January 2006 Archives

Have you ever found yourself in a foreign country, broke as hell, in an apartment with a crap unfurnished kitchen, digging under the sofa cushions looking for change?

A few years ago, as a college student, when I had the luxury of a generous allowance from my parents, I spent the summer with my best friend in Rome, taking classes and living quite literally from cappuccino to cappuccino. We bought pizza by the weight, ate gelato daily in the piazza outside our apartment, napped in the afternoon heat, snacked on grilled sandwiches, had cocktails at clubs playing poor Italian pop music, sometimes went to classes, and often, very often, ran out of money.

To save money and be able to travel more, we decided to brave the kitchen. Cook more, eat out less. The heat was unbearable in July, and while all reasonable Italians were summering elsewhere, the silly foreign exchange students were carrying bags of groceries across the city, sweating behind their knees and elbows, lighting their stoves and heating their apartments up even more. We learned our lesson. Too hot to eat the elaborate meal we'd cooked, we drank table wine in front of the fan, spritzing ourselves with rose water and chatting with our neighbours over bread and butter.

In a moment of desperation however, we went back in the kitchen. With nothing but dry pasta in the pantry, a bulb of garlic, some limp parsley, and a wedge of parmesan, we made what must be made by those with sad pantries, what Kiki and I affectionately came to call poor man's pasta--formerly po' boy's pasta. Fry some garlic, parsley and chilli in olive oil while pasta is boiling then once it's cooked, toss it in the oil. Grate cheese, grind salt and pepper, and feel good for being thrifty. Almost cacio e pepe, but with a little kick.

Anyway, you don't have to have run out of money abroad to eat a good, simple pasta dish. You can just be hungry at midnight. There's practically no cooking which means you don't get sweaty, it's so simple even Kiki can make it, there's probably no shopping necessary, and if so, it's super cheap and light to carry, but best of all, it's tasty.

Hold on, I'm about to rave about a restaurant that serves a butter dish full of lentils with their bread. You see it's um, well, it's vegan. Yes, I ate dinner at a fantastic vegan restaurant. Twice. In one week. Now everyone calm down. I may have skipped my way through a gluten-free weekend with my healthy brother , and a vegetarian week with my boyfriend's parents--I do after all live in the crusty, hippy dotted, Southern beaches of San Francisco--but I remain an omnivore. Phew.

But back to the vegan restaurant. Take butter, cream, cheese, meat, fish, eggs, and gelatine from most chefs' pantries and watch them curse their way around the kitchen and end up with a mediocre dish made of filo pastry, sun dried tomatoes, and a medley of Mediterranean vegetables. I find that when it comes to vegan food, or vegetarian food for that matter, it usually lacks imagination and flavour*, not to mention style. So I'm always very impressed when, rare as it may be, I have a genuinely good, vegetarian meal at a restaurant.

Millennium Grill, in the Savoy, puts all the carnivores who like to poke fun at tofu and lentils back in place. Even me. It's stylish, the staff is sexy, and the food is so satisfying and tasty that you don't miss the smell of brown butter wafting from the open kitchen. The space is beautiful with high ceilings and funky, mesh covered lighting and buzzing with a full house on a weeknight.

My salt and pepper oyster mushrooms came with a sweet kumquat jam, crisp and delicious. Next I had the Masala Dosa--the dosa may have been smaller than expected, but the spicy filling of chick peas and red chard, the sweet mango chutney, and the cool mint raita, made up for it. Glyn ordered the cardamom tapioca with chai ice cream and pomegranate syrup. Tired as I am of seeing pomegranates everywhere, and distrustful as I am of sticky, squishy pearls of tapioca, I liked it.

As a gift, they sent the Chocolate Almond Midnight, a dramatic name and Cheesecake Factory-ish plate for a simple mocha and white chocolate tart on an almond and cashew nut crust--not the best picture unfortunately, but a rather impressively creamy, smooth texture for something put together with tofu. I'd certainly go back, and not just when a vegetarian friend is in town.

*except for my mum's vegetarian food, and Dennis Cotter's of Cafe Paradiso , where I had the best meal out of all the meals I had in Ireland. Not a vegan restaurant, but a vegetarian cafe that welcomed us off the rainy, industrial streets of Cork with beautiful and delicious food and some of the best desserts I've ever had in a restaurant.

...lies this thing I'm making. Aubergines are roasting, skins blackening, flesh softening. In a pan, half an onion, a green chilli, three fat garlic cloves, a teaspoon of garam masala, and a quarter teaspoon of pimenton de la vera are sweating away. When they're dark and soft, I'll be burr mixing them with the aubergine flesh, a few tablespoons of Greek yoghurt and a tablespoon of tahini. And then, seasoning with lemon juice, salt, pepper. It's a good start to using up leftovers with warm pita, yoghurt, a leafy salad and a dollop of Israeli hummus brought across the world by Glyn's parents--whose wonderful visit will soon be chronicled in a series of vegetarian entries.

After a picnic on the beach, a nap is always good form.

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Stephen and I were in Daly City to see a movie, so we stopped by the big, cool Asian supermarket to pick up a few things. Specifically, I'd been in the mood for the tasty Vietnamese spring rolls that Tejal and I are both so devoted to, and I needed to pick up some skins.

Plus, I just really like to shop there. In addition to the beautifully marbled meat, fresh, whole fish, crazy-cheap produce, and enough types of miso, noodles, and frozen dumplings to keep me busy for the rest of my life, it's invigorating to shop in a grocery store that's so full of things I didn't know I needed. It's the same kind of novelty I felt the first few times I went to Trader Joe's and Whole Foods, combined with the implicit rush of buying items when I cannot read anything on the package and am not perfectly certain what they are.

Now, my neighboorhood has large Chinese and Russian populations, so I shop in neat little shops full of neat exotic foods all the time, but there is something special about having that expierance in a store with the size and selection of Albertson's. It makes me feel like I felt for a few months after I moved into my first apartment, when wandering the aisles of Safeway, stocking up on staples was oddly exhilirating.

In addition to piles of herbs and udon, soba, and cellophane noodles (and of course, spring roll skins), we picked up a big box of clementines. Now, I didn't have to go to the Asian market to get clementines, this time of year you can find them anywhere. Somehow, until that moment, Stephen and I had avoided their siren call. A fruit so sweet and juicy, so adorably palm-sized, so easy to peel, no wonder they're seductive.

We have a sordid history with those tiny, succulent fruits. In college, my roommate Megen made the mistake of bringing box into our room. For weeks, she and I hunched over the crate, peeling and eating clementine after clementine until our finger tips were orange and our mouths raw from the acid. Soon, we peer-pressured Stephen into our addiction. Our room was littered with piles of peel and a citrusy perfume wafted out every time we opened the door.

But in recent years, Stephen and I have been less addicted. We convinced ourselves that we shouldn't buy a crate. How could two people finish five pounds of fruit before it went bad? But this year, we gave in. Between us, we ate 17 clementines in the first 15 hours. Seventeen sweet, sweet clementines. I think we may be in trouble.

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As an addendum to yesterday's love poem to gin, some practical information.

From The Food Lover's Companion:
Gin [JIHN] An unaged liquor made by distilling grains such as barley, corn or rye with juniper berries. London dry gin is any colorless gin, the majority of which is made in England and America. Hollands gin, also known as genever or jenever gin , is a Dutch product that tastes very different from other gins because it's made with a large proportion of barley malt. The first Dutch gin was used as medicine.

In addition to the dominate flavor of juniper, gin is flavored with different blends of other botanical flavors including lemon or bitter orange peel, anise, angelica and orris root, almonds, liquorice, cinnamon, coriander, and cassia. There are a few different styles. No matter how different they taste, nearly all the common gins are slight variations on London dry style. Dutch gin is the original gin. It has a rounder, sweeter taste, thus the designation of "dry" in London dry gin. Old Tom gin is all that remains of lightly sweetened style that was wildly popular in the 18th century; the use of Old Tom gave the Tom Collins cocktail it's name. Finally, Plymouth gin, a favorite of mine, also used to be a style and is now just a brand. Plymouth originated in, hold on to your glasses, the port city of Plymouth, England. It is very smooth and very fragrant. Lots of excellent information at Tastings and Wikipedia

Some of my favorite gins:
Bombay Sapphire-- My preferred everyday gin. A lovely scent and super smooth. It's tasty in mixed drinks and martinis, although I like a Sapphire martini a little wetter than with some higher end gins.

Tanquerary and regular Bombay are other nice, versatile gins that aren't so expensive you have to drink gin to forget how much you paid.

I am also greatly devoted to some of the higher end, boutique gins.
Hendrick's-- Beautifully perfumed with rose, coriander, and cucumber; I could splash it on after a bath. Marvelous in a g&t, marvelous in a quite dry martini, generally just marvelous.

Junipero-- This stuff is strong in every way. Made by the same people who brew Anchor Steam beer, it's bracingly junipery and rather high in alcohol, yet it retains balance. I like it in a wetter martini.

Magellan-- It's infused with a lovely blue color from irises. And it tastes good too. It's much too pretty for anything other than a martini.

And finally, a few of my favorite recipes using this fine elixir:

My Martini
Start with 3oz of your gin of choice. You must add vermouth. Call me a traditionalist, but without vermouth it isn't a cocktail, just gin in a glass. Depending on the gin, I like anywhere from a teaspoon to an ounce. My general rule is that the smoother and more perfumed a gin is, the less vermouth it needs. Thus, Hendrick's gets a teaspoon, Sapphire gets a tablespoon, Junipero and Tanquery get about 3/4oz.

Now, add ice and stir for all your worth with a long bar spoon, or even the handle of a wooden spoon, just something to keep your fingers out. Stir quickly to aerate the gin a little and get it as cold as possible with a minimum of ice melting. When the shaker feels cold, you're done. Traditionally, you stir drinks made of all alcohol and shake those with mixers like juice. I think this is a good rule. I don't exactly understand how it is possible to "bruise" gin, but I do think stirring prevents ice crystals clouding the drink and interfering with the texture, and it waters down the gin less.

Strain into a chilled martini glass. If you've got enormous, modern martini glasses, you may find it doesn't fill the glass up very far. Don't be tempted to add more. You can't make it through eight full ounces of gin before it gets warm anyway. Now, take a long lemon twist, or even a wide swath of peel removed with a vegetable peeler (this isn't as pretty but is easier to get oil from). Crush it over the glass until you see the oils spritz out and float on top of the drink. Rub the peel around the rim of the glass and drop it in.

Stephen's gin and tonic
1 1/2 oz of gin plus 4 1/2 oz tonic (basically, a 1:3 ratio) over plenty of ice. Squeeze in a sizeable wedge of lime.

Pink Spank (My favorite variation on a g&t.)
1 1/2 oz gin plus 1oz campari over ice. Squeeze in a lime and orange wedge; fill with tonic.

The Jasmine (Where I first discovered how good gin and campari are together. I understand that it was invented in Oakland.)
Shake vigorously over ice: 1/4 ounce of Cointreau, the juice of half a lemon, 1 1/2 ounces of gin, a dash of Campari.

The El Splendido (This was the drink Dave at the B-Side served to me that initiated me into the ways of gin. It was invented by the Millionaire from the band Combustible Edison.)
1 1/2 oz. gin, 3/4 oz. Chambord, 3/4 oz. fresh lime juice. Shake rather hard over ice. The texture of fresh lime pulp and ice crystals is nice.

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Last night, during a phone call with our sometime guest blogger Whitney, I learned that she has taken to drinking gin, and I'm largely responsible. No, I haven't said hurtful things or betrayed her and driven her to the bottle, I just provided the necessary final push to make her a fan when she visited over Thanksgiving. I have that effect on people.

I am devoted to gin. It has just about ruined me for fruity cocktails forever, but I love it just the same. Perhaps it's that gin reminds me of myself. We are complicated, nuanced, and refreshing. Gin and I are perhaps not immediately approachable and we can be potentially abrasive, but we inspire enthusiasm in those who get to know us. If you don't treat us with respect, both gin and I can burn you.

I think I should begin at the beginning; my love of gin started at a bar called the B-Side with a bartender named Dave. If you're ever in Cambridge, Massachusetts, you should stop by the B-Side Lounge. The food is great, the atmosphere cool but relaxed. The cocktails are serious. There are no flavored vodkas or fluorescent Puckers at the B-Side, just an extensive list of seriously retro drinks and sophisticated original cocktails served up with just the right amount of ceremony. One evening, while I sat at the bar having an early dinner, Dave and I started chatting about food and drink. He seemed like a nice guy with a good sense of taste, so I asked him for a recommendation. He served me a drink that he said was his girlfriend's favorite, a brisk mix of gin, Chambord, and fresh lime. I was hooked.

Before that day, I thought gin was loathsome. My early college forays with the liquor convinced me that it smelled like pine trees, burned like acid and elicited an instant gag reflex. I hadn't tasted it in years, but I guess my tongue was ready that day. Primed by a love of full-bodied wines and rich, dark beers I could finally appreciate the gin's unique flavor and perfume. In time, Dave, with his black dress shirt, skinny white tie and tattooed forearms, taught me to love martinis as well.

The B-Side's signature martini was made with super-smooth Plymouth gin, vermouth, and orange bitters vigorously stirred over ice. Dave twisted lemon rind over the glass and rubbed the oils around the rim before dropping it in. It was heaven. I came to understand that the pine tree taste was actually juniper. I began to discern the balance of bitter and sweet, the citrus and spice, the refreshing crispness and the bracing bite. Vodka, I thought, was for teenagers. Nothing but a bland burn, it presented little challenge and thus little reward. Just as I'd moved past Bud Light and White Zinfandel, I was ready for a woman's liquor. It was time for gin.

Since then, my cocktail times have been populated with many martinis and gin and tonics. I mix it with juices and herbs; I stir and shake it. And, it seems, I convert others. Stephen now regularly asks to me greeted at the door with a frosty gin and tonic on a Friday night, an unexpected request from a man who is himself devoted to Manhattans, also courtesy of Dave. Now I've brought Whitney into the juniper-scented fold. She called me Janie Ginnyseed. A fine, dry nickname. I like it.

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One lamb shoulder, two tasty meals.

The first, rolled with a pesto made with the rendered lamb fat and roasted for two hours in a low oven. This with a bottle of wine, crispy potatoes and blue cheese buttered green beans put together at the last minute when Crystal, on her way to Boston, made it over for a hearty dinner. We filled and glazed choux for dessert, and ran a few upstais for our landlord, Tim.

The second lamb, cured for two days, tied, and smoked on the barbeque outside. This will make for sandwiches and salads for a few days...

Your choux is finished and cool. You've changed out of your pajamas, played with the cat who was feeling neglected, put on a new cd and had a snack. Now it's time to fill up the pastries and weigh down their airy little bodies with tasty fillings. I find a creme patissiere a little too creamy and sticky, and prefer eclairs filled with a mixture of pastry cream and whipped cream. The filling is lightened with, ahem, more cream. Makes sense no?

For the pastry cream:

6 yolks
100 g sugar
40 flour
40 cornstarch
600 ml milk

Pastry creams are perfectly blank canvases--you control the texture and flavour completely.You can leave it thick or soften it with cream, butter, or an Italian meringue. If you want a specific flavour, the milk can be infused with absolutely any spices, oils, flowers, or herbs. Then strain it, make sure it's still 600 ml, adding a bit of milk if necessary, and follow the recipe. I've also made it with a goat's milk which gave it a very specific taste, to go with a rhubarb compote and oatmeal crumble. For a chocolate pastry cream, once your pastry cream boils, pour it over chocolate and burr mix. But today, I'm making a few fillings, and don't want to make several pastry creams. So instead of going about it this way, I'm going to separate the finished pastry cream and mix in various flavoured whipped creams, or alcohol, strong coffee, flavoured oils, etc.

There are a few ways of going about a pastry cream. I bring the milk and about half of the sugar to a boil. While it's heating up, in a round bowl, whisk the eggs and other half of the sugar together. Sift the flour and cornflour together, and whisk into the egg/sugar mixture. Once smooth and pale, pour some hot milk in, whisking all the while. Then add back to the pot and whisk constantly on a low heat, scraping the edges with your whisk.

If this was an anglaise, you'd just bring the pot to 80 degrees, stirring till you coagulate the yolks and immediately take it off the heat. But a pastry cream has an addition of starches that must be cooked out. That means you want to bring the cream to a boil, while whisking, so there are no lumps and the flours are cooked. Don't be tempted to turn the heat high, the bottom of the pan will burn. And don't be tempted to take it off the heat too early: the cream may thicken quickly, but don't stop whisking until you see the plop plop of a thick boil going for a good thirty seconds. An uncooked pastry cream won't set firmly, and after all that beating for the choux, that would be a shame.

Now take it off the heat and scrape into a flat dish, I just use a dinner plate. Use cling film to touch the whole warm surface so there's no chance for a skin to form. Once it's cooled a bit, put it in the fridge to chill all the way. It can hold like this, covered and cold, for a couple of days.

When you're a little closer to tea time, make a soft to medium peak whipped cream to fold in. About half the volume of the pastry cream will probably be just right. But make sure you soften the pastry cream with a whisk first, smooth it out completely before folding in the cream to the desired texture. And start with only a little. This mixure will begin to weep after a few hours, meaning the cream will let out water and fall, so only get the mix ready when you're about ready to fill, glaze, and eat...

Use a nozzle with a small, sharp tip to make two holes on either end of the underside of the eclair, and one hole on the small round puffs. Then use a pastry bag with a small nozzle to fill up the eclair. Start with one side, piping until you see some filling come out on the other side. Then go to the other side and pipe until the filling starts to come out again. It should feel heavy in your hands. Better to over fill a bit and just wipe the ends with a finger. Sucks to bite into a half full eclair.

For the glaze you can use a plain chocolate ganache, a mixture of icing sugar and any liquid--oj, water, cream etc. But the classic icing on choux is fondant. Real fondant is sometimes hard to find, and even harder to make. But if you get lucky, warm it up with some water, dip in a large spoon, and as the icing is falling, run your eclair under the trickle. This technique is a bit tricky, but it makes a lovely line of icing. If it's too messy that way, just dip the eclairs right into the pan of fondant and then let the excess drip off. More icing that way...

We made two kinds: raspberry cream and raspberry glaze; and coffee cream with chocolate glaze. And mixed up some filling and glaze--the best were coffee filled and raspberry glazed. Pretty classic really.

TA-DA! Eclairs. Crisp golden outsides, soft creamy centers, a bit of icing on the shell.

Their sweet lives are short though: a couple hours sitting around being pretty and they'll soften too much, get weepy, sad, soggy bodies. So quick, make a pot of tea, invite a few friends over and eat them while they're still happy. They'd have wanted it that way.

There are plenty of things taught in culinary school that when you get in the working kitchen make you go, phfff, I can't believe they told me to do it like that at school! When you're working you see there's almost always a hundred different ways to do one job to the same end--you learn which is best for you by watching others, by playing around.

But here's something I stick by hating in school: making choux pastry by hand. Incorporating the eggs to the stiff, wet dough, one by one, till the dough was smooth and stretchy again may have given me, for a few months, the toned arms of an ambi-dexterous tennis player, and sure there was a certain satisfaction in piping it out with burning, twitchy muscles--but it hurt! And it took a long time. And kitchen aids are such wonderful things...

Unfortunately, I don't have a kitchen aid. Or a Kenwood for that matter.

And? And Glyn has been talking about eclairs for the past few days with such zest, that I've fixated on them. They're everywhere, on the fridge, at work, in every cook book I open... I can only think of a proper tea with eclairs baked that day, mmm! So? So I'm going to do what I thought I'd never have to do again, make a choux pastry by hand. Thank you Chef John and Chef Christophe, for locking away the equipment and strengthening my arms with a thousand pastry creams, genoises, choux batters, and meringues. Here goes.

Choux pastry is pretty underappreciated if you ask me. When made well, the airy golden puffs can be built into a pyramid of caramel, sliced and filled with savoury cheesy goodness or plumped up with a mixture of pastry cream, whipped cream, or butter, then iced. They will steam, rise, and brown into whatever shape you pipe or drop them. They will bake or fry, and even if you are forced to shape like ridiculous cream filled swans, they will still be tasty. Also, they're not that hard to make, and probably require no grocery shopping to get started. Plus they freeze well all piped out and unbaked if you make too much. This tray of unbaked eclairs, gougeres, and religieuses will come in handy next week, when your boyfriend's parents come to visit...So don't be scared. Flex.

Choux is a classic recipe, so there are a thousand of them out there. It's almost one part butter/flour to two parts eggs to two parts water, with slight variations of course. Today I'm testing out doing exactly this proportion as so many recipes I've seen are very nearly this proportion. Either way, they're all made basically the same way: start with a base of liquid--sometimes just water, sometimes a mixture of milk and water--my old pastry chef claimed adding milk made egg wash obsolete. I'm not sure how that works, but we did try making the dough both ways, and it's true.

When you're baking a thousand eclairs everyday for Harrods , you'll try anything to save time and skip a step. Of course, when baking one tray at home, a single step doesn't cost you a half hour but only a minute or two. But for Chef Christophe, I still replace a fifth of the water with milk and skip the eggwash. The choux gets golden without it and it doesn't add flavour so why bother? Also, I use salted kerrygold butter but still add that pinch of salt, and sometimes add about a tablespoon of sugar to flour.

240 ml water
60 ml whole milk
150 g butter
150 g flour
250-300 g whole eggs
pinch salt

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees and get your ingredients scaled out. Melt the butter and water together in a saucepan. Once boiling, whisk in the flour. Now get rid of the whisk and switch to a paddle, like a firm spatula, and keep the mass moving until it becomes a dough that holds together and doesn't stick to the sides of the pan, this should just take a couple of minutes. Take off the heat and allow to cool slightly in a large round bottomed bowl (or if you're lucky, the kitchen aid). Very gradually, beat in the eggs, waiting each time to properly emulsify the egg before adding more. Beat the crap out of it. Seriously.

You want it smooth, shiny, slightly elastic, but drippy. Confused? In French, of course, there's a term for the texture you're looking for, bec de canard. It means that if you lift the whisk, a "beak," a strand that falls in the shape of a beak will form. It looks like a duck's beak, I guess. In some cases, like if you've cooked your water/butter/flour mix for too long and too much water has evaporated, or if your flour is old and dry, you may need to add a bit more egg than the recipe calls for, to get the beak. And in some cases, you may not need to add all the egg you've scaled out, it all depends on the texture of your dough.

Eventually, you'll get there. Put the dough in a piping bag, then using a round nozzle, pipe small lines or rounds of choux onto parchment, giving them room between each other to grow. If you're egg washing for colour, and I'm certainly not, now is the time to do it. Bake for about ten minutes. They should be coloured a medium brown on the outside by now, but it's also important that you're able to pick one up and, well, check that it's bottom is golden, dry and firm--as bottoms should be. If it isn't then the pastry isn't cooked through enough and won't hold its' filling properly--just put it back in at a lower oven, 300 degrees, to dry out a bit.

Set them aside to cool, then store in an airtight container until your filling's ready and it's time to fill, which also means time to eat. If you're making eclairs yourselves, I suggest not filling and glazing until you are just about to eat them, that way the pastry stays crisp and delicious.

Poking around in my recipe collection the other day, I noticed I make a lot of soup. When I'm at home during the day and in search of lunch, often I'll get to poking around for things that can be simmered together. Soup suits me for a number of reasons. Most importantly, it serves as its own reward for keeping a reasonably well-stocked pantry. Homemade stock from the freezer, or even the canned stuff, plus canned beans or tomatoes, seasonings, and whatever vegetables are lurking in the fridge combine in seemingly infinite ways. My soups also typically have more nutritional value than my other go-to lunch, spaghetti with garlic and olive oil. They let me exercise another favorite habit of mine, namely, sneaking vegetables into things. I'm convinced most people, Stephen and I included, just don't eat enough vegetables. In college, I berated dorm-mates for their low produce consumption, warning of the inevitable onset of scurvy. It pleases me to slip spinach, peas, peppers, or zucchini into something I'm eating anyway. I think I subconsciously believe that if I eat enough fiber it will cancel out all the ice cream, but that's another topic entirely.

I've made soup twice this week already, and today's effort has yielded particular pleasure. I sometimes have issues with chickpeas. At their best, they soak up flavors and aromas like a sponge. They take well to Mediterranean, North African, Italian, and Indian ingredients, and can add either welcome texture or pleasant creaminess to dishes. At their worst, they're bland, floury lumps that bear an uncomfortable resemblance to tiny brains. I think this soup expresses the former.

Chickpea Soup

1 can chickpeas, rinsed and drained
1 can whole tomatoes, crushed by hand and 1/2 cup of the juice reserved
1/2 onion, diced
1 rib celery, diced
1/2 red bell pepper, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 can low-sodium chicken broth
1/2 teaspoon coriander
3/4 teaspoon cumin
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
1/4- 1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika (optional, but nice)
1 small chunk parmesan cheese rind (also optional, but also very nice)
1 small pinch red pepper flakes
1 bay leaf
1/4 teaspoon ground mustard
1 1/2 tablespoons olive oil
Lemon juice, to taste

Heat the olive oil in a large sauce pan, add the onion and celery, sprinkle with salt and saute until the veggies soften. Add the bell pepper and garlic and continue to cook until the onions are translucent and beginning to color. Add all the spices and cook until they are fragrant.

Add the tomatoes and reserved juice, chickpeas, broth, and parmesan rind. Bring to a boil, then lower the heat and simmer for about 30 minutes, stirring occasionally. Or, if you're hungry now, cook it at a higher heat stirring often for 15 minutes. Fish out the bay leaf and parmesan rind.

At this point, you can eat the soup as it is, or puree partially or entirely. I removed about 1/3 of the soup (taking care to get more chunks than juice), pureed the rest in the pan with an immersion blender, then stirred the chucks back in. Season with lemon juice and black pepper.

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(Chicken with Tiny Potatoes and Mustard, before the mustard)

I didn't always love chicken thighs. I wanted them to be a cheaper alternative to boneless, skinless breasts. Instead, they insisted on being blatantly misshapen, oddly grayish, fat-streaked chunks. They sauteed for crap. I didn't like them, and even though they cost about three dollars less per pound than breast, I still wasn't going to buy them. How naive I was.

I didn't understand that the dark meat and bits of fat have their purpose. Lurking within that unattractive lump of meat is meltingly tender secret potential. What I didn't know those first few times I cooked them was that chicken thighs, like any other dark, tough, marbled, ugly, riddled with connective tissue piece of meat, respond well to low and slow cooking.

In recent years, I've done better. We eat chicken thighs frequently, and I've never gotten over a slight feeling of wonder at their transformation. They go into the pot ugly and chewy and emerge rich, soft, and full of flavor. And they cost so much less than chicken breasts, I get to enjoy them, and enjoy feeling thrifty to boot.

Remember when I mentioned the beautiful fond my Le Creuset makes?

Braised Chicken with Tiny Potatoes and Mustard
(serves about 3)

6 chicken thighs with bones and skin
1 head of garlic, cloves peeled
2 carrots, sliced
About 18 tiny potatoes, an inch in diameter, or larger new potatoes cut into 1-inch chunks
1 cup white wine
1/2 cup low-sodium chicken broth
8-10 sprigs thyme
2 sprigs rosemary
2 bay leaves
2 tablespoons olive oil
Flour, for dusting
1/4- 1/3 cup heavy cream
1 tablespoon dijon mustard
1 tablespoon whole grain mustard
Juice of 1/2 lemon

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Remove the skin from the thighs, season with salt and pepper, and dredge in the flour, tapping off the excess. Heat a 5 1/2 quart (or there about) Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Add the oil and saute the thighs until they are deep gold, about 5 minutes per side. Adjust the heat (or even pull the pot off the burner) if the bits on the bottom of the pan look like them may burn.

Remove the thighs and set aside. Turn the head down to about medium and add the garlic cloves; saute briefly until they begin to color. Deglaze the pan with the chicken broth and wine, scraping up all the brown bits. Add the carrots and herbs and tuck the thighs back into the pan. If necessary, add a little more broth to bring the level of liquid halfway up the sides of the thighs.

Put the potatoes into the pot on top of the chicken. They will sort of roast rather than braise. Put the lid on the pan and cook in the oven for about an hour and twenty minutes, or until the chicken is very tender.

Remove the pan from the oven. Fish out the more obvious herb stems and bay leaves. You may notice that the garlic cloves have sort of melted into the sauce. Stir the mustards, cream, and lemon juice. If the sauce looks thin, put the pan on the stove over medium-high head for a few minutes to let the cream thicken it. Season with salt, pepper, and more lemon juice if necessary.

The finished dish.

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Crostini with white bean puree, roasted tomatoes, almonds, and smoked paprika.

Glyn, master of the flame.

Tejal corrupting little Milton.

The duck, oh so smoky and covered in a spicy-sweet glaze, dripping with tasty duck fat.

Glyn carving, the second in a series (see the Thanksgiving pictures).

Juices, again.

Tarte Tatin with lime cream.

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I've never liked cats.

Oh no, don't worry, I'm not planning a meal around this picture. Meet our cat! He's been hanging around our door, meowing at the windows, widening his eyes like a cartoon kitty and looking especially cute when it's raining outside. After putting up found cat signs I fell in love, bought him little mice on strings, food, treats, allowed him to sleep on the sofa and finally, a collar with a name tag: Milton Hershey.

Not to be confused with that famous American chocolatier, Milton S. Hershey. The story of his life and career is one of those classic, romantic, American dream stories--except with lots and lots of chocolate bars and candy.

It begins, like all good American stories, in rural Pennsylvania. There, a farm worker, held back by his lack of formal education, begins an apprenticeship with a confectioner. Then there's years of failure with milk caramels, and just when he's about to declare bankruptcy, the caramels catch on. But a moment of inspiration at the 1893 Columbian Exposition in Chicago changes everything--ah yes, chocolate chocolate, of course, why didn't I think of that before? The machinery comes in from Germany and after experimenting with recipes of cocoa, milk, and sugar, one night a beautiful thing happens: the Hershey Bar. That's the real beginning:

Reeses Pieces, Peppermint Patties, Whoppers, Whatchamacallits, Paydays, Nuggets, Swoops, Symphonies, Smores, Good n Plenty, Twizzlers, to name just a few.

Some might blame the man for mass producing candy and chocolate and making it so accessible and cheap. They would say, "his candies have made sugar rushes of bedtime, tantrums of grocery shopping, and a joke of our nation's health" But others would celebrate Hershey. He is incredibly successful and nothing like Willy Wonka--he's a hero who builds schools for kids whose lives have been disrupted and keeps people employed during the Depression. Etc.

Anyway, good name for a cat don't you think?

I got a collection of interesting chocolates from my sous-chef, who happened to pick my name out of a box during my kitchen's secret santa game. We were each told to write down three things next to our name. I wrote: nice chocolate, Herve This's new book, and potted herb plants. I got a few really tasty bars which I'm only now starting to unwrap and nibble:

1. Amadei's cioccolato al latte, La Tavoletta
2. Amadei's cioccolato fondente, Chuao, extra 70%
Few chocolatiers still process the cocoa themselves and control fermentation--Amadei, owned by brother and sister Cecilia and Alessio Tessieri, is one such chocolate maker. The only other taste I've had of Amadei was an exceptional chocolate fondant at L'Orrery in London, served with a milk ice-cream. Glyn worked in the pastry kitchen at the one star and I shopped at the epicerie downstairs for charcuterie on my way home from school.

3. Domori's Blend no. 1, 78%
Domori is also Italian. After a little time on their site, I feel inspired to buy every one of their bars and do a blind tasting. The company seems as committed to preserving chocolate terroir as the French do with wine. Also, there are poems...

4. Michael Recchiuti's bittersweet 85%

5. Santander's Colombian single origin 70%
My sous-chef tells me this is the only single origin chocolate produced in Colombia.

When Martha and Stephen came over for dinner, we kept it very simple as Glyn and I both had to work all day. The menu: white bean and tomato crostini from Martha, smoked duck, grilled corn, radish and green bean salad, and tartes tatins with lime cream. All the while, a pork shoulder was smoking away slowly outside. Which leads me to this post.

There are a million things to do with a pig, take a look at any French charcuterie book and feel your canines lengthen, a strange desire to butcher take over... The smokylicious barbeque pork shoulder, wrapped up in the fridge is like a present. It's enough for several meals and will keep perfectly for a few days. Here's what I want to do with it.

1. Friday afternoon, the Cuban Sandwich

Now, I don't actually know how to define a Cuban Sandwich. When I worked with Juan from, yes, you guessed it, Cuba, and the kitchen was insanely busy with no time for breaks, he made everyone what he called a his Cuban: grilled rolls with bbq pork, ham, pickles, sliced cheese and mustard. And so this is what I think of as a Cuban.

2. Saturday night, the Vietnamese Spring Roll, kinda.

When I was phasing out of vegetarianism in college, I made an almost daily trip to Pho Hua after class for a snack of two of these delicious rolls with a peanut chilli dipping sauce. The spring rolls are wrapped with a soft tapioca flour wrapper, holding mint leaves, shredded lettuce, carrot, noodles, mung beans, bbq pork and shrimp (which I'll omit from mine).

3. Sunday lunch, the Hot and Sour Salad

The Thai Farm (of pain) located in my parents' neighbourhood in DC served me the hottest curry and salad of my entire life last year. I almost always order this salad at Thai restaurants even though it's often too hot for me to handle. I can't help it, the sour chilli dressing on the beef is a little sweet but deadly and addictive. I want to make it at home with the pork instead of beef and bean thread noodles as well as salad leaves.

And if there's any left after that? Hmm, I don't know...who's the piggy now?

It was months ago that Max gave me a wrapped package of Shiba Fune. Glyn and I rationed them, hid them from ourselves, and eventually ate the last ginger cookies with tea, just as the weather was turning colder. They were so good, that I actually thought Max cruel for giving them to me.

Cruel, because he'd given me a taste for what I couldn't find again, at least not on my own. Shiba Fune come only from one particular town in Japan and cannot be found elsewhere. Seriously, nowhere else. The cookies came with a map, that I couldn't read, with a red x marking the pastry shop in the town.

I'd been asking him about restaurants since those cookies. Where to go for good Japanese food specifically. So when Max suggested Glyn and I join him and Yuko for a Japanese dinner, on Wednesday evening, at Anzu, in Hotel Nikko, I was surprised. Why?

"The menu on-line looks crap."
"Ah but that's not where we're going," Max said.

Over Devil's Slide, through the Golden Gate Park, down Geary all the way to Hotel Nikko. Then inside the restaurant, inside Hotel Nikko is a sushi bar--not connected to the restaurant's sushi menu--that seats nine people run by chef Takahashi, a master sushi chef we would come to love by the end of the evening. But more on that later.

Nikko, a pretty boring, escalator ridden, marble and dark carpets hotel, used to be run by Air Japan and still gets some of it's more exciting products flown in a few time a week. No roots of course, no, that would be illegal... But such tasty fish as to make my dinner companions moan slightly, gasp even--more on that later--and then sit quietly and sip on the beautiful wines Max, a sommelier, had brought with him.

Now, I know little about wine. But I do know one pours ladies first, and always from the right. I know that when someone brings their own bottle and pays a corkage fee, it is their bottle. And I know that Chef T was more graceful reaching over the counter and putting down two nori on our wooden boards with his vinegar washed fingers than any of the awkward suited servers were pouring our wine and later, our green tea.

When it's warm enough to take off my coat I watch chef Takahashi bust out more of his old school moves: turn a daikon in the air all the while sheeting a continuous see-through layer with his knife--a skill that cost him forty six stitches and many many years training properly in Japan. But now the man laughs at mandolins. Sudden, contagious, big laughs. And he laughs at kids like myself, fresh out of culinary school fumbling with knives and mandolins the first day they step into the kitchen. I suppose you learn to respect a knife if you have to wait six years before touching one. And when I ask, embarrassed as hell,

"er, do you mind if I take a photo?"
He laughs again, hard,
"my food is nothing special."

Oh, but he's lying now, right through those big white teeth. His food is the best I've had in San Francisco. Careful, balanced, and fresh. And he is teaching us all night what it's about--sending thoughtful pairs of fish side by side so we can taste the subtle differences between them, explaining how he makes his Dashi and how a sushi chef is trained.

And while talking, he sends us four small vegetable plates one after the other. First of all, wilted spinach leaves that look as if someone has sharpened their pencil over the bowl--but no, the shavings are bonito, and the spinach is soaked in that tasty homemade dashi. Next, a plate of pickled burdock noodles. Then a bowl of oyster and shimegi mushrooms in dashi with a surf clam and a few slices of slightly oily aubergine, that made me wish there was more.

The quiet parade of fishes begins here, with a sashimi plate. Scallop, top neck clam, kanpachi, baby snapper, taro on a shiso leaf with fresh grated wasabi. The raw spot prawns freaks me out--not enough to leave the second on my plate though. After the first strange, waxy, chew, that sticks to the inside of my mouth I pop the second upsetting mouthful and pull off the sharp little tail, to try and understand why, why dear god do people eat shrimp raw like this. And I don't. I stand as much of a chance of acquiring a taste for raw shrimp as I do turkey eggs. Slim to none.

The monkfish liver is a smooth pink mouthful--not buttery like foie gras, but surprisingly meaty and complex. He tells us how he prepares it, and I have flashbacks of picking out the wriggling worms, peeling back the skin, and making a torchon to garnish the monkfish at my last job. I think the same thing now as I did then, how could the worm infested liver of an ugly, googly eyed fish that lives at the bottom of the ocean taste so sweet and beautiful?

I am so happy by now that I am not even slightly appalled when chef T heats up one of our courses in the microwave. A tender Hamachi cheek, soft and melty, with a disk of daikon. The dish is sweet and fishy and I feel giddy. I get, as warned, one or two tiny bones. Not much of a challenge compared to the sea urchin that follows.

As I chew on the seaweed and rice, the buttery trickle of cold sea urchin melts down my throat. Chef passes the board of urchin scraps over the counter for Max and Yuko to pick clean with chopsticks. I've had sea urchin a few times now, and although I am not repelled by it the way I used to be, I'm still not entirely comfortable with the texture and taste. I was, in other words, satisfied with the single bite. And when it was all over, we talked about the various fish over tea in stone cups and he made some quick nori so we could taste what he hadn't yet tasted.

I would have loved something sweet to finish--a scoop of sorbet or ice-cream, or even a pringle shaped Shiba Fune. He sent us instead a bite of sweet egg custard. Not exactly what I had in mind, but cold and sweet, it did the trick.

Again, much like with the ginger biscuits, I blame Max for this wonderful experience. How can I possibly walk over to Main Street Sushi now and enjoy a spicy tuna roll and vegetable tempura combo? No. I don't think I'll ever be the same. Not after this. Thanks a lot Max.

So, if you want someone to throw a shrimp into your mouth or a giant spicy tuna roll, go somewhere else. But if you don't mind spending quite a bit of money on excellent raw fish and seafood, well balanced small plates, and the good company of Chef Takahashi, call Anzu and make a reservation at the Sushi Bar. I'll do the same as last time and not order from the menu but just ask chef to send out what he thinks is good, and requesting my favourites--the cheek, the liver, and the shiny fish plate.

Maybe you've noticed that my cohert, the entirely tasty Tejal has been missing lately. Don't fret. She just moved into a new pad and her internet isn't hooked up yet; expect her back any day now.

And hey, if you ever need to talk to either of us right away, we're reachable via martha@2tastyladies.com and tejal@2tastyladies.com.

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The dreary weather persists. Wet feet are all the rage, or at least the inevitable result of leaving the house. The other result, at least around my place, are rich, slow-cooked dishes that warm the tummy and fortify against the rain. I have simmered, stewed, slow-roasted, and braised until I worry that my Le Creuset Dutch oven may collapse from exhaustion.

And let me, for a moment, sing the praises of that very extraordinary cooking vessel. Nothing is better suited for gentle, moist cooking than enameled cast iron. Its smooth interior is pleasantly stick-resistant, yet it develops truly superior fond when meat is browned in it. The lid fits tightly, sealing in moisture, and the dense, heavy cast-iron absorbs the heat and releases it back into the food with consummate care. Its cheerily colored exterior brightens up even the grayest winter day. Chicken thighs and cubes of pork shoulder emerge tender and infused with flavor. My enameled cast iron Dutch oven is one of my most useful, most prized tools in my kitchen. Indeed, it was an investment, but since I fully expect my heirs to fight over it at my funeral, I believe it was totally worth the price.

Stephen and I had a rare day off together today. We lounged, snacked and cuddled in our pajamas. Tonight I made a rich Bolognese sauce that simmered for about two hours. It smelled so good I expected my neighbors to knock on the door, hoping for a taste. The recipe follows (with the standard caution that I'm not always great at exact quantities). Expect more of my recent slow-cooked creations in the days to come.

Rigatoni with Bolognese Sauce

1 pound ground chuck
1/2 pound ground pork
3 slices bacon, diced
1/2 cup finely chopped celery
1/2 cup finely chopped carrot
1 medium onion, finely chopped
4 cloves of garlic, minced
8 ounces cremini mushrooms, chopped
1/2 ounce dried porcini mushrooms soaked in about 3/4 cup boiling water, finely chopped with 1/2 of the liquid reserved
1 cup milk
1 cup red wine
1 14.5 ounce can diced tomatoes
2 1/2 cups tomato puree (no salt added is best)
1 cup low-sodium chicken or beef stock
1 generous teaspoon each dried thyme and oregano
2 bay leaves
pinch dried red pepper flakes
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/4 cup heavy cream
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
1 1/5 pound rigatoni

Heat a heavy Dutch oven over medium-high heat and add the ground chuck and pork. Season with salt and pepper and cook until all the pink is gone. Drain the meat in a colander and set aside. Turn down the heat to medium and cook the bacon until it starts to get crisp. Add the onion, celery and carrot to the bacon fat. Sprinkle lightly with salt and saute about 10 minutes until the vegetables are very soft and starting to turn golden. Add the garlic and cremini mushrooms and saute until the most of the mushroom liquid has evaporated, about another 5-10 minutes.

Return the meat to the pan, add the thyme, oregano, pepper flakes, bay leaves, and a few grinds of pepper. Add the milk and cook until most of it has evaporated. Next add the wine and also cook until almost dry. Pour in the diced tomatoes, tomato puree, stock, the reserved porcini soaking water, and add the cinnamon and nutmeg.

Bring to a boil and simmer, stirring occasionally, about two hours or until the sauce is very thick. Stir in the cream and balsamic vinegar, taste for salt and pepper. Cook the rigatoni and toss it all together. Garnish with chopped basil or parsley and grate on some parmesan.

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