I really hope none of you call Child Protective Services on me for that title.
Sorry I haven't written in so long; in case you didn't guess from the blatant title, I am currently pregnant with our third (yikes!) child. And here's one thing I've learned so far: it's impossible to cook in the first trimester.
Not only did I feel mostly like crap, but my tastebuds were really, really wonky. I ate olives for every single meal (okay, that's not entirely unheard of for me) and added garlic to absolutely everything. And since I felt like crap and mostly ate bruschetta, olives, and frozen foods from Trader Joe's for four months, I figured you readers wouldn't really want to hear about it.
But here is something you will want to hear about: penna alla vodka.
For those of you who've had the wonderful fortune to spend any time in Italy, you know the culinary wonders that one can experience in any (really, any) small side-street cafe. Unfortunately most of us tourists usually stick to the lame, boring foods we recognize (manicotti, ravioli, pizza). But one of the delights of the Italian cuisine is penne alla vodka. Recently, this sauce has enjoyed a larger audience stateside thanks to the fine folks in the canned pasta-sauce industry, but nothing that comes from a can possibly does justice to true penne alla vodka
You know you've found a good penne alla vodka recipe when you just can't stop eating it. It's like an addictive drug; you just keep eating and eating, even when your stomach hurts and you think you might not be able to chew and swallow one more bite, because it's that damn good. (Having actually tried an addictive drug in my naughty college years, I know firsthand that this is not an unfair comparison)
I've been craving penne alla vodka for the last two weeks, and today I finally had enough free time to spend three hours online, searching for recipes, reading the comments, comparing, contrasting, etc. The end result was chosen not because it sounded the best, or the most authentic, but because the process sounded so strange that I just had to try it. I mentally prepared myself for catastrophic failure and leftover spanakopita for dinner and got to work on this recipe from one of my fave sites, epicurious.com
I only made two changes: I added a box of Citterio cubetti pancetta and sauteed it until crispy before adding the garlic, and I eliminated the parsley and used a handful of chopped basil, which I stirred in with the parmesan. And honestly, I don't think the recipe would have been nearly as good without the pancetta. It added flavor, texture, and the meat factor without which the carnivorous husband would be lost.
I'm not really sure why the recipe calls for peeling, smashing, and sauteing the garlic, only to have you pull it out before serving. In the future, I'll cut down the garlic from ten cloves to five, mince it and leave it in. I have a sneaking suspicion that the point is to have a smooth sauce, but with the addition of the pancetta the smooth sauce goes out the window.
The sauce came together beautifully, and I was really impressed with how well it reduced. I also loved adding the al dente pasta to the finished sauce and simmering it all together until the sauce clung to the penne perfectly. And it tasted really good too; even my four year old said it was "a really yummy dinner."
Sadly, however, it didn't have that luscious, addicting quality that so distinguishes a great penne alla vodka.
I have a few guesses why. First, I think that the vodka and the cream need to be doubled. The sauce was really acidic and retained that sharp tomato-ey flavor that makes marinara wonderful but really shouldn't be present in a vodka sauce. It may have helped to add a tablespoon of sugar at the end to round out the flavors and tone down the acidity, but I think doubling the vodka and cream and increasing the reduction times would probably eliminate the need for this.
I also think I need to add some shallots. Not too much, but enough to give it just one more element. One of the beautiful things about a vodka sauce is the incredible dimension it has; all the flavors work together to create this harmonious, remarkable sauce that is so well blended and so perfectly cooked that it is impossible to pick out individual ingredients. It's like the culinary version of listening to Collegium Cantorum.
Any of you guys have experience with a vodka sauce, or suggestions about how to achieve that perfect flavor? I'll be trying it again as soon as I finish our leftovers (it really was good, it just wasn't perfect.)
And I'll be getting back to my regularly-scheduled posting. I hope you faithful few readers (and I think you're composed almost entirely of my mother-in-law) haven't given up on me!
Thursday, April 8, 2010
Monday, November 30, 2009
Do Instant-Read Thermometers Ever Work?
Thanksgiving.
I think the very word engenders fear and depression in most cooks.
See, Thanksgiving is a holiday that, whatever its roots, has become centered around food. But not just any food, no! A very specific menu is laid out in front of football-watching half drunk family members on the fourth Thursday of every November by home cooks in various states of exhaustion, stress and panic. And if, like me, your husband's mother is "the world's best and most amazing cook" (sorry about the air quotes, Suzanne. You really are a great cook, but I'm trying to build a rapport with my readers) your Thanksgiving must at least be similar to hers, and may not include the cornbread dressing you grew up on and love upon pain of death. (This is what happens when a Texan marries a Californian. It's like a culture clash.)
So this year I decided to ease away from my mother-in-law's traditional meal with a little help from Bon Appetit and Cooking Light. I made the Sage Butter Roasted Turkey with Cider Gravy and stuffed it with Sourdough Stuffing with Sausage, Apples and Golden Raisins, accompanied by Green Beans with Bacon, cranberry sauce with a dash of allspice and cinnamon, my mother's fantastic mashed potatoes and her also fantastic pumpkin pie cake.
So here's my question: Do instant-read thermometers ever work for anyone? This year, after two overcooked turkeys that registered cooked from two cheap thermometers in previous years, I put my foot down and insisted on a more expensive one, which I dutifully calibrated in boiling water. After about an hour and a half of cooking, my 16 pound, beautifully basted and burnished turkey registered 165 degrees! This is way too short, I thought to myself. But I inserted the thermometer repeatedly into every part of each thigh that could be considered "thickest", taking care not to hit bone, and still it kept telling me that this bird was done. So I took it out, removed the stuffing and heated it to a safe temperature, and made the gravy. By the way, if anyone ever has doubts about the flavor homemade turkey stock adds, you should stop those doubts right now. I made the homemade stock from the website, and oh man. This was the most flavorful, richest-tasting and most beautiful gravy I've ever had. I could have eaten it by the spoonful. (I know, that's gross. But it was that good.)
Okay, back to the turkey. As the carnivorous husband is carving it at the table, we noticed a somewhat alarming amount of pink-ish juices pouring from the turkey. Our guests got white meat (thank goodness), but I like the dark meat so I requested a bit of both. The white meat was wonderful; incredibly juicy and perfectly cooked. The dark meat, however, was like a turkey version of carpaccio. It was simply raw.
Everything else was great; the sourdough bread made the stuffing much more interesting than normal bread cube stuffing, and the sausage added a textural element that was a nice counterpoint to the chewy raisins and crisp-ish celery. The potatoes and gravy were the highlight; there was actually no gravy left over! I think I was the only one who really liked the cranberry sauce. The cinnamon and allspice made it taste like Christmas, but as my husband said, "Then why are we having it on Thanksgiving?" The green beans were all right, but next year I think I'll venture into the mysterious world of creamed brussel sprouts.
All in all, it was not a failed meal, but in the interest of not serving potential salmonella to my family next year, can someone please explain to me how to get a meat thermometer to work?
I think the very word engenders fear and depression in most cooks.
See, Thanksgiving is a holiday that, whatever its roots, has become centered around food. But not just any food, no! A very specific menu is laid out in front of football-watching half drunk family members on the fourth Thursday of every November by home cooks in various states of exhaustion, stress and panic. And if, like me, your husband's mother is "the world's best and most amazing cook" (sorry about the air quotes, Suzanne. You really are a great cook, but I'm trying to build a rapport with my readers) your Thanksgiving must at least be similar to hers, and may not include the cornbread dressing you grew up on and love upon pain of death. (This is what happens when a Texan marries a Californian. It's like a culture clash.)
So this year I decided to ease away from my mother-in-law's traditional meal with a little help from Bon Appetit and Cooking Light. I made the Sage Butter Roasted Turkey with Cider Gravy and stuffed it with Sourdough Stuffing with Sausage, Apples and Golden Raisins, accompanied by Green Beans with Bacon, cranberry sauce with a dash of allspice and cinnamon, my mother's fantastic mashed potatoes and her also fantastic pumpkin pie cake.
So here's my question: Do instant-read thermometers ever work for anyone? This year, after two overcooked turkeys that registered cooked from two cheap thermometers in previous years, I put my foot down and insisted on a more expensive one, which I dutifully calibrated in boiling water. After about an hour and a half of cooking, my 16 pound, beautifully basted and burnished turkey registered 165 degrees! This is way too short, I thought to myself. But I inserted the thermometer repeatedly into every part of each thigh that could be considered "thickest", taking care not to hit bone, and still it kept telling me that this bird was done. So I took it out, removed the stuffing and heated it to a safe temperature, and made the gravy. By the way, if anyone ever has doubts about the flavor homemade turkey stock adds, you should stop those doubts right now. I made the homemade stock from the website, and oh man. This was the most flavorful, richest-tasting and most beautiful gravy I've ever had. I could have eaten it by the spoonful. (I know, that's gross. But it was that good.)
Okay, back to the turkey. As the carnivorous husband is carving it at the table, we noticed a somewhat alarming amount of pink-ish juices pouring from the turkey. Our guests got white meat (thank goodness), but I like the dark meat so I requested a bit of both. The white meat was wonderful; incredibly juicy and perfectly cooked. The dark meat, however, was like a turkey version of carpaccio. It was simply raw.
Everything else was great; the sourdough bread made the stuffing much more interesting than normal bread cube stuffing, and the sausage added a textural element that was a nice counterpoint to the chewy raisins and crisp-ish celery. The potatoes and gravy were the highlight; there was actually no gravy left over! I think I was the only one who really liked the cranberry sauce. The cinnamon and allspice made it taste like Christmas, but as my husband said, "Then why are we having it on Thanksgiving?" The green beans were all right, but next year I think I'll venture into the mysterious world of creamed brussel sprouts.
All in all, it was not a failed meal, but in the interest of not serving potential salmonella to my family next year, can someone please explain to me how to get a meat thermometer to work?
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Steak and Potatoes, Deified
Yeah, you read that title right. The writers of the amazing cookbook The Best Recipe have managed to do to steak what some cultures do to rocks or Megan Fox: turn them into something you would happily worship.
On Saturday I made beef bourguignonne. I'm purposely not writing "boeuf" because this recipe wasn't the classic French recipe, or Julia Child's recipe. It was a riff on those that, as far as I can tell, reduces the stew to those ingredients which are essential for it to be called "bourguignonne." These ingredients are bacon, steak, onions, mushrooms and red wine. And, well, wow.
The reason this became a famous combination of flavors is because it makes you weak in the knees when you taste it. Seriously. It is a truly, truly fantastic dish. Be warned: it is very labor intensive, and requires at least two loads of dishes plus lots of hand washed pots and pans, but it is so, so worth it.
The recipe starts pretty much like any other stew recipe, with the exception of crisping the sliced bacon before the beef and aromatics. You then pour off and save most of the bacon grease to saute everything else in...I know.
So when the bacon is done, you have to brown the meat, and I will say this: Julia Child is absolutely right about drying the meat. I still don't have a copy of Mastering the Art of French Cooking, but that particular gem was tossed into the movie Julie and Julia, and it is really true. Every time I have cooked a stew, I have always assumed that "brown" meant "to cook it so it's gray on the outside and not pink." WRONG. The gray color comes from the liquid being exuded by the meat, and also from the pieces of meat being crammed right next to each other. You really do have to dry each piece of meat thoroughly and brown them in very small batches. This time, about one third of my stew meat was lovely and browned before I lost my patience and threw the rest of the undried meat into the pan at once. At least it was a lesson learned, right?
Then you remove the meat and saute the onions, then the garlic, and toss in a few tablespoons of flour until it is all a light tan color. At this point, you add the liquid. This recipe calls for a combination of red wine and chicken broth, and they explain that the beef broth sold commercially is both foul and will completely ruin a good stew. I picked a fairly decent full-bodied Argentina blend to use. I really wanted the earthy, chocolate flavors that come through in Argentina wine, but I didn't want a wine with lots of jam, so I got a blend instead of a straight Malbec.
You then add the meat, bring it all back to a boil and stick it in the oven for a few hours, and while that's simmering you brown the mushrooms and pearl onions in the rest of the bacon grease to be put in during the last half-hour of cooking.
So at this point I turned my attention to the potatoes. The potatoes were deified not by a cookbook, but by my mother.
For my mother, there is no middle ground in the kitchen. What she does well, she does really, really, wickedly well, and mashed potatoes top this list (well, right next to her incredible brownies.) It's actually pretty simple, and it's all in the butter and the sour cream. Seriously. I boiled eight medium-sized potatoes until they were falling apart, drained them and threw them on top of a stick and a half of butter, then scooped in about ten ounces of sour cream (the full-fat kind, folks. There's no room for compromise here.) I whipped the whole thing with an electric mixer, added a bit of half and half and a whole lot of salt and pepper, and had the most incredible mashed potatoes ever made (except the ones my mother makes.)
The best thing about these potatoes was how perfectly they went with the stew. The stew was seriously moan-worthy, with the most incredibly deep, rich sauce, meltingly tender meat, slightly chewy and flavorful mushrooms, and those all-important pearl onions that provide a crisp bite to foil all the richness. The potatoes, on the other hand, were light, airy, rich and smooth, giving the stew a creaminess and picking up on all the flavors of the stew without losing the textural contrast. But you have to serve the stew over the potatoes, otherwise you just don't get the incredibly matched textures.
At some point, I will try Julia Child's boeuf bourguignonne, but I'm pretty happy with this one for now.
On Saturday I made beef bourguignonne. I'm purposely not writing "boeuf" because this recipe wasn't the classic French recipe, or Julia Child's recipe. It was a riff on those that, as far as I can tell, reduces the stew to those ingredients which are essential for it to be called "bourguignonne." These ingredients are bacon, steak, onions, mushrooms and red wine. And, well, wow.
The reason this became a famous combination of flavors is because it makes you weak in the knees when you taste it. Seriously. It is a truly, truly fantastic dish. Be warned: it is very labor intensive, and requires at least two loads of dishes plus lots of hand washed pots and pans, but it is so, so worth it.
The recipe starts pretty much like any other stew recipe, with the exception of crisping the sliced bacon before the beef and aromatics. You then pour off and save most of the bacon grease to saute everything else in...I know.
So when the bacon is done, you have to brown the meat, and I will say this: Julia Child is absolutely right about drying the meat. I still don't have a copy of Mastering the Art of French Cooking, but that particular gem was tossed into the movie Julie and Julia, and it is really true. Every time I have cooked a stew, I have always assumed that "brown" meant "to cook it so it's gray on the outside and not pink." WRONG. The gray color comes from the liquid being exuded by the meat, and also from the pieces of meat being crammed right next to each other. You really do have to dry each piece of meat thoroughly and brown them in very small batches. This time, about one third of my stew meat was lovely and browned before I lost my patience and threw the rest of the undried meat into the pan at once. At least it was a lesson learned, right?
Then you remove the meat and saute the onions, then the garlic, and toss in a few tablespoons of flour until it is all a light tan color. At this point, you add the liquid. This recipe calls for a combination of red wine and chicken broth, and they explain that the beef broth sold commercially is both foul and will completely ruin a good stew. I picked a fairly decent full-bodied Argentina blend to use. I really wanted the earthy, chocolate flavors that come through in Argentina wine, but I didn't want a wine with lots of jam, so I got a blend instead of a straight Malbec.
You then add the meat, bring it all back to a boil and stick it in the oven for a few hours, and while that's simmering you brown the mushrooms and pearl onions in the rest of the bacon grease to be put in during the last half-hour of cooking.
So at this point I turned my attention to the potatoes. The potatoes were deified not by a cookbook, but by my mother.
For my mother, there is no middle ground in the kitchen. What she does well, she does really, really, wickedly well, and mashed potatoes top this list (well, right next to her incredible brownies.) It's actually pretty simple, and it's all in the butter and the sour cream. Seriously. I boiled eight medium-sized potatoes until they were falling apart, drained them and threw them on top of a stick and a half of butter, then scooped in about ten ounces of sour cream (the full-fat kind, folks. There's no room for compromise here.) I whipped the whole thing with an electric mixer, added a bit of half and half and a whole lot of salt and pepper, and had the most incredible mashed potatoes ever made (except the ones my mother makes.)
The best thing about these potatoes was how perfectly they went with the stew. The stew was seriously moan-worthy, with the most incredibly deep, rich sauce, meltingly tender meat, slightly chewy and flavorful mushrooms, and those all-important pearl onions that provide a crisp bite to foil all the richness. The potatoes, on the other hand, were light, airy, rich and smooth, giving the stew a creaminess and picking up on all the flavors of the stew without losing the textural contrast. But you have to serve the stew over the potatoes, otherwise you just don't get the incredibly matched textures.
At some point, I will try Julia Child's boeuf bourguignonne, but I'm pretty happy with this one for now.
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Simplicity is Beautiful
And the dinner I made tonight was just that; both simple and beautiful.
Due to the dreadful recession and the general lack of money in the lives of Ph.D candidates and their spouses, we've been eating lots and lots of flash-frozen chicken and frozen vegetables lately, something that in the past I would have snottily eschewed. However, I'm discovering that these two things can be just as good as the real thing, and a thousand times more convenient because you don't have that pressure of the "Best By" date hanging over your head. With that in mind, tonight I pulled out my several years-old copies of Cooking Light to bring some new ideas to a stale routine of fajitas, stir-fries, and various chilies and stews. I came across a recipe that I had intended to make years ago and instantly went to work.
The recipe is Rotini with Chicken, Asparagus and Tomatoes, and of course the main attraction was the picture. Anything that combines pasta with tomatoes is bound to grab my attention, and it should grab yours as well. I was also interested in what seemed like a too-simple vinaigrette that gets tossed over the whole thing...I had my doubts about that.
I was so wrong. This recipe was not only the soul of simplicity, but it was also a remarkably well thought-out harmony of flavors. The chicken and pasta (I used whole wheat rotini) provide a nice, chewy, hearty backdrop to a variety of fresh yet mild flavors.
In my experience, pasta recipes that showcase asparagus tend to call for way too much of it, which creates an overwhelmingly asparagus-y texture and flavor. Asparagus may be a thick, meaty vegetable, but I don't think it should be given center stage. This recipe, however, called for a perfect cup of 1-inch asparagus pieces. The one warning I would add here is this: if you use fresh asparagus, make sure you get pencil-thin stalks. The thick ones will simply be too big to complement the small pieces of chicken and the corkscrew pasta.
I used grape tomatoes instead of cherry, and while the flavor worked, next time I'll stick with the cherry. The grape were too small and we ended up with several tomato halves in every forkful. That being said, slicing and quickly sauteing the tomatoes is certainly the best way to handle them in this recipe. They need to be just warmed enough to burst when you put your fork to them, but not so cooked that the skin shrivels and they become mushy and lackluster. The tomatoes are one of the joys of this recipe. They provide a nice, crisp juiciness to offset the chewy pasta, meaty chicken, and delicate asparagus.
The balsamic vinaigrette was absolutely perfect. With a light and flavorful pasta like this one, the last thing you want to do is drown it in a sauce, heavy or not. But there was just enough oil to coat the pasta, basil punched up the flavor with a little more freshness, and the balsamic really came through to provide a bit of sweetness and tang with every bite. The only thing I might do next time is whisk the basil into the oil and vinegar mix before adding it to the completed dish, just to ensure that it's all evenly distributed.
Finally, I must take a second and gush about the goat cheese. I think you all know about my devotion to goat cheese, and if you didn't know, now you do. Goat cheese is the star player in this recipe. Even my husband mentioned what a wonderful pairing it is. It is such a flavorful, creamy cheese that it truly is wonderful in almost everything, but the mild flavor it has especially complemented this pasta. The crumbles melted into a lovely cream over the hot pasta, which helped to both bind and enrich every single ingredient. And I was really shocked at how well it worked with the balsamic vinegar. The two of them played off each other wonderfully; the tang of the balsamic was matched by the tang of the cheese, and also toned down by its creaminess.
Altogether, this pasta was phenomenal and took a little less than thirty minutes to make. Can you beat that?
A note about wines: We drank 2007 Nero d'Avola, a Sicilian wine with big jam, light tannins and a little acidity. While this is a really good, drinkable wine, it did nothing for the pasta. A pasta this light and harmonious needs a wine that is equally so; the last thing you want to do is drown a good meal with a mis-matched wine. That being said, I would probably urge you to pick a nice pinot noir. I think that California's Russian River Valley does fantastic pinot noirs, and you can usually get one for a decent price, at least for a pinot noir. But because pinot noirs to tend to be pricey and are truly not worth compromising on, you might want to go for a dry riesling or a chardonnay that's neither too oaky nor too buttery. Pacific Rim does a nice dry reisling that might work with this dish. La Crema's Chardonnay would probably be much better. The carnivorous husband thinks a merlot would be best, but through no bias against merlot (even though I totally have one) I disagree. I think a heavy or thick red would kill the harmony of this dish. Perhaps even a syrah would work all right, as long as it's not too acidic. Hmmm. I think this is a question for my sommalier brother-in-law. So stay tuned, and hopefully I'll have an answer for you before you make this pasta.
Due to the dreadful recession and the general lack of money in the lives of Ph.D candidates and their spouses, we've been eating lots and lots of flash-frozen chicken and frozen vegetables lately, something that in the past I would have snottily eschewed. However, I'm discovering that these two things can be just as good as the real thing, and a thousand times more convenient because you don't have that pressure of the "Best By" date hanging over your head. With that in mind, tonight I pulled out my several years-old copies of Cooking Light to bring some new ideas to a stale routine of fajitas, stir-fries, and various chilies and stews. I came across a recipe that I had intended to make years ago and instantly went to work.
The recipe is Rotini with Chicken, Asparagus and Tomatoes, and of course the main attraction was the picture. Anything that combines pasta with tomatoes is bound to grab my attention, and it should grab yours as well. I was also interested in what seemed like a too-simple vinaigrette that gets tossed over the whole thing...I had my doubts about that.
I was so wrong. This recipe was not only the soul of simplicity, but it was also a remarkably well thought-out harmony of flavors. The chicken and pasta (I used whole wheat rotini) provide a nice, chewy, hearty backdrop to a variety of fresh yet mild flavors.
In my experience, pasta recipes that showcase asparagus tend to call for way too much of it, which creates an overwhelmingly asparagus-y texture and flavor. Asparagus may be a thick, meaty vegetable, but I don't think it should be given center stage. This recipe, however, called for a perfect cup of 1-inch asparagus pieces. The one warning I would add here is this: if you use fresh asparagus, make sure you get pencil-thin stalks. The thick ones will simply be too big to complement the small pieces of chicken and the corkscrew pasta.
I used grape tomatoes instead of cherry, and while the flavor worked, next time I'll stick with the cherry. The grape were too small and we ended up with several tomato halves in every forkful. That being said, slicing and quickly sauteing the tomatoes is certainly the best way to handle them in this recipe. They need to be just warmed enough to burst when you put your fork to them, but not so cooked that the skin shrivels and they become mushy and lackluster. The tomatoes are one of the joys of this recipe. They provide a nice, crisp juiciness to offset the chewy pasta, meaty chicken, and delicate asparagus.
The balsamic vinaigrette was absolutely perfect. With a light and flavorful pasta like this one, the last thing you want to do is drown it in a sauce, heavy or not. But there was just enough oil to coat the pasta, basil punched up the flavor with a little more freshness, and the balsamic really came through to provide a bit of sweetness and tang with every bite. The only thing I might do next time is whisk the basil into the oil and vinegar mix before adding it to the completed dish, just to ensure that it's all evenly distributed.
Finally, I must take a second and gush about the goat cheese. I think you all know about my devotion to goat cheese, and if you didn't know, now you do. Goat cheese is the star player in this recipe. Even my husband mentioned what a wonderful pairing it is. It is such a flavorful, creamy cheese that it truly is wonderful in almost everything, but the mild flavor it has especially complemented this pasta. The crumbles melted into a lovely cream over the hot pasta, which helped to both bind and enrich every single ingredient. And I was really shocked at how well it worked with the balsamic vinegar. The two of them played off each other wonderfully; the tang of the balsamic was matched by the tang of the cheese, and also toned down by its creaminess.
Altogether, this pasta was phenomenal and took a little less than thirty minutes to make. Can you beat that?
A note about wines: We drank 2007 Nero d'Avola, a Sicilian wine with big jam, light tannins and a little acidity. While this is a really good, drinkable wine, it did nothing for the pasta. A pasta this light and harmonious needs a wine that is equally so; the last thing you want to do is drown a good meal with a mis-matched wine. That being said, I would probably urge you to pick a nice pinot noir. I think that California's Russian River Valley does fantastic pinot noirs, and you can usually get one for a decent price, at least for a pinot noir. But because pinot noirs to tend to be pricey and are truly not worth compromising on, you might want to go for a dry riesling or a chardonnay that's neither too oaky nor too buttery. Pacific Rim does a nice dry reisling that might work with this dish. La Crema's Chardonnay would probably be much better. The carnivorous husband thinks a merlot would be best, but through no bias against merlot (even though I totally have one) I disagree. I think a heavy or thick red would kill the harmony of this dish. Perhaps even a syrah would work all right, as long as it's not too acidic. Hmmm. I think this is a question for my sommalier brother-in-law. So stay tuned, and hopefully I'll have an answer for you before you make this pasta.
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Lollipop, lollipop, oooh lolli-lolli pop
Sienna's first pre-school holiday party is tomorrow, and the carnivorous husband signed me up to make cookies. I like making cookies, but I really wanted to do something cute and different...so I loosely interpreted "cookie" to mean "anything flat and sweet that can be shaped." So here they are! My triumphant lollipops.
I got the idea from Martha Stewart's website which gave directions on how to make the ghost...do not be fooled, this was insanely easy. You just melt the white chocolate chips, add a little vegetable oil, then drop them by tablespoonfuls on a wax-paper lined baking sheet and shape with the back of a teaspoon. I decorated the ghost with little chocolate chip eyes; cute, huh?
Originally, I wasn't even planning on doing anything but the ghosts, but one of the boys in Sienna's class has a severe peanut allergy and cannot have anything that has even been made on equipment that has processed peanuts. For the life of me, I could not find white chocolate chips that had been made where peanuts weren't used, so out of sheer desperation to make something that this poor kid could eat, I melted some Ghiradelli semi-sweet chips and shaped the witch's hats, sprinkling them with some orange nonpareils. They were a little trickier; because of the high quality of the chocolate they didn't harden, so I stuck them in the freezer for about half an hour. I also have to keep them in the fridge or risk them melting, but it's a sacrifice I'm willing to make. I'm actually terribly pleased with the way they turned out; if I had to do it again, I would do twice as many hats but I ran out of lolli-pop sticks. Happy Halloween!
A Real Man's Cake
I have a confession to make, and it's one that any confirmed chocoholic might be ashamed of. I hate chocolate cake.
But the reason I hate it is that I really love chocolate too much. Why would you take something that's already perfect and mix it with flour, sugar, eggs, butter, etc? I'll eat a flourless chocolate cake, or a molten chocolate cake, or a bowl full of melted chocolate any day of the week, or any hour of the day. Chocolate cake, however, does not thrill me.
But this weekend I bit the bullet and made a chocolate cake for our friend Ben, who was turning 24. Besides his wife
and Tristram Shandy, the two things he loves most in the world are Guinness and chocolate, so I found this recipe on trusty Epicurious.
To be honest, I was a little scared while making it. Not only does it call for huge (HUGE!) amounts of butter, Guinness, flour, and sugar, it also calls for a ganache frosting. Up until this time, every ganache I have attempted has been a disaster. I know what you're thinking...it's chocolate and cream. Simmer and stir. But I'm not a great baker, so things always fall apart. (Please, my faithful few readers, catch that reference.) However, it's usually due to the chocolate seizing since I don't have a double boiler and usually end up jerry-rigging some sort of bowl balanced precariously over small saucepan contraption. This ganache, though, called for chopped chocolate stirred into warm cream. Easy enough, right? And it looked good, too, though once finished it was the consistency of a glaze. But the recipe ordered me to put the icing in the fridge for two hours and I dutifully obeyed.
Meanwhile, I turned my attention to the weird simmering Guinness/butter mixture, which smelled exactly like baking bread. I always joke about how drinking a Guinness is like drinking a loaf of bread, and it turns out that it's not really like. It is. You Guinness lovers are drinking fermented bread. Yum, yum.
However, once the directions were followed exactly as they were written, I had a huge (HUGE!) bowl of cake batter that tasted like hoppy chocolate. It was really good, and the hops from the beer provided a nice, earthy background that really deepened and complimented the chocolate flavor. The icing was also good, after I called my mother in law in a panic because it had hardened into a too-cold mass. But we agreed on adding some warm cream, which softened it right up and made it spreadable. I actually have a pretty picture which I'll have to post later since our new computer is way too confusing for me.
The end result was a pretty, incredibly moist and rich chocolate cake.
The one caveat I will add is that the reviewers on the website are absolutely right; the cake tastes much, much better the second day, so make it a day ahead and let it sit. The flavors are deeper, the texture is better (moist but not so mushy-soft) and all in all, it's yummier. Also, halve the recipe. I ended up with a very, very tall two-layer cake and a dozen cupcakes. Which the carnivorous husband is still eating.
But the reason I hate it is that I really love chocolate too much. Why would you take something that's already perfect and mix it with flour, sugar, eggs, butter, etc? I'll eat a flourless chocolate cake, or a molten chocolate cake, or a bowl full of melted chocolate any day of the week, or any hour of the day. Chocolate cake, however, does not thrill me.
But this weekend I bit the bullet and made a chocolate cake for our friend Ben, who was turning 24. Besides his wife
and Tristram Shandy, the two things he loves most in the world are Guinness and chocolate, so I found this recipe on trusty Epicurious.To be honest, I was a little scared while making it. Not only does it call for huge (HUGE!) amounts of butter, Guinness, flour, and sugar, it also calls for a ganache frosting. Up until this time, every ganache I have attempted has been a disaster. I know what you're thinking...it's chocolate and cream. Simmer and stir. But I'm not a great baker, so things always fall apart. (Please, my faithful few readers, catch that reference.) However, it's usually due to the chocolate seizing since I don't have a double boiler and usually end up jerry-rigging some sort of bowl balanced precariously over small saucepan contraption. This ganache, though, called for chopped chocolate stirred into warm cream. Easy enough, right? And it looked good, too, though once finished it was the consistency of a glaze. But the recipe ordered me to put the icing in the fridge for two hours and I dutifully obeyed.
Meanwhile, I turned my attention to the weird simmering Guinness/butter mixture, which smelled exactly like baking bread. I always joke about how drinking a Guinness is like drinking a loaf of bread, and it turns out that it's not really like. It is. You Guinness lovers are drinking fermented bread. Yum, yum.
However, once the directions were followed exactly as they were written, I had a huge (HUGE!) bowl of cake batter that tasted like hoppy chocolate. It was really good, and the hops from the beer provided a nice, earthy background that really deepened and complimented the chocolate flavor. The icing was also good, after I called my mother in law in a panic because it had hardened into a too-cold mass. But we agreed on adding some warm cream, which softened it right up and made it spreadable. I actually have a pretty picture which I'll have to post later since our new computer is way too confusing for me.
The end result was a pretty, incredibly moist and rich chocolate cake.
The one caveat I will add is that the reviewers on the website are absolutely right; the cake tastes much, much better the second day, so make it a day ahead and let it sit. The flavors are deeper, the texture is better (moist but not so mushy-soft) and all in all, it's yummier. Also, halve the recipe. I ended up with a very, very tall two-layer cake and a dozen cupcakes. Which the carnivorous husband is still eating.
Saturday, October 24, 2009
Steak and...Marvell? Rosetti? Pound?
Disclaimer: If you are a vegetarian, a PETA activist, or a Hindu, please do not read this post.
Tonight I murdered a steak.
I believe that God put cows on earth so that we could enjoy the various delights and nutritional benefits of milk, butter, cream, cheese(oh, cheese!)and beef. Killing a cow really doesn't phase me. Murdering a steak, however, is a horrible, horrible culinary crime. There were several factors involved in the murder of this particular steak, so humor me as I go on a little trip down who's-to-blame-lane.
I went to Vons last night to get a few things, and decided to buy steak for tonight to please the carnivorous husband. The steaks were all on clearance, so I got really excited for about two seconds. Then I noticed that they were all flat as a board. There was a little orange sticker on each package that said "Thin Cut! Feed More!"
Let's take a second to deconstruct the absurdity of that sticker. Just because it's flatter doesn't mean there's more, it just means there's more surface area, which is a bad thing in steak. The sticker also encourages the cook to resort to trickery in order to satisfy the people eating...they see more of their plate covered by steak, therefore they believe that they have a large steak. (Never mind the fact that if they got down level with the table they'd see...nothing, because the edges of their plate would obscure the meager slab of poor, brutalized meat.) Expanding our perspective makes the sticker even more absurd. As our nation's economic waistline has shrunk considerably, our actual waistline is ever increasing. So why in the hell are we being encouraged to "Feed More!"?
That being said, I really am to blame because I was stupid enough to buy the steaks and then not watch them carefully while cooking, resulting in a thin slice of tortured meat that had turned gray out of sheer distress.
However, I was thoughtful enough to foresee this potential disaster with the "Thin Cut! Feed More!" steaks, and paired them with this recipe from epicurious.com. It's a steak with parmesan butter and a balsamic/shallot glaze, served over arugula. And man, those flavors really work well together. The salty and creamy parmesan butter perfectly, perfectly cuts through the sweet, tart glaze, and all of the flavors are pulled into harmony by the mustard-y arugula. It really was a decent dinner, in spite of the murdered steak and the mis-matched side dish. I needed to use some sweet potatoes, so I mashed them with brown sugar, butter and a little half and half. The mash was really, really good, but unfortunately it was just too delicate a flavor to stand up to the assertive flavors in the glaze and butter. The main dish would have been much better served with some simply roasted red or Yukon Gold potatoes, drizzled with a little olive oil, kosher salt and coarse ground pepper. What you need with the strong and harmonious flavors of the steak is a side dish that doesn't actually have much flavor, just a pleasant texture that you can enjoy without having to sort of re-wire your palate with each bite.
Also a little off tonight was the wine we drank (well, I drank.) It was Menage a Trois, a jammy blend of cab, merlot and zinfandel. While the wine has the jam and big flavor I wanted (chocolate, cherry, strawberry), it has a disappointingly thin mouth-feel that doesn't stand up well to a meaty dish like steak. A thick cabernet would have worked much better, if you could find one that still has that big jam smell and flavor. Trader Joe's Coastal Reserve Cabernet might be good; Rendition Zinfandel would probably be even better, provided you opened it or decanted it an hour ahead of time to let the flavors really unfold.
All in all, it was a meal with great yet unrealized potential, mostly due to the mistakes of the chef.
I really wanted to end this post with the pithy comment, "Just like anonymous poet did with this anonymous poem." But now I'm finding that I'm not really sure which anonymous poet wrote a poem that he or she is really much too good for, although I know they're out there. So here's my challenge: fellow poets, UDers, English majors and literature lovers alike, throw some suggestions to me. Help me think of a poet or a poem who is like this meal; limitless and profound potential that somehow isn't realized, due to some flaw, whether it be word choice, limited imagination, excess of philosophy, whatever. This should be fun.
Tonight I murdered a steak.
I believe that God put cows on earth so that we could enjoy the various delights and nutritional benefits of milk, butter, cream, cheese(oh, cheese!)and beef. Killing a cow really doesn't phase me. Murdering a steak, however, is a horrible, horrible culinary crime. There were several factors involved in the murder of this particular steak, so humor me as I go on a little trip down who's-to-blame-lane.
I went to Vons last night to get a few things, and decided to buy steak for tonight to please the carnivorous husband. The steaks were all on clearance, so I got really excited for about two seconds. Then I noticed that they were all flat as a board. There was a little orange sticker on each package that said "Thin Cut! Feed More!"
Let's take a second to deconstruct the absurdity of that sticker. Just because it's flatter doesn't mean there's more, it just means there's more surface area, which is a bad thing in steak. The sticker also encourages the cook to resort to trickery in order to satisfy the people eating...they see more of their plate covered by steak, therefore they believe that they have a large steak. (Never mind the fact that if they got down level with the table they'd see...nothing, because the edges of their plate would obscure the meager slab of poor, brutalized meat.) Expanding our perspective makes the sticker even more absurd. As our nation's economic waistline has shrunk considerably, our actual waistline is ever increasing. So why in the hell are we being encouraged to "Feed More!"?
That being said, I really am to blame because I was stupid enough to buy the steaks and then not watch them carefully while cooking, resulting in a thin slice of tortured meat that had turned gray out of sheer distress.
However, I was thoughtful enough to foresee this potential disaster with the "Thin Cut! Feed More!" steaks, and paired them with this recipe from epicurious.com. It's a steak with parmesan butter and a balsamic/shallot glaze, served over arugula. And man, those flavors really work well together. The salty and creamy parmesan butter perfectly, perfectly cuts through the sweet, tart glaze, and all of the flavors are pulled into harmony by the mustard-y arugula. It really was a decent dinner, in spite of the murdered steak and the mis-matched side dish. I needed to use some sweet potatoes, so I mashed them with brown sugar, butter and a little half and half. The mash was really, really good, but unfortunately it was just too delicate a flavor to stand up to the assertive flavors in the glaze and butter. The main dish would have been much better served with some simply roasted red or Yukon Gold potatoes, drizzled with a little olive oil, kosher salt and coarse ground pepper. What you need with the strong and harmonious flavors of the steak is a side dish that doesn't actually have much flavor, just a pleasant texture that you can enjoy without having to sort of re-wire your palate with each bite.
Also a little off tonight was the wine we drank (well, I drank.) It was Menage a Trois, a jammy blend of cab, merlot and zinfandel. While the wine has the jam and big flavor I wanted (chocolate, cherry, strawberry), it has a disappointingly thin mouth-feel that doesn't stand up well to a meaty dish like steak. A thick cabernet would have worked much better, if you could find one that still has that big jam smell and flavor. Trader Joe's Coastal Reserve Cabernet might be good; Rendition Zinfandel would probably be even better, provided you opened it or decanted it an hour ahead of time to let the flavors really unfold.
All in all, it was a meal with great yet unrealized potential, mostly due to the mistakes of the chef.
I really wanted to end this post with the pithy comment, "Just like anonymous poet did with this anonymous poem." But now I'm finding that I'm not really sure which anonymous poet wrote a poem that he or she is really much too good for, although I know they're out there. So here's my challenge: fellow poets, UDers, English majors and literature lovers alike, throw some suggestions to me. Help me think of a poet or a poem who is like this meal; limitless and profound potential that somehow isn't realized, due to some flaw, whether it be word choice, limited imagination, excess of philosophy, whatever. This should be fun.
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