Pan Grattato

One of the great tricks of Italian cooking, is fried breadcrumbs seasoned with spices. Sounds ordinary but it adds both a crunchy texture, as well as acts as a flavor carrier. It allows you to gussy up the simplest of dishes, and make them exotic.

The idea is simple enough. Breadcrumbs are neutral in taste, and yet they absorb flavors. They also turn crunchy when pan-fried in butter or oil.

The variations are endless as you might assume. It's best to make them in small batches, and they will last for about a few weeks kept in an air-tight container.

Spaghetti with Clams (topped with anchovy-red-chilly pangrattato.)

Latin-Asian Fusion

Normally, the CC is not big on the whole fusion thing but when done well, it can be amazing. This is at a restaurant near the CC's house.

Corn Soup
Seared Pepper-Tuna with Cilantro-Basmati, and Orange Dressing

Designer Milk

From the New York Daily News: Buying breast milk online.

Need breast milk? It's only a click away.

Online forums like OnlytheBreast.com and EatsonFeets.org allowing moms who make more breast milk than their nursing babies need to sell it.

At OnlytheBreast.com, which describes itself as "a community for moms to buy and sell natural breast milk," instructions are offered on how to ship, pump, freeze and store breast milk. Ads for buyers and sellers appear on the site.

"Super Mom," advertises frozen breast milk for $3 an ounce with a minimum of 16 ounces, and the cost of overnight shipping.

John Steinbeck, eat your heart out!

David Mamet on Christmas Traditions

(Source: Tablet Magazine.)

Japanese Food Confusion

While shabu-shabu which is onamatopoeic meaning swish-swish, refers to Japanese hot pot where you dip the vegetables, thinly-sliced meat, and seafood in hot broth, and consume it, shabu itself is slang for heroin.

Best not to confuse the two.

Keys to Good Cooking

The CC received the latest Harold McGee book as a gift, and he started reading it right away. Clearly, the CC's friends know what will make the CC salivate.

Strangely, the book felt awfully flat. It started seeming like a (absurdly) well-researched book but without any context. A newcomer encountering this book would be hopelessly lost, and the experienced cook would find it to be a parade of the obvious.

The CC was a bit dejected at this point since he is a big fan.

Then, he came across the following paragraph, and his heart lept with joy:

My father likes his hamburger rarer than rare — "Wave it near the grill," he would say — and he regularly suffered for it. Ground meats are among the foods most frequently contaminated with harmful microbes. When he moved close enough for me to cook for him, I told him that I would take care of his hamburger habit, and developed a way to prepare the meat to ensure its safety even when it's barely cooked (see p. 240). Ever since, both of us have been able to relax and enjoy our burgers without a second thought.

The CC loves his steak tartare, and the like. What followed on page 240 was so unbelievably obvious, and yet so elegant and unique that it's a total surprise that this is not more known.

As far as the CC was concerned, the book was redeemed, and Harold McGee can now be reinstated to his pedestal.

The "solution" which is totally obvious is:

Buy beef of excellent quality where the interior is unlikely to be contaminated.

The exterior will always be contaminated since microbes and fungus are in the air all around us.

Microbes are killed by boiling water.

Insert the steak in boiling water for 30-60 seconds to kill the external microbes.

Immediately dunk in an ice-bath to stop the cooking (= rare beef.)

Do what you will to get your beef rare (burgers, tartare, etc.)

Consume immediately.

Quelle elegance!

Saturday Morning

Nothing like some soft scrambled eggs (low heat, folks, extremely low heat) with some oregano pesto.

Stupidity Index

Cauliflower Risotto (Risotto al Cavalfiori)

Lust is not easy to portray on a blog but this recipe deserves it.

That it's made out of "winter" ingredients makes it one of the worst portrayals of lust in the repertoire so why not indulge the CC for a change, and trust his judgment?

Parallelization is essential to success here if you plan make this on a weekday. Basically, the cauliflower needs to get in the oven first so that it can start roasting while you chop the rest of the stuff, and do the pangrattato (breadcrumb topping.)

Also, this is one of those cases where a non-stick skillet is your best friend. Of course, you can also go ahead and fry the topping which would be both be super-indulgent and traditional.

Homemade stock is a plus here but you could get away with just water but it won't be the same. The CC recommends that you make a quick dashi while the cauliflower is roasting.

A food processor and blender will make quick work of a few steps if you let it. It's a lot faster than the mortar and pestle, and as you will see, quite irrelevant to the final result.

Just for the record, the CC used a mortar and pestle on a weekday. It takes all kinds to inhabit the world ...


Ingredients

1 head cauliflower (cut into florets)
3 leeks (chopped very fine)
2 cups arborio (or carnaroli rice)
2 sprigs rosemary (finely chopped)

4 cups stock
2 cups water
salt
pepper
1 cup grated parmigiano-reggiano

1/2 cup breadcrumbs
4 anchovies (preferably in salt "prepped".)
2 dried red chillies

1/2 cup pine nuts

Recipe

Toss the cauliflower florets with olive oil, salt and pepper. Roast in a 400°F oven for 35-40 minutes until lightly browned.

Meanwhile, chop the leeks.

Dump the breadcrumbs, anchovies, and red chillies into the food-processor and process. Roast the mixture on a skillet in olive oil, and set aside. This is the pangrattato topping.

While the cauliflower is roasting, roast the pine nuts on a skillet until lightly browned. They are there for texture, and protein.

Take half of the cauliflower, add 2 cups of cold water, and the rosemary and blend to a fine paste.

(Why is the water cold? Because with the hot cauliflower, you will get to blend it quickly without dealing with the blender's heat-explosion. Only people who have never blended will fail to understand this subtle point.)

Keep the stock warm at a barely visible simmer.

Now, make the standard risotto. Fry the leeks, fry the rice, alternately add the hot stock, and the cauliflower paste. Towards the end dump in cauliflower, and the rosemary.

Last but not least, the mantecura. Mix in the parmigiano-reggiano.

Serve with the roasted pine-nut and pangrattato.

The Story of Curry Powder

Everyone who's not completely demented about cooking knows there is no such thing in Indian cooking as "curry powder".

Yet, this yellow-looking vaguely Indian-ish powder is a global phenomenon showing up everywhere in menus from the finest French restaurants to Japanese fast-food ones serving kare raisu — curry rice that is gloppy, disgusting, and the staple of Japanese businessmen everywhere!

It should be noted that the fastidious Japanese with their ethic of purity and order eat this extraordinarily sloppy dish that would never show up on a kaiseki menu. And the main ingredient is an extraordinarly gaijin thing known as "curry powder".

So what's the story anyway? How did "curry powder" (which doesn't even exist in India) become French and Japanese? Why are there "curry ramen noodles"? Why are there Singaporean "curry noodles"? Which Frenchmen first served "curried cauliflower soup" and "curry vinaigrette"?

To answer this question, we're gonna have to rewind the clock and examine the mores of the 19th century. And we're gonna find that the people behaved, quite unsurprisingly, like people at any other time and place.

In short, they craved novelty.

And once novelty was provided, an equivalent market opened up to serve the novelty at the cheapest possible price, or to phrase it in modern lingo, they "commoditized the consumption".

There are virtually no cultures that don't appreciate novelty. Once novelty is provided, instantaneously the influence becomes "indigenized" - converted into the "native" framework of cooking. This is as true of tomatoes in Italy as green peppers in Thailand as potatoes in India. None of these are native to any of the regions (they are all "New World".)

The short story is that with the rising power of the British Empire in India, it became fashionable to serve all things "Indian". Queen Victoria, the Empress of India, was photographed wearing stereotypical "maharani" regalia. She even went as far as to appoint an Indian khidmatgar (servant), Abdul Karim, who rose to be her chief confidant. Poems were written (see here) and balls held in London where the guests dressed up in "Indian" costume and ate "Indian" food.

Needless to say, the British East India company did everything it could to market this phenomenon. When men go mad, avenues open up to supply them with the very objects that they need to go mad with so that profits can be made.

Enter "curry powder" — marketed to busy housewives so that they didn't need to concern themselves with the details of the "very foreign, very difficult" yet "deeply desired, and exotic" cuisine.

Unsurprisingly, the cheapest stuff correctly marketed turns out to be a monster hit. Same today as in the 19th century.

Commercial curry powder consists of the four cheapest ingredients in Indian cuisine -- coriander, cumin, fenugreek and turmeric (the latter giving it its yellow color while the fenugreek carries the characteristic bitter edge.)

That it spread to France from Britain should come as no surprise to anyone. Les rosbifs have always exhibited more than a little cultural fascination for "the Frogs" (ditto for the reverse.)

But the fastidious Japanese?

Kare raisu singlehandedly fails every Japanese culinary norm. Unsubtle, pungent, oil-based — the muddy yellowish sludge poured over rice could not be less Japanese. And yet, it's to be found in every train station and shopping district. It's chowed down by locals at lunch like it was going out of fashion. Irony of ironies, it's one of the most-requested "home-cooked" dishes in Japan.

How did this inauthentic powder turn Japanese?

The answer, of course, is the East India Company that nakedly peddled this powder all through the West and the East. Imported verbatim from the British idea of the dish, one can clearly see echoes of the dish in the 1872 Seiyo Ryōri Tsu ("Western Cooking".) The recipe is nearly identical to modern concoctions.

However, that explains the origin of the dish but not its overwhelming popularity. For that, you must look at the dish itself. It's warm, cheap, soothing, hearty, filling — all qualities that the Japanese have traditionally respected as an agrarian society must. Cheap sustaining fare that fuels the working masses. Does that or does that sounds Japanese?

The origins aside, the brute fact is that "curry powder" is global. Has been global for more than two centuries now, and authencity be damned, quite delicious.

Curry Cauliflower Soup

Ingredients

1 head cauliflower (cut into florets)
1 red onion (diced loosely)

1 tbsp curry powder

olive oil
sea salt
black pepper

Recipe

Toss the cauliflower florets with olive oil, salt and pepper. Roast in a 400°F oven for 30 minutes until lightly browned.

Fry the onion at a low heat for 10 minutes. Toss in the cauliflower, water, and curry powder and purée.

Roasted Brussel Sprouts with Spicy Sriracha

If you love spicy stuff, you'll go crazy over this.

This is the whole package -- nutritious, easy to make, spicy, umami-laden, complex, addictive.

(Source: here, and here.)

Ingredients

2 lbs brussels sprouts (halved)
oil

4 tbsp fish sauce
2 tbsp water
2 tbsp sriracha sauce
3 cloves garlic (crushed)
2 limes (juiced)
1 tbsp brown sugar
2 tbsp vinegar
1/2 cup mint (chopped)

Recipe

Toss the brussel sprouts, with oil, and salt and roast at 400°F for about 20-25 minutes until lightly browned. If you remember, this is Maestro Maillard in action.

Meanwhile, mix together the rest of the dressing. Toss with the sprounts and serve over rice.

Spaghetti with Clams

This one here is a classic.

It's also easy enough to make on a weekday, and eminently parallelizable so take careful notice.

(The recipe below feeds two so up the quantities proportionately.)



Ingredients

spaghetti (depending on hunger)

18 clams
1 red onion
4 cloves garlic
1/4 cup italian parsley (finely chopped)
herbs (rosemary, thyme, sage -- finely chopped -- whatever you have really!)
2 cups white wine

sea salt
black pepper
olive oil

Recipe

Bring the pasta water to a boil.

Meanwhile, in a heavy pot, bring a tiny bit of olive oil to a simmer. Add the clams, fry quickly, and add 1 cup of the white wine, and 1 cup of water. Cover, and let steam for 4 minutes.

The second cup of wine is for the chef.

Meanwhile, chop the onions and garlic finely.

After 4 minutes, open the pot. Remove each clam with pincers as it opens so as not to overcook.

When all the clams are open, and removed, filter the clam water through a cloth or paper towels into a bowl. Clams frequently have sand so this step is not skippable.

This clam water is the source of magic in this recipe!

Shuck the clams (or not.)

Add the spaghetti to the water. Let it cook until al dente.

Fry the onions and garlic languidly in the olive oil (6-7 minutes.) Add the filtered clam water, and reduce over high heat.

Toss the spaghetti, clam sauce, clams, herbs and parsley, and serve with lots of black pepper.

Dashi

The making of dashi is the foundation of Japanese cooking.

It is to Japanese cuisine what veal stock is to French cuisine. In fact, it is so fundamental to the very grammar of traditional Japanese cuisine that it can be safely said that there can be no Japanese cuisine in its absence.

However, its importance looms even larger in a multi-cultural universe.

Dashi is a umami rock-star.

Master it, and you can give a little more ooomph to all foods from Italian to Indonesian. (In fact, this is the "secret" to the success of many professional chefs. All they ever did in life was to add a ladle of dashi to their sauces, and suddenly they were "jeniuses" - yes, with the less common "j"-spelling.)

Well, you can be one too. But, first you must learn the basics of Japanese tradition.

The classic dashi begins with konbu -- also spelt kombu because in Japanese, the pronunciation is in-between the "em" and the "en" sounds -- and katsuobushi.

Konbu is a seaweed that is absurdly potent in umami flavor. When you buy it, it will look like it has a patina of whitish dust over it. Do NOT wash it under any circumstances. That patina is the source of the umami.

Katsuobushi is dried skip-jack tuna which is another rich source of umami. Most likely, the supermarket version will be the pre-sliced, paper-thin, pale-brownish-pink stuff but the real stuff is like an elongated rock-hard block of wood. It lasts forever, and has to be shaved fresh on an inverted wood-plane -- katsuobushi kezuriki. (Needless, to say, the CC heaps scorn on the supermarket one but it's not bad in a pinch.)

Both ingredients are dry, and will last forever in your pantry.

Classical Japanese technique calls for making two broths -- ichiban dashi and niban dashi -- quite literally, the first and second extractions.

Ichiban dashi is a clear, golden-hued, light stock with a delicate flavor meant for clear soups.

Niban dashi is a darker-hued, robust-flavored, all-purpose stock to cook with.

The recipe makes a little over 4 cups of each. The CC frequently doubles the recipe if needed. If you only need the more robust version, you can just skip the intermediate steps but make sure you understand all the details below.

There are many many other styles of dashi -- niboshi dashi with dried sardines, dashi made with shiitake mushrooms, entirely vegetarian versions made for Buddhist temple cuisine (shōjin ryōri), etc.

It's a world unto itself.

Ingredients

4 cups water
a 5" piece of konbu
3 handfuls of katsuobushi (two initially, one for later.)

Recipe

Soak the konbu in 4 cups of water at room temperature for 30 minutes. Heat the water until just before it starts to boil. Remove the konbu, and set aside. If you don't remove it before the water boils, the broth will taste bitter which you don't want.

Bring the water to a boil. Turn off the heat. Add about 1/2 cup of water to cool it down, and toss in two handfuls of the katsuobushi. If the water is too hot, it will be cloudy which is aesthetically unpleasant. (Note the similarity to classical French stock-making.)

Strain the liquid with a cheesecloth. Under NO circumstances press down on the solids which would also cause the broth to be cloudy.

The liquid is ichiban dashi.

To make niban dashi, add the solids and the retained konbu to four cups of water. Bring to a boil. As soon as it boils, turn off the heat, add an extra half-cup to cool it down, and add the extra handful of katsuobushi to it -- oigatsuo -- "chaser" katsuo. Steep for 3-4 minutes.

Filter with a cheesecloth but this time wring to extract the maximum flavor from it.

You have niban dashi.

Wild Rice with Cranberries, Pomegranate with Orange-Walnut Vinaigrette

Food as Character

Food is character.

There's no getting away from it. It defines us. It strips naked completely what we would like to have hidden.

One can tell more about a person from what they will or won't eat, conditional on their background, than all the degrees, documents, and recommendations that they trot out.

If you want to learn about a person, watch them at dinner.

Observe how they hold their fork, and ask them what they feel about eating animal innards, and you will quickly strip them emotionally naked. Observe their inward or outward delight (or lack thereof) to a perfectly executed dish, and you will learn more about them than by asking a thousand questions.

Food is character.

Great writers have noticed this forever. When Edith Wharton describes food, she is not describing the food as much as the society that would make such food, and the elements of the society that would eat it. Food becomes the barely neutral turf on which the anxieties of society play.

Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa in his one and only, wondrous novel Il Gattopardo observes his characters, and in turn, has them observe each other through the medium of food.

If you've never heard of Lampedusa, or his only novel, the CC urges you to seek it. Most people's knowledge of Lampedusa comes from the eponymous, and equally wondrous Visconti movie.

The Prince was too experienced to offer Sicilian guests, in a town of the interior, a dinner beginning with soup, and he infringed the rules of haute cuisine all the more readily as he disliked it himself. But rumours of the barbaric foreign usage of serving an insipid liquid as first course had reached the notables of Donnafugata too insistently for them not to quiver with a slight residue of alarm at the start of a solemn dinner like this. So when three lackeys in gold, green and powder entered, each holding a great silver dish containing a towering macaroni pie, only four of the twenty at the table avoided showing pleased surprise: the Prince and Princess from foreknowledge, Angelica from affectation and Concetta from lack of appetite. All the others (including Tancredi, I regret to say) showed their relief in varying ways, from the fluty and ecstatic grunts of the notary to the sharp squeak of Francesco Paolo. But a threatening circular stare from the host soon stifled these improper demonstrations.

Good manners apart, though, the aspect of these monumental dishes of macaroni was worthy of the quivers of admiration they evoked. The burnished gold of the crusts, the fragrance of sugar and cinnamon they exuded, were but preludes to the delights released from the interior when the knife broke the crust; first came a spice-laden haze, then chicken livers, hard-boiled eggs, sliced ham, chicken and truffles in masses of piping hot, glistening macaroni, to which the meat juice gave an exquisite hue of suede.

The beginning of the meal, as happens in the provinces, was quiet. The arch-priest made the sign of the Cross and plunged in head first without a word. The organist absorbed the succulent dish with closed eyes; he was grateful to the Creator that his ability to shoot hare and woodcock could bring him ecstatic pleasures like this, and the thought came to him that he and Teresina could exist for a month on the cost of one of these dishes; Angelica, the lovely Angelica, forgot little Tuscan black puddings and part of her good manners and devoured her food with the appetite of her seventeen years and the vigour given by grasping her fork halfway up the handle. Tancredi, in an attempt to link gallantry with greed, tried to imagine himself tasting, in the aromatic forkfuls, the kisses of his neighbour Angelica, but he realised at once that the experiment was disgusting and suspended it, with a mental reserve about reviving his fantasy with the pudding; the Prince, although rapt in the contemplation of Angelica sitting opposite him, was the only one at the table to notice that the demi-glace was overfilled, and made a mental note to tell the cook so next day; the others ate without thinking of anything, and without realising that the food seemed so delicious because sensuality was circulating in the house.

Oh, The Horror, The Horror!

Today, while idly searching the web, the CC came across recipes for "no-rice risotto".

Really people?!?

Heck, even the Italians have experimented with variations with barley and spelt (and generally treated the results with various degrees of horror) but seriously?!?

No-rice in risotto which quite literally is etymologically related to rice?

Next up: roasted chicken minus the roasting or the chicken.

Precision and Nutrition

If you want to have complete control over the texture of your vegetables, and the CC knows you do, you should steam them not boil them.

You get the added benefit that the nutrients are not lost to the water.

Pasta with Cauliflower, Raisins and Almonds

This recipe is so awesome that the CC has already posted it.

Twice.

Clearly, there was no response. So it's time for more high-pressure tactics. If one of you readers don't make it, and share in the mind-blowing gloriousness that is this recipe, and share your foodgasm with the rest of us, the CC will torture you by posting this recipe again and again until one of you surrenders.

The recipe has even been optimized for you slackers - you know who you are!

Yes, the CC has no shame! (But he does have cauliflowers.)


Ingredients

1 large cauliflower
1 large red onion (cut into very thin semi-rounds)
1/2 cup slivered almonds
1/2 cup raisins
4 tbsp white wine vinegar

2 cups whole wheat pasta

4 tbsp capers (in salt not vinegar, finely chopped)
4 tbsp chives (finely chopped)
4 tbsp tarragon (finely chopped)
4 tbsp parsley (finely chopped)

parmigiano-reggiano
olive oil
salt
pepper

Recipe

Preheat the oven to 400°F. Stick the almonds to roast while the oven is preheating (roughly 10 mins.)

Toss the cauliflower florets with olive oil, salt and pepper. Bake in the oven until roasted and browned (roughly 40 mins.)

Meanwhile, put the raisins in vinegar, and add about a cup of water. Bring to a light boil for about 7 mins to plump the raisins. (Hint: the microwave is awesome at this task. Use it!)

Make the pasta just under al dente.

Heat some olive oil in a pan. Fry the onions until they are limp. Add the cauliflower, the raisins (with the liquid), all the herbs, salt and pepper, and the pasta. Toss well.

Serve topped with the roasted almonds, grated parmesan, and plenty of black pepper.

Whole Wheat Pasta with Brussel Sprouts and Anchovies

This recipe has a lot of steps but all it requires is patience. Additionally, it's really amenable to parallelization so it's quite easy to do quickly.

This has a strong aggressive flavor with plenty of umami so it holds up well with whole wheat pasta.


Ingredients

2 cups whole wheat pasta
1 lb brussel sprouts
2 large red onions (sliced into thin rounds)

4 anchovies
1/2 cup hazelnuts
2 tbsp tomato paste

2 tbsp rosemary/thyme/tarragon
2 tbsp vinegar

olive oil
salt
black pepper
parmigiano-reggiano

Recipe

Pre-heat the oven to 375°F. Roast the hazelnuts for about 10 minutes but make sure they don't burn!

Meanwhile, halve the brussel sprouts, toss with olive oil, salt and vinegar, and roast them in the same oven for about 30 minutes until lightly browned. Alternately, you can pan-fry them lightly in a wok if you have one.

Make the pasta in heavily salted water.

Meanwhile, crush the hazelnuts either in a mortar and pestle or in the food processor. Make sure that they are uneven, and have large bits not turned into a powder.

Fry the onions languidly until they are limp. Toss in the anchovies, and the tomato paste. Fry for a short bit, add the herbs, salt and pepper, and a little water. Finally, add the toasted brussel sprouts.

Toss with the pasta, the vinegar, and the hazelnuts.

Serve with grated parmigiano-reggiano, and lots of black pepper.

Cutting Cauliflowers

Far too many people don't know how to cut a cauliflower correctly.

The cauliflower is a fractal as has been explored repeatedly on this blog.

Hold the thing upside down and slice into the florets at a 40° angle. The outside florets will fall off. Keep rotating and doing this.

Now, do this again to each large floret cluster. That's what fractal means!

Pizza

It's a bit surprising that this recipe never made its way to the blog.

The simple explanation is that this is a well-oiled machine that is pre-blogger phase.

This was the most requested (and delivered) recipe in the CC's wild youth. Many pies were made and consumed with suitable libations all around (champagne! martinis!) and much merriment was made with all and sundry for very little cost.

Rewind the clock, and once upon a time, the CC used to be a serious bread person. Natural fermentation, mid-night feedings, the whole nine yards. That's all very wonderful, and mind you, it does lead to spectacular bread, but why bother when the bakery literally a block away can do it for you? (That's New York, my friends!)

This recipe adopts the best of both worlds. Dried yeast (= convenience) but the slow development of flavor that comes from natural fermentation. It works perfectly for parties because you can make it in the morning, and it will be ready in the evening.

Standard dried yeast (saccharomyces cerevisiae) has been bred for exactly one purpose. Fast fermentation.

Live fast, die young.

That's what dried yeast does. Reproduce a lot. Minus the cocaine and the parties. Alas, they also happen to be asexual! Sucks to be them.

The problem with this fast fermentation is while it does make the dough rise quickly, it does not allow it to gain the complexity that it would have if the yeast could chow down on the sugars present in the flour.

The trick is straightforward. Use very little of the dry yeast, and further retard the fermentation process by lowering the temperature. We are undoing what the marketeers want in the interest of taste!

There's a second trick that most ol'-school bakers know. It's called rye flour. Rye flour is the crack-cocaine of the yeast world. They love it (= high sugar content.) They chow down, go nuts and reproduce like crazy.

In this case, the idea is very simple. First make a poolish (slurry of rye flour, yeast, and water.) Let the yeast go completely crazy. Then mix in the regular flour, and stick it in the fridge.

The first two steps are the trick to the amazingness that is this recipe. Do not skip them under any circumstances!

Incidentally, for all you lovers of convenience, this recipe works perfectly well if you skip the retardation process. You will just not get the complexity of taste though.

Thirdly, you need a pizza stone. There's no need to buy a fancy one. Just get some unglazed tiles and stick them in the oven. The reason is very simple. Air has barely any thermal capacity (ability to hold heat.) The oven is filled with air. You need something in there that can hold heat. The ideal objects are things that are impossible to heat (= stone.) They take forever to heat precisely because they have a huge capacity to hold heat.

The CC has the stone permanently in his oven. It works magnificently in holding heat. Everything from mac-n-cheese to braised lamb is helped on its way by the stone.

Fourth, the CC is going to give a caveat. This is a recipe with flour that has a very high "hydration quotient". That means the dough is quite close to being liquid. There's a lot of water in there. Working with dough with a high hydration quotient is quite hard. It requires some experience. The CC has had more than his share of "legendary disasters" with breads that have high HQ's. If you are a newbie, just use less water. You will find it easier and you will have great results anyway (with a completely different pizza texture though!)

Fifth, the CC will not talk about the toppings but he will give a warning. In order to be successful, the toppings have to be reasonably dry. Which means that if you plan to use veggies (onions, peppers, mushrooms), then you must at the very least dry sautée them on a skillet to get the moisture out.

Even a tomato "sauce" must be on the dry side for this to work.

Finally, this is not a Neapolitan pizza. The dough is totally different. In order to be from "Napoli", you need far less hydration and a totally different flour, and a goddamn wood-burning oven (good luck!)

Better to abide by the golden rule: There are many pizzas in the CC's house.

Also, for all you control-freaks, when the dough is this wet, it's near impossible to control the shape. Yes, the pizza will be roughly round, more likely elliptical, or even like the map of Italy. Just enjoy it.

Buon appetito!


Ingredients

Starter

2 tsp yeast
2/3 cup rye flour
4 oz water

Dough

2 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp Maldon sea salt
1 2/3 cups white flour
5 oz water

Recipe

Mix all the starter ingredients together to a starter dough. It should be like sludge. Let it sit for at least 30 minutes. At the end of this, it should be bubbling. If not, your yeast are dead. Bail out.

Mix the rest of the stuff. Add water till you have a sticky dough. You can just use a mixing spoon to mix it. It's quite wet and sticky. Kinda like a runny clay. There will be a light sheen on the surface.

Stick it in the fridge till 5 hours before you are ready to eat.

The dough will have ballooned. Deflate it with a ladle. You will notice it has changed in consistency completely. The dough will be a lot more "dough"-like, the stickiness will be "flowy" rather than "clumpy". There should be a strong sheen on the surface, and a great yeasty smell.

(This yeasty smell is why this pizza goes great with champagne. Ahem!)

Pre-heat the oven to 475°F for at least an hour while the dough rises.

Assemble the pizza dough with a lot of flour on a pizza peel. Assemble the toppings as required. Slide the pizza onto the stone (this requires some back-and-forth motion practice.)

The last piece is the hard part. For beginners, the CC recommends corn-meal rather than flour because it helps the sliding part. Also, ignore the toppings initially, get the pie in there and a few minutes later, top the pizza while it is structurally intact.

Bake for 12-13 minutes.

You'll never go out for pizza again!

Frozen Vegetables

The CC pulled one of those ziploc bags out of the freezer. There was an incredulous sound made by one of the lesser species of the earth.

"What is that?"

"Frozen corn."

"But they're in a ziploc bag."

"???"

The CC was mystified. Had he entered the Twilight Zone?

"What brand are they?"

DOH! The invisible hand of idiocy smacked the CC's head with a powerful whack. The CC tapped his foot to gain his equilibrium (such as it is.)

"What do you think frozen vegetables are?"

"Ummmm .... vegetables that are frozen."

("Exactement, mon pauvre imbécile petite!)

"And who freezes the vegetables?"

This was the exact moment that enlightenment struck the ignorami with much more weight than the afore-mentioned invisible hand of idiocy.

Then the CC expounded at lyrical leisure (as he is wont to do.) Clearly, it made perfect economic and culinary sense to buy excellent summer vegetables (corn, peas) at dirt-cheap prices, and freeze them for future food-gasmic delight!

Lord, what fools these mortals be!

Corn Risotto with Crab Balls

This will appear to be a difficult recipe. However, if the CC can make it on a weekday, so can you.

It's called prep and advance planning. Also, if you read the recipe carefully, you will see that there are fairly obvious "synergies" between the three sections. If you use your time wisely, and this is a skill, you will see that this is a fairly simple recipe.

The herbs are fairly interchangeable. You will get great results with basil, rosemary, sage, or thyme. Tarragon can be a little overpowering so should be used with a spare hand. Combinations also work.

After the recipe below, the CC presents the underlying logic -- why is this dish the way it is? (Hopefully, this section will turn into a regular trend.)

This level of analysis which explains the harmony of flavors, aesthetics, nutrition and palate feel is absolutely necessary if you want to get to the "next level" in cooking.


Ingredients

Corn Broth

6 cobs corn (shucked, keep the cobs)
1 large red onion
sage

Crab Balls

1/2 cup crabmeat
1/2 carrot (grated - read below what to with the remaining half carrot)
1 red serrano (yes! it must be red)
2 eggs
breadcrumbs
sage (chopped very fine)

Corn Risotto

4 leeks (chopped fine, white parts only)
2 cups arborio rice (or carnaroli or vialone nano.)
1/2 carrot (grated)
1 cup parmigiano reggiano
1 cup chopped wild greens with a bitter edge (mizuna, arugula, etc.)
1 cup white wine
sage (chopped very fine)
black pepper

olive oil

Recipe

Prepare the corn broth. This step can be done ahead of time.

Sweat the onions in olive oil. Add the cobs, half of the corn kernels and the sage. Fry languidly for 5-7 minutes. Cover with water, and bring to a boil. Skim the impurities, and simmer for 20 minutes. Remove the cobs, blend the mixture, and pass through a fine sieve. (Yes, this is a lot of work. Deal with it!)

Combine the crabmeat, very finely chopped serrano, grated carrot, two eggs, breadcrumbs, salt and pepper. The mixture should be loose but fashionable into balls. Create small balls out of them. Pan fry them in a skillet with a layer of olive oil, and drain on paper towels.

Now, we prepare a standard risotto. Keep the corn broth on a simmer.

Fry the leeks languidly (4-6 minutes.) Add the rice, and fry till the kernels of the rice are visible. Add the white wine and stir. Add ladles of the broth, and stir. Repeat.

Two-thirds of the way in, add the grated carrot. Towards the end, add the greens and the rest of the corn kernels.

Add the grated parmigianio-reggiano and the sage.

Plate.

Recipe Logic

The basic idea started as a corn risotto.

The CC had some corn soup in his kitchen, and it made sense to turn it into a broth, and make the risotto. However, this would've been too mundane - monochromatic if you will - corn flavor would, of course, be amazing but there is nothing to make the dish either visually interesting or amazing on the second bite. For that, we need contrast. Also, there is not enough protein in the dish.

Hence, the need for a topping. Mushrooms were considered but the season for chanterelles is long past. Seared scallops would've been a complete winner. That would be one direction to go into but it was a bit of a cliché. Plus, the texture would be soft on soft. Not a recipe for a knockout.

So the CC went in the direction of a different cliché -- corn and crab -- a classic in many cuisines -- French, American, Vietnamese. From the seared scallops, the CC went with crab cakes but they are mundane so the CC punched it up with a slight sweetness and color (carrot) and spice (serrano). You get a textural contrast as a free bonus -- the soft, wet risotto punched up by a crisp crab ball.

Now, to make the color act as tie-in to the balls as well as a visual punchline, a slight bit of grated carrot would work in the risotto but it would make the dish too sweet (with the corn, corn broth, etc.) so the CC added a base note of bitter greens which also add a dash of green color.

The herbs tie it all together. By making them identical across the board, the dish has a coherent feel.

Please note that the dish has both the aesthetics and nutritional complexity of the very Japanese washoku.

Spam

Not the edible kind!

Ads and other spam are not allowed on this blog.

Apologies to those who have subscribed to "comment updates" for all the recent spam.

The CC is going to keep the blog un-moderated for the time being but if the spam ads increase beyond a certain level, the policy may change.

The Haul

The CC was away on a mini-vacation to Lake Placid.

On the way back, at the farmers' market in nearby Keene, he picked up: celeriac, carrots, garlic, red onions, pearl onions, baby potatoes, lamb shanks and lamb kidneys.

On this nippy Sunday evening, a vegetable broth is being prepared. The carrot fronds, and celeriac fronds will not be wasted.

They will glow with the golden song of a late summer.

Fideua in Barcelona

This was a magnificent meal. The CC had the fideua negra (black noodles with cuttlefish in its ink.)

The second dish, pan con tomate (bread rubbed with olive oil, garlic and tomatoes) is deceptively simple. Make it right, and it's so heavenly that you could just eat it all day long. (Once again, pictures do not do it justice.)

Anchovies with olive oil and sherry vinegar
Pan con tomate
Fideua negra

Summer Risotto

This is a glorious farewell-to-summer treat.

At the farmers' market, the tomatoes were glorious but nobody wanted any because "summer was over" - well, it's not - the CC is still blasting fans and the occasional air-conditioning. That's the problem with going by dates rather than weather. Things are not always quite so.

Anyway, a crazy number of tomatoes were bought, and logic necessitated that a last ta-ta to summer was in order.

This is riot of colors (as you can see below.) Oddly enough, it also happens to follow the traditional rules of the Japanese washoku.


Ingredients

6 pounds ripe summer tomatoes (yep! you heard that right)

1 small yellow squash
1 small zucchini

1 ear corn (if available.)
1 cup peas (freshly shelled)

1/4 cup green beans (cut into medium length)
1/4 cup purple beans (cut into medium length)
1/4 cup yellow beans (cut into medium length)
1/4 cup Italian flat beans (cut to resemble the above)

1 large red onion (diced very fine)
4 cloves garlic (diced very fine)
2 cups arborio rice (or carnaroli.)
purple basil (lots!!!, shredded by hand or snipped with scissors)

3 cups excellent white wine (1 cup for recipe, 2 cups to drink)

olive oil
salt
pepper
1/2 cup grated parmigiano-reggiano

Recipe

Bring a pot of water to boil. Dunk the tomatoes in batches for about 8 minutes each (depending on ripeness.) Pass the lot through a food mill to get a rich broth of tomatoes. You should have about 8-12 cups of tomato broth. (This is work. Deal!)

Bring the tomato broth to a slow boil. A lot of foam will rise to the surface. Skim, baby, skim.

Reduce the broth for about 45-60 minutes until it is "sticky" (Logic: this is the Maillard reaction with some caramelization taking place.) This is the "hard" part but since, it quite literally requires no work, it cannot really be called that.

Reconstitute with water to bring it back up to the original 8 cups.

Now, we prepare a standard risotto.

On a seperate burner, keep the above tomato broth at a low simmer. It doesn't have to literally simmer just that it needs to be on the hot side so as to not drop the temperature of the risotto when you dunk a ladleful in.

Fry the onions and the garlic at a medium-low heat for about 6 minutes. Add the beans, and fry for an additional 4 minutes. Add the zucchini and yellow squash and fry for an additional 4 minutes. Add the rice and fry till the rice is translucent and the kernel of the rice is visible (this is really obvious if you actually make this recipe as opposed to just reading this post.)

Add salt and pepper to taste. At this point, the CC adds a cup of white wine he's been drinking (read below!)

Add two ladles of the hot tomato broth, and stir. Keep stirring while it cooks. You are releasing the starch in this process. Ladles of broth and stir, ladles of broth and stir. Yes, this is fuckin' boring but deal with it. Have the afore-mentioned white wine.

Towards the end, add the corn and the peas (Logic: they cook really quickly, and you don't want them to turn into mush.)

Turn off the heat.

Add the grated parmigiano-reggiano (the mantecura), and the purple basil. Serve immediately with lots of black pepper.

Olives, Glorious Olives!

Particularly for the vegetarians ...

Cochinillon (Suckling Pig)

A Spectacular Meal in Córdoba!

This is one of those epic meals that you only encounter once in your life. Naturally, the CC disdains such absurdly romantic notions so he went there for lunch two days later, and experienced it twice!

The picture of tomatoes below is deceptive. A picture cannot do it justice; it was poetry on a plate.

They were "only" tomatoes, sprinkled with fleur de sel (fiori di sale), and drizzled with olive oil. However, the tomatoes had quite literally been picked minutes before from the garden. They were still warm from the heat of the sun, and smelled like TOMATOES.

When years from now, the CC has his "madeleine"-moment, these tomatoes will be it!

Salmorejo, Gazpacho
Ajo blanco (Gazpacho with almonds)
Tomatoes with fleur de sel and olive oil
Frituras de verduras (Fried vegetables)
Rabo del toro (Braised oxtail)
Flan
Espresso

Oregano Pesto

Oregano is one of those rare herbs that both dries, and freezes well.

At the end of summer, the CC just makes a batch of pesto (oregano, olive oil, salt), and freezes it. Chip off a block and add it to anything you like.

Or you could just freeze it in those mini ice-trays, and then dump into a freezer bag.

Either way it works like a charm.

Pesto, Gigantes, Cherry Tomatoes

Last of the summer specials!

Arugula, Walnuts, Duck Salami

Pea-Broth Risotto

This recipe has summery goodness written all over it. It's a bit of work but not so much if you have an immersion blender (a "magic" tool, if ever there was one!)

Ingredients

1 lb organic unshelled peas (yeah, it needs to be organic!)
1 cup carnaroli rice
1 large red onion (diced)
basil
olive oil
basil
black pepper
salt
1 cup parmigiano-reggiano



Recipe

Shell the peas. Retain the shells. We are going to use the shells, and hence they need to be organic.

Fry half of the red onion for at least 4 minutes. Add the shells and fry at a low heat for at least 5-6 minutes. Add salt and pepper, and 4 cups of water. Bring to a simmer, and simmer at a low heat for 20 minutes.

Blend the mixture. The pods are absurdly fibrous and will not really blend. Strain the mixture through a sieve, and toss the fibrous part. You will be left with a lovely pale-green pea broth.

Bring the pea broth to a low simmer.

Now, we make a standard risotto using the pea broth.

Fry the rest of the diced onions in some olive oil. Add in the rice. Fry for a bit until translucent. Add the broth in ladle, and stir. Broth and stir, broth and stir, broth and stir till the risotto is almost done.

Add the peas towards the end. They will cook very fast. Add the basil as well.

Finally, the mantecura with the parmigiano-reggiano.

If ever there was green sex in a bowl, this would be it!

"He's Not Mad, He's Merely Crazy ..."

"... and he's the Tomato Man!", said the farmer to his buddies at the crack of dawn.

Twenty pounds of tomatoes, half a pound of tomato paste, happiness next February!

(For the visually inclined.)

Summer Corn Chowder

Recipe: Corn Chowder.

This has a ton of basil instead of parsley, and is best served cold.

Pasta with Summer Tomato Sauce

Recipe: Simple Tomato Sauce.

The Food of the Gods

heirloom tomatoes, raw-milk cheese, basil, drizzled olive oil, fleur de sel

Eataly

One word review: absurd.

Two word review: merde extraordinaire.

Three word review: horrible and overpriced.

This is New York not some shitty provincial town. It's easy enough to get fine ingredients. You could take a cab-ride everywhere, get better stuff, and it would still be cheaper!

So, if you want to buy shitty tomatoes at $8/lb (which are from Florida, by the way), go ahead! The rest of us will just buy some real tomatoes.

Globalización

You scour India looking for real asafoetida (= resinous form) and you find it in ... Spain?

Por qué no?

The Cure for Depression

Twelve pounds of heirloom tomatoes from a record hot summer. Cheaper than a therapist!

Tapas en España : Part 5

Manzanilla
Pulpo
Jamón Iberico

Tapas en España : Part 4

This is squid stuffed with a mixture of cooked cod eggs, onions, and peppers served cold.

This is bacalão (rehydrated dried cod) poached, and served with squid ink, and a hot sauce with peppers.

Tapas en España : Part 3

Cañaillas

Tapas en España : Part 2

Pulpo (Galician style)
Boquerones
Gambas al ajillo

Tapas en España : Part 1

Salpicón de mariscos
Pan con gambas y ajillo

Spain

The CC is headed to Spain for a "long" vacation. Back with wondrous food stories "soon"!

Heatwave

If you don't know, we're suffering from an epic heat wave. Too hot to cook, too hot to eat, and forget about posting!

Back soon.

Orecchiete with Beans, Carrots, Arugula and Pinenuts

This is another one of those week-day dishes that is far more phenomenal than it sounds. It is also amenable to prep ahead of time.

The Italians like to cook their arugula. It does bring out its peppery nature!

Ingredients

1 cup cooked beans (cannellini, or similar)
1 onion (sliced into thin half-rounds)
1 carrot
2 cups arugula
1/4 cup pinenuts

olive oil
salt
pepper
parmigiano-reggiano

Recipe

Cook the white beans in salted water until edible. This step can be done ahead of time, say on the weekend.

Shred the carrots using a box grater.

Toast the pinenuts on a skillet.

Cook the orecchiete in salted water until just under al dente.

Meanwhile, heat some olive oil in a pan, and sautée the onions over medium-high heat. Fry the carrots, followed by the beans, salt and pepper. Add a few tablespoons of the pasta water to thin. Toss in the arugula followed by the orecchiete.

Top with the parm and the pinenuts.