David Chang's Leftovers

While on break at work a few weeks ago I decided to flip through the November 2009 issue of Food & Wine while elbow-deep in my cold beef salad from Chelsea Thai.  Lo and behold David Chang and Christina Tosi from empire Momofuku were being challenged to take a mass of Thanksgiving leftovers and create day-after dishes with some measure of panache.  Here's the article.

I was particularly intrigued by the Mashed Potato Spring Rolls, in which David Chang rolls out white bread after cutting of the crusts, fills it with mashed potatoes and throws it in the deep fryer.  Now I fully admit to having a lifelong shiksa fascination with knishes, and it was that very fascination that was awakened by this rolled-white-bread-as-dumpling-wrapper idea.  I felt a deep need to incorporate this idea into my Christmas menu, which ironically enough was to be cooked in tandem with my Jewish neighbors.

I decided to make a few changes to the recipe.  Instead of doing a spring roll, I would fold the white bread in half and make triangles.  I omitted the green been entirely and made the filling with potato flakes, into which I microplaned half of a red onion and added olive oil and chopped fresh herbs.  It's particularly important with the white bread to seal each "knish" edge evenly with the egg wash in every nook and cranny possible.  I fried them in vegetable oil at 375°, but I would recommend getting the oil a bit hotter (say to 400°) so that the "knishes" won't absorb as much oil.

They were a hit at dinner with Jews and Gentiles alike and rolled white bread is definitely a welcomed new addition to my deep-fried goodie repertoire...

Iceland Heats Up | Food & Wine

Iceland Heats Up | Food & Wine

Try This Cheese

Despite the fact that I happen to work in a lovely cheese shop with beautiful artisan specimens from all over the US, I'm no cheese snob.  To be perfectly honest, I'm not all that fond of cheese as a subgroup of food, unless it's very acidic, like a nice fresh chèvre, or in the service of enhancing a finished dish, like the "cheddar" weaving it's grated magic on my Taco Bell chalupa.  So imagine me standing in this shop all day giving my sad, fake spiel to customer after customer about how "sublime" or "subtly nutty" all the cheeses are that I happen to personally dislike on a somewhat deep level...except for one!  It's called "Frère Fumant" and it's a smoked raw "Basque style" sheepsmilk cheese from 3 Corner Field Farm in Shushan, NY.  Meaty, hickory smoked, snappy and rich...it's as if you accidentally dropped your Lebanon bologna into a smoking hot hickory fire while camping one crisp autumn night and then ate it anyway, 'cept it's a cheese.  Normally I find anything that combines smokiness with cream to be repugnant, but Frère Fumant puts its wagging finger in the face of my pickiness and tells it to &%$# off like a guest on Jerry Springer.

More Info 'bout 3 Corner Field Farm and Frère Fumant:

The Strong Buzz

Cheese By Hand

And, as an aside, here's enough good cheese reading to procrastinate an entire afternoon away:

New York Times Topics: Cheese

Grate Your Marcona Almonds Like José Andres

I had the inkling last week to begin marathon viewing sessions of Molto Mario and José Andres on hulu.com.  After honestly becoming a bit bored with the window deep into the Italian soul, I began my session with José.  He was visiting his home province of Asturias and using the famous apples and Cabrales cheese there to make a salad, which while looking delicious, did not stand out as anything particularly earth-shattering.  Until...he grated a Marcona almond with an upside down microplane zester and tapped the resulting almond powder onto the salad.  My eyes were wide as saucers.  Behold.

Put Salt in Your Coffee Maker Immediately.

In these difficult economic times (blah blah blah) I've been attempting to go cheaper and cheaper with my morning coffee...When I was working at Dean & Deluca, I could acquire relatively good coffee at a discount (5-finger or otherwise), but now I've been forced to pretend that Folgers is what yanks my crank.  I decided last week that this-"The Folgers Trials"as I have deemed it, not so unlike "The Nuremburg Trials"-would require more than a pinch of ingenuity and maybe even some organic chemistry.

I began with Hervé This's book Molecular Gastronomy, and was particularly fascinated by chapter 24, "How Salt Affects Taste".  Mr. Man discusses therein the recent and peculiar discovery that salt can be more effective than sugar at masking bitterness.  Well I'll be damned.  So Monsieur goes on to describe an experiment in which scientists compared three separate aqueous solutions, one containing bitter urea, one with sucrose (aka table sugar) and one with sodium acetate.  He continues:

There were reasons for choosing these three: Sucrose added to urea softens its bitterness, and sodium acetate contributes sodium ions without imparting too salty a taste.  Ten subjects were asked to evalate the intensity of bitter, sweet and other sapid sensations produced by combinations of urea, sugar and salt in different concentrations (three for urea and salt, four for sugar).  As predicted, sodium acetate reduced the bitterness of urea.  What gastronomic empiricism did not predict however was that salt masked the bitterness much more effectively than sugar.

This is a pretty revolutionary discovery in my eyes, but I feel like it's something that grandmas and moms and other cooking geniuses have known forever and I'm the last to catch on.  Hervé continues:

Moreover, in strong sugar concentrations, the sweet character was increased by the addition of sodium acetate, probably because salt offsets the weakening of the sweet intensity caused by the bitterness of urea.  Consistent with the hypothesis , the addition of sodium acetate by itself to sugar, in the absence of urea, did not increase the intensity of the sweet  taste.  

After reading this, naturally I was beside myself with excitement to use this new knowledge to improve my cheap-ass coffee.  The next morning I practically leapt out of bed and flew to my drip coffee maker.

After spooning my standard 5 heaping TBs of coffee in the filter for an 8-cup pot, I spooned one half teaspoon of the only salt I had (very fine Japanese sea salt, also from Dean & Deluca oddly enough) over the top of the grounds, trying to cover as much surface area as possible.  Pushing the "on" button was nearly more than I could bear.  I tried to be patient with the drips, but enough about my social life...

I poured myself a cup and drank it black for full objectivity.  Hervé wasn't kidding!  It was a new substance altogether.  I knew it was only the salt tricking my brain but I was loving every minute of it.  The bitterness of standard coffee to which we've all grown begrudgingly accustomed had vanished like someone turning down the stereo.  What I tasted as I drank was...well, for lack of a better term, pure chocolate.  It was nearly overpoweringly chocolatey, until the nuttiness from what I assumed to be the roasting process came through.  It was as if the salt grains were the judges of a talent show eliminating all the bad singers and two-bit magicians until only the stars were left onstage...I added a bit of milk and a couple of splenda packets and it became like a dessert thanks to the Elizabeth Taylor lens that is salt.  Folgers.  Yes!

PLEASE try this at home and comment on this post about your results.  I've added salt to the filter each morning for the last 3 mornings with similar success, but I want to hear how it works with other coffees and types of salt.

Thanksgiving Continued: SEASON Your Pie Crust!

After the impromptu Mexican-ish Thanksgiving dinner mentioned in the previous post, I decided at the capricious bidding of my 4 year-old (to be henceforth known as 'Inge') to whip up 2 pies, one pumpkin and one apple, from scratch. I took the opportunity to experiment, as there was no expectation of pie from anyone other than Inge and if I totally screwed them up I could simply attribute the smell to the inquisitor's own delusions. Wink wink.

My experiment wasn't a terribly revolutionary one, but a simple question of how much 'seasoning' one could add to a pâte brisée before altering the state of an ideal crust. The basic pâte brisée recipe I used was as follows:

2.5 cups of all-purpose flour * 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter * 1 tp sea salt * 1 tp superfine sugar * .25-.5 cups of ice water

I pulsed the flour, salt and sugar in the food processor, then added the cubed, cold butter and pulsed until it got crumby, then turned the machine to 'on' and dribbled in a .25 cup of ice water and waited a few dozen seconds until the dough formed a ball. I then divided the dough in half, plastic wrapped each flattened half and refrigerated them for an hour before touching them again.

So that's the basic pâte brisée recipe I set about to alter.  I began my experiment with the apple pie...

5 granny smith apples, halved and sliced lengthwise * .5 cup of light cream * .25 cup of turbinado sugar * the juice of 1 lime * 2 TB good white wine * equal parts cinnamon, ground cloves, allspice, black pepper and ground ginger, to taste

I want to note that the combination of lime juice and white wine with any spiced fruit mixture always seems to work.  It is absolutely delicious and I tend to abuse the crap out of it as a cooking tactic.

Now, as for the seasoning of the crust for this apple pie, I wanted to echo the flavors I added to the apples and then take it a step further, and because I made one batch of pâte brisée for 2 different pies, I added the accoutrements during the rolling process.  So after I took one of the discs out of the fridge and divided in half (one half for the top crust and one for the bottom) I began to roll out the bottom crust.  I decided that the bottom crust would be seasoned with very finely chopped dried apples, ground ginger and ground cinnamon, as well as a sprinkling of big fat decorative sugar.  I mixed the above together, making sure it was still quite a dry mixture, and distributed it through dough as I rolled it out.  I laid it gently into the pie dish and decided not to blind bake it, but it wouldn't have been a terrible idea I reckon.  Either way, it's up to you.

For the top crust, I decided on a simple mixture of the zest of about 4 oranges and a few turns of the black pepper mill on the coursest setting, mixed into the rolled top crust in the same manner as mentioned above.  I chose to simply add a smattering of radial steam vents to the top crust of the assembled pie and a generous sprinkling of fat white decorative sugar.

Now for the Pumpkin Pie...

1 27oz can of pumpkin * 4 whole large eggs, beaten for a near eternity (or about 10 min) * .6 cup light cream * 2 TB good white wine * the juice of 1 lime * equal parts ground cinnamon, cloves, allspice, nutmeg and ground ginger, to taste

I'll note again the use of the aforementioned lime juice/white wine combo.  Try it yesterday.

 Now for the pumpkin pie I decided to use only a bottom crust, which I seasoned with ground ginger, ground cinnamon and get this: the zest of 6 limes.  Before baking, I sprinkled the top of the filled pie with very finely chopped crystallized ginger and a little more lime zest.

Both pies were a big hit, due as much to my shrewd management of expectation as to their added complexity.  Inge and I beseech you to SEASON your pie crust!

Impromptu Thanksgiving Menu 11/09

Thanksgiving this year was a right psychology experiment.  The night before I had decided loosely on a Mexican theme for our small 'n' casual 4-person dinner, made a very basic grocery list for the morning and felt comfortable with my expectation of a small and relatively effortless bout of cooking for yours truly.  Then what did I go and do?  I put the lack of pressure to good use by cooking for 7 hours straight and improvising the following:

Starters

Thai Peanut Hummus Yes, terribly Mexican of me.

I threw 2 cans of Goya chick peas into the Cuisinart with 2 TB of natural peanut butter, olive oil, a good bit of chili oil (I believe in red oil), one jalapeño chili cut into a few rather oddly shaped chunks, a rather serious amount of lime juice, lime zest and a dash each of soy sauce and fish sauce.  Pretty authentic flavor considering it's probably something that's bound to pop up on Rachel Ray's show any minute now...super duper!!!  <---irony.


Main Course

Braised Chicken Thighs with warm corn tortillas

I promised myself I would NOT allow myself to rip open any of my beloved Goya seasoning packets (¡Sazón!) to braise my dark meat on holidays.  I thwarted my addictive tendencies by first searing the chicken thighs to a crisp in my big enameled stew pot (her name is "Bigg'n") then setting them aside while I fried the living hell out of a small red onion, 8 whole garlic cloves, one finely diced red chile, a splash of lime juice, 4 whole PEELED tomatoes (I detest nothing more than those bullshit little rolled up tomato skins in my finished dish.  Abhorrent.), about a TB of butter and a healthy 1/4 cup of a nice pungent olive oil.  Ah, and salt and pepper of course.  After I fried the above together adequately, I placed the thighs back into the pot, poured in just enough chicken stock to cover them, then popped on the lid and let the stank develop for upwards of 90 minutes.  Then I turned the heat up with the lid off and evaporated the excess liquid to concentrate the flavor and make it a bit more taco-friendly.

The corn tortillas were artisanal and simply warmed for a spell in a 350º oven.

Black Bean Salsa with a little red oil.  I believe in red oil.

Yeah, as a matter of fact I am aware how hackneyed black bean salsa is.  I know what you're thinking, "Sandra Dee is probably semi-homemaking this on her next 'cooking' show".  It's just damn good.  The secret I think is that after you chop the onion, pepper, tomato and herbs to mix in with the black beans, you whisk up some lime juice, big salt and red chili oil until you get a nice vinaigrette going.  I drank a little of it after I made it, I won't lie to you.

Sliced Avocado with a squeeze o' lime and big, fat salt

Sour Cream with grapefruit

You simply mix together a decent brand of full-fat sour cream with both the fresh juice of a grapefruit and the zest.

Dinner itself went quite well, particularly when I made the executive decision to accompany it with tequila, lime and ginger ale mixed in very large glasses with lots of ice and big, fat multicolored sugar on the rim.  Family conflict?  Really?  More on the proceeding scratch desserts in the next post...