Squid-Ink Risotto

If you've never had it, this is one of the foods of the gods.


Recipe

2 cup vialone nano rice
3 shallots
4 cloves garlic
2 dried red chillies (crumbled fine)
2 squids (cleaned, cut into rounds)
2 tbsp squid ink

1 cup white wine
6 tomatoes (pulped with a food mill)
4 cups broth

3 tbsp thyme (substitute with rosemary)

olive oil
black pepper
sea salt

4 tbsp parsley (chopped, for garnish)

Ingredients

The recipe follows along the lines of a standard risotto with a few kinks.

Keep the broth on a simmer in a separate vessel.

Fry the shallots and the garlic in olive oil at a medium heat. Add the rice, and fry to make sure that each grain is coated in the olive oil. Add plenty of ground pepper, the red chillies and the salt. Add the white wine to deglaze, and stir. Add a ladle of hot broth along with the tomato puree. Bring to a boil stirring constantly. Add the squid ink.

The mixture will turn instantly from a pale red to a deep dark inky black. Keep adding ladlefuls of broth stirring constantly. Add the thyme/rosemary towards the end. Just before you are ready to serve, add the cleaned squid, and take the pot off the heat. (You don't want to overcook the squid.)

Serve immediately sprinkled with parsley preferably with a steely white wine.

Baking Resumption

After a long hiatus, the CC has started baking again.

This is Jim Lahey's famous (infamous?) No-Knead Bread, and yes, it's exactly as amazing at it always was.

Cooking Myths (Part 2)

This series has been dormant for a couple of years but it's time to resurrect it.

One of the pervasive myths about baking is that opening the oven door makes the temperature drop "drastically".

The fact that the temperature drops is not in doubt. What's in question is the "drastic" part.

Let's start with the basics.

Air has very little thermal capacity. It's ability to hold heat is minimal if that. That's precisely why you can put your hand in a 500°F oven and not feel a thing.

Just so we are clear on this concept, try sticking your hand in 212°F water (a.k.a. boiling water) and see how you feel. It's a lot less than 500°F!!!

So what exactly holds the heat of the oven?

It's actually the walls and the floor. They have a high thermal capacity. In fact, if you want to increase the thermal capacity, you should put in a very large steel plate on the bottom of the oven, or a ton of bricks, and run the oven for a long time.

The air is largely irrelevant!

The Larder

The CC is frequently asked how he cooks all the stuff he does, and the answer is a vast larder.

No, the CC doesn't live in a massive space. It takes considerable ingenuity of means to keep such a larder stocked and piled.

Living in New York doesn't hurt.

The CC's does the inventory in his head, as a consequence, and there's always something interesting for dinner.

Defending Molecular Gastronomy

The CC is aware that the world shits upon this stuff on general purpose in the name of "tradition". The CC could argue at length about why this is wrong but there's a far simpler way of arguing.

Take flaked salt, and mix it with fine olive oil.

Slice tomatoes, and drizzle the above mixture over it. Add strips of basil.

Salt is a polarized molecule. It will not dissolve in non-polarized liquids like oil. That means the crunchy salt will still remain crunchy, and not dissolve in the tomato's watery juices nor will it make the tomato "sweat".

You can use your finest fleur de sel this way, and it will work. The reason it works is science.

You haven't seen this in any book you own because they simply didn't get it.

If this were so obvious, why is this not there in Julia Child, Marcella Hazan, and the zillion others that make a fetish out of tomatoes, olive oil, and salt?

Why is this not present in four hundred years of Italian tradition?

So, fuck you, "tradition"!

Tradition, which can be useful can also be rank superstition. It's done this way, why, well because it has always been done this way. Kinda silly sometimes.

Facts and evidence (= science) matter more.

Making Babies

Making preserved lemons is like having a baby.

You have to periodically burp them.

Awwwwww, so cute.

Seaweed

One of the great glories of Japanese cuisine is their consumption of edible seaweeds.

They consume at least seven kinds but there are four that you must actually understand well.

Seaweeds contain very high amounts of iodine, calcium and magnesium. You don't really need iodized salt (which sucks anyway!) if you consume these things on a regular basis. (In fact, you can smell the "sea" in them which is a mixture of iodine and calcium compounds.)

The first, and arguably the most important is kombu. The CC has spoken about it extensively here. It is absolutely indispensable in the pursuit of umami.

The next up, in no particular order of importance is nori. If you've eaten sushi, you will recognize this one. It's the crisp wrapper that is used to enclose rice. It's paper-thin, and when toasted gives off this wonderful aroma.

Then there's hijiki. It has this wonderfully crisp/slippery texture that is impossible to describe. Crisp and slippery? You'll just have to try it for yourself.

Finally, there's wakame. You may have had it in miso soup but this is a tougher nut to crack (so to speak.) You really have to appreciate its slippery texture because it's all about the texture here.

One of the great beauties of seaweed is that it comes dried. Effectively, that means that in a cool, dry pantry, it will last forever. (Not that it does in the CC's house but anyway ...)

You need to rehydrate three of them (nori is consumed as is) and you need to know the timings involved. They need to be rehydrated in cold water because hot water will decompose them, and make them, well, unappetizing.

We've already talked about kombu. Thirty minutes in cold water, followed by a boil but it needs to be yanked out just before the water boils or else the dashi will turn bitter.

Hijiki requires about 30 minutes of rehydation in cold water. Wakame requires only about 5 minutes.

These are wonderfully glorious objects. Masterpieces of texture and taste.

Souring Agents

One of the most important tricks in the chef's repertoire is the deployment of sour tastes.

It's extraordinarily underused and the CC doesn't understand why.

In fact, the CC will argue that this idea is so important and so undeveloped that it should be better known. (The CC will probably regret this when he gets old. Perhaps you shouldn't give away all of your best ideas?)

The dynamic use of sour ingredients is the lynchpin in nailing the entirely desirable "wanna-eat-more" feeling.


It's not unknown — it's common to Indian street food, and Japanese cooking. It's well known to both Moroccan food, and Thai cuisine. It's actually the key idea that distinguishes Filipino food with its "hit-me-again" taste.

Why is so underutilized then? The CC stays mystified.

Humans are conditioned to eat slightly acidic foods. In fact, from an evolutionary perspective, substances that contain alkaline substances naturally (e.g. alkaloids) tend, on a general basis, to be highly poisonous. That's why soap tastes "bad". It's an evolutionary response to ensure avoidance of dangerous things.

(On a side note, that's why sweet tastes good instinctively to babies. It's an evolutionary response to fruits which are safe for consumption.)


Most chefs will tell you that they use two tricks. One is surface salt which the CC has talked about here extensively.

The other is the use of sour ingredients which "brighten" the flavor, and bring into sharp relief the other flavors that are being used.

Try it. You'll thank the CC later.

Making the Cut

One of the most significant differences between Japanese chefs and French ones is the way they use a knife.

The Japanese cut away from the body while classical French technique requires you to cut towards yourself.

Small but hugely significant.

That Italian-Japanese Cross-Connect

File this one under the "who-bloody-knew-but-obvious-in-retrospect"-category!

Turns out that "sushi rice" makes a more than excellent substitute for the arborio, or carnaroli in a classic risotto.

In fact, both rices belong to the same japonica family, the key characteristic of which is that they are glutinous (= starchy, sticky) and not "long-grained" like basmati.

Smack to the forehead, deliciousness for dinner.

Revisiting Ol' Favorites

How quickly doth a fairly ambitious dish that you once made turn into a "staple"!

Good cooks never talk about this but as their technique deepens, they get very good at formerly complex tasks. "Fancy" dishes turn routine that they can do at a moment's notice with minimal kerfuffle.

It's called learning and it's useful to remember that all those slave years in the galley kitchen were not wasted. Most importantly, all that separates you from you from the great chefs is plain ol'-fashioned hard work (and an understanding of technique.)

This is a great dish. What makes it great is the both the elegance of its concept, and the fact that it can be endlessly reshuffled to align with the seasons and the ingredients at hand.

The older recipe required — arugula, corn, carrots, sage.

This version — radicchio, peas, carrots, rosemary.

You should be able to see the infamous shuffle yourself.

Speaking of shuffling, what would your inner Italian Grandma think of these "crab balls"? Bet she's thinking about how delicious they would be in her mouth!

Risotto with Crab Balls

EPIC FAIL!!!

There is virtually no modern chef or cookbook in the world that talks about failure.

(Except you, Julia, you're an inspiration every passing day, baby!)

You will fail. Yes, you will fail. No matter how much you prepare, you will fail.

Occasionally.

If you are suitably ambitious, you must accept that failure is inevitable. It's called learning. There can be no learning without failure.

What is needed is a healthy attitude to failure. It happens. Scream for a minute or two, and then dial the takeout. Regroup later, analyze your failure, and always, always, always revisit the dish another day. Which you will nail correctly and beautifully but only because you failed the first time. That's called learning. Extraordinarily rarely, you will fail twice. That's called learning too!

(The CC has even failed thrice, and lived to cook another day!)

Incidentally, of all the smug fucks, a certain Richard Olney informs us that: "A failure is no disgrace and may very often be more instructive than a success."

Yeah?!? Well, fuck you, Richard Olney, when you have screaming hordes in your living room on a hot summer's day, and your dish just disintegrated, you might just have a slightly different view of success.

Or not.

There does seem to be a utility in having a suitably detached point of view. In time, you will rapidly learn to look at your failures in a funny light. It'll turn into a good party story.

Comedy is merely tragedy with added time and perspective.

Wasn't it hilarious when that dish fell apart right before Thanksgiving? Or that burnt dish on Valentine's Day? Or that food that disintegrated right before the party guests started streaming in?

Go on then. Be ambitious. Fail with confidence.

You're gonna fail, and you're gonna love it!

(Chime in with your failures, readers. This is a contest in who can embarass themselves the most!)

Moving On

An old friend died recently.

And how does the CC revisit it?

All he can think of is that she was thin, and she loved to dance, and she loved food to a fault.

She was much older than the CC to the point that she both babysat the CC, and that he attended her wedding as a callow boy, and yet, all the CC can remember is all the food she loved. He can recall instantaneously every single thing she ever loved. and where she ate it, and how she ate it. (You don't need a camera. The memory is good enough.)

She even taught the CC how to dance. And how to gorge away later late at night after expending the calories!

Food then, as Proust would've insisted, is the ultimate carrier of memories.

Dance away sweetheart, we'll miss you!

Ode to an Omelette

A paean must be written to the very French concept of barely set eggs. They may be in various forms — poached, baked, omelette but the key point is that they are barely set. Just at the edge of being cooked but basically somewhat raw.

In the interest of hygiene, the CC must mention that you can't do that with commercial eggs in this country.

You need freshly produced eggs from an good organic producer that you know personally otherwise you are out of luck!

However, if it's possible to source these in the heart of Manhattan, the CC fails to see what the excuse is?

Even if you have excellent organic local eggs, you must first wash each and every one of them before you crack them. The logic is that these wonderful organic eggs may not have bacteria on the inside but like all "stuff" they have bacteria on the outside!

Yes, this may sound pain-staking but it's absolutely necessary if you are gonna barely cook them. Also, these organic eggs tend to be a tad fragile unlike your supermarket force-fed chicken eggs so a little gentleness is needed.

Just try it.

The CC never liked soft-boiled eggs until he made high-quality ones for himself. Now, he recoils at the idea of eggs being overcooked.

Oh, and make sure to have some crusty bread at hand to soak up all the eggy goodness!


Sunday morning. Ooey-gooey goodness. Happiness.

The Japanese Pressure Cooker

Not the insane work ethic that causes them to blow their tops in private, the CC refers to the otoshi-buta which is a particularly elegant concept.

Basically it's a wooden "drop lid" that sits right inside the pot on top of the vegetables or meat that you are simmering in dashi.

The idea is simple. It raises the temperature of the water above 100°C so that food cooks faster. In this process, it also allows for caramelization of the sugars are added first in the Japanese process. Also, the food stuff doesn't roll around in the boiling water which allows control of the texture because the food doesn't get "beat up".

You don't really need this specialized instrument though.

Classically trained French chefs use a similar technique. They advise you to make a simple round out of parchment paper and place it in top of whatever you are simmering.

In the modern world, aluminum foil will also do the work perfectly adequately.

If you've never seen this technique before, it seems wondrous (faster! tastier! magic!) but it's just plain ol' physics at work.

Spaghetti with Crab Meat and Peas

Sometimes, there is a level of awesomeness that pictures simply don't do justice to. You need full-on Smell-O-Vision™ to appreciate this one.

That this is both easily made on a weeknight, and that it is definitely better than sliced bread means that the Italians just do some things better!

Garlic! Chillies! Olive oil! Exclamation Marks!!

Madre di Dio!!!



Ingredients

linguini (or spaghetti.)
1 cup crabmeat
8 cloves garlic (chopped roughly)
1/2 cup peas
1/2 cup parsley (chopped fine)
4 dried read chillies (crumbled fine)
1 cup white wine (optional, substitute by water)

olive oil
sea salt
black pepper

Recipe

Prepare the pasta in heavy-salted water.

Meanwhile, heat the olive oil in a pan, fry the garlic and crumbled red-chillies languidly, add the crabmeat, peas, salt and black pepper and fry for 2-3 minutes. Add the white wine. Let it cook for a bit.

Toss with the spaghetti. Top with parsley and more black pepper right before serving.

Haandvo

The greatest of all vegetarian dishes (at least in the CC's unhumble opinion.)

Poetry should be written about this stuff, and wars raged but it hasn't happened yet so the CC assumes that he lies alone in his passion. (Sigh!)

This is a lentil and rice flour mix that has been fermented (lactobacillus!), and then mixed with ginger, green chillies, spices and vegetables, and topped with the classical Indian technique of spices fried at the last minute in oil (vaghar, baghar, chowk, etc.) In this case, the spices are sesame seeds as you can plainly observe below.

Finally, the whole thing is baked with coals above and below.




Eat it with a sip of buttermilk (yogurt + water) and watch the mixture evolve as you chew. Each bite will be subtly different as your saliva works its magic with the two components in tandem.

The crispy brown bits are the best part (Maillard, Maillard, Maillard!)

The Gods themselves designed this dish because they got bored of ordinary, every day perfection!

Sa-Shi-Su-Se-So

Eh?

No, the CC hasn't lost his marbles. At least not yet!

These are the horizontal letters of the Japanese alphabet in the "s" row, and they stand for the order in which to add ingredients when simmering vegetables in dashi (which the Japanese do a lot!)

satō - sugar (typically in the form of mirin)
shio - salt
su - vinegar
seyu / shōyu - soy sauce
miso - miso

Okay, they cheat a little with the shōyu to fit it into the scheme but we'll just call it cute. and let it slide.

There's a sorta logic to it. The sugar requires time to get absorbed (larger molecules) so it needs to go in there first. And the miso gets in there last because it really shouldn't be overcooked. The rest is a just a cutesy mnemonic to remember it all.

Kawaii!!!

Radicchio Salad

Simplicity itself, and the perfect way to brighten up a winter's day.


Ingredients

1 head radicchio
1 orange (split into two)
1/2 cup walnuts
1 Meyer lemon
3 tbsp walnut oil
3 sprigs mint
gorgonzola (diced)

sea salt
pepper

Recipe

Wash the radicchio, and slice into thin slices.

Roast the walnuts at 350°F for about 10 minutes. Cool.

Split half the orange into slices. Slice each into half.

Juice the lemon, the other half of the orange, and make a vinaigrette with the walnut oil, sea salt and pepper. Mince the mint, and mix with the vinaigrette.

Toss all the ingredients together.

Konkan Café

The CC normally never endorses restaurants but has been known to make exceptions for exceptional ones (duh!)

This is one of them.

In Mumbai, in a tourist-encrusted corner, a man (Ananda Solomon) is trying to make classically home-down cuisine from the coastal regions of Maharashtra.

He has women (yes, women - there are no males traditionally!) come in every morning to grind the spices the ol'-fashioned way using a mortar and pestle.

The results speak for themselves.

Is it expensive? Yes, it is. But attention to detail always is.

The CC (who's a cheapskate at heart) will happily pay out for a meal of this anal-retentive detail every single time!

Yes, this is seafood-oriented (as a true coastal cuisine would be) but if you are vegetarian, just tell the chef to make whatever pleases him, and he will deliver. The coastal regions have vegetarian traditions too. This is India where every goddamn place has a "traditional" vegetarian tradition!!!

(There were a buncha Gujarati losers on the adjacent table who made their way into one of the great restaurants of all time, and ordered mundane crap. It was extraordinarily painful to watch. These money-grubbin' ass-monkeys were, quite literally, not aware of their own culture. The chef, who attended them personally, was a masterpiece of Japanese emotion — inwardly seething while outwardly polite.)

On a more positive note, the squid was ethereal, and the dessert (jackfruit, not very sweet) was so divine that the CC who normally doesn't like dessert would eat it by the bucketful.

This is the food that gods themselves would desire!


banana flower fritters
sol kadhi

jackfruit in coconut milk
Konkan Café.
(Mumbai, India)