and have been keeping an eye out for them ever since. But it is hard to find them, and even harder to find good ones. Boston, in particular, is bereft. We started out at Yank Sing, a very well known dim sum restaurant. While the dim sum was good, the soup dumplings were sort of disappointing; the wrappers were thick and the filling slightly too bland. Plus, the shrimp noodles couldn’t compare to Chau Chow City and neither could the bill. We paid about $30 per person, which I think is pretty unconscionable for dim sum, especially considering that we didn’t order anything special aside from the soup dumplings. We did try a fried taro ball that was very good, and several of the dumplings were pretty tasty as well - just nothing to blow me out of the water.

We had to kill a fair amount of time before we were hungry enough to find more soup dumplings. We checked out a number of shops on Hayes, admiring house wares we couldn’t afford, before packing up and heading to the Shanghai Dumpling Shop in the Richmond (34th and Balboa). In total contrast to Yank Sing, April, Naomi and I ate our fill for less than $10 a person at this small, comfortable hole-in-the-wall. In addition to soup dumplings, we had anise-flavored lion’s head meatballs, as big as our fists, noodles in spicy broth, and deep fried thread bread. All of the food was good, but the xiao long bao were amazing. Tender and rich, the flavors of the pork and broth mingled perfectly with the vinegar and ginger, creating a taste that was, literally, breathtaking. I cursed the place for not being in Boston. Then, the deep fried thread bread – Naomi said that she had had this dish somewhere else, and that it was slightly different, with the bread forming ‘threads’ on the inside - was a new and surprising treat. It was simple, deliciously bland, crispy on the outside, and divine when dipped into sweetened condensed milk. I’m hungry just thinking about it.

About Food, by Erica McDaniel at 2:22 PM | C (0) | TB (0)

August 22, 2005

California Trip, Chapter 5

The Menu:

Baked trout with white beans

Bread and tomato soup

Grilled eggplant and zucchini

Chocolates, figs and grapes

On Thursday night we decided to make a Tuscan feast of trout, beans and bread and tomato soup. The recipes came from a Martha Stewart article on Ceasar Casella, and have beautiful names like trota al rosmarino con fagioli and pappa al pomodoro. Preparation was a little simplier than the Ethiopian meal we made the night before; our proudest moment was the de-boning of the fish – with no instructions or experience, we managed to rip those little fishes’ spines right out with a reasonable level of cleanliness. The trout was lightly seasoned with garlic and rosemary and baked. Alongside the trout, we made a dish of cannellini baked with fresh sage, tomatoes and onions. I think that cannellini are my favorite kind of beans – they are so richly flavored.

The tomato and bread soup was the real revolutionary dish here; it’s a chunky tomato soup where the role of starch is played by dry rustic bread. The body of the soup is tomatoes, white wine, leeks, garlic and onion, to which ½ inch cubes of dried bread (we used a garlic-studded Italian loaf) are added. After nearly an hour or so of cooking, the bread becomes soft and slightly chewy. Topped with a sprinkling of parmesan and a drizzle of olive oil on top, the soup is fresh and flavorful, but it’s really the chunks of gummy bread that make it irresistible.

After dinner, we broke into a box of chocolates that Greg had brought. They ranged from 41 to 82% cacao, and we all agreed that the milk chocolate (still pretty dark at 41%) and the bittersweet (70%) were the most delicious. The extra-dark was quite an experience, but the texture was strange and the strength of the chocolate made it difficult to eat very much. April and I supplemented our chocolates by wandering around the garden eating cheese and picking fresh figs and grapes. Later that night we met up with Joe downtown and hit a couple bars before resting up for our trip back into the city on Friday.

About Food, by Erica McDaniel at 3:13 PM | C (1) | TB (0)

August 21, 2005

California Trip, Chapter 4

The Menu:

Ethiopian Peanut Chicken Stew

Injera

Nectarine-Plum Grunt




On Wednesday night, after a day of reading, chatting and shopping, April and I broke into A Taste of Africa by Dorinda Hafner. For dinner, we chose a peanut chicken stew and flat bread, two exciting and unique recipes – the stew was largely composed of peanut butter and the bread was made from a watery batter and fried like a pancake. For the stew, we started with sautéing onions and chicken with berbere, a traditional Ethiopian mixture of spices. The berbere consists of, quite seriously, nearly every spice in your cabinet, including a healthy pile of cayenne, toasted on the stove until just walking through the kitchen results in a choking searing of all your breathing passages. After the onions were translucent and the chicken was browned, I added watered down peanut butter and a variety of winter squash, root vegetables and plantains, and cooked until the whole thing became something like a rich, savory, spicy, thick curry. For the injera, April toasted flour until it was slightly brown, filling the kitchen with a warm scent and giving the flour a nutty taste. It was mixed into a thin batter with plenty of water, baking powder and yeast. When poured into hot pan, the batter bubbles up, making a spongy pancake that separates, as if by magic, from the pan the moment it is done. We served it with fresh tomatoes, watermelon and watermelon mint vodka drinks. Everything was delicious!

That morning, I had been working on putting together a binder for storing recipes, and came across a Martha Stewart article on fruit desserts; cobblers, crisps, buckles, brown betties, pandowdys and grunts. April’s garden was brimming with fruit, so we decided to top off the dinner with a grunt. It turns out that a grunt, or slump, is like a steamed cobbler. You simply put your lightly sweetened fruit in a pan on the stove, cook, and then top with blobs of biscuit-like dough. You cover and cook until the dumplings are steamed to perfection. Mmmmm.

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August 4, 2005

Apple Meringue

A quick dessert I whipped up… unfortunately, I may not have whipped it up quite enough. When I decided to make meringue, I forgot that we don’t have an electric beater anymore, and I think I did something dire to the egg whites by attempting to whip them with an immersion blender, which made them strangely liquid. I switched over to a whisk, but it was too late; these egg whites were never becoming real meringue. But we got a sort of firm foam that was close enough.
Underneath the meringue is a cooked and sweetened apple puree in pre-baked puff pastry cups.

About Food, by Erica McDaniel at 8:54 AM | C (0) | TB (0)