Canal House Cooking Volume No. 7: La Dolce Vita

by Christopher Hirsheimer and Melissa Hamilton
photos by Christopher Hirsheimer; illustrations by Melissa Hamilton

Facts: Andrews McMeel Publishing LLC,  124 pages, $29.95 (or Amazon at $12.90)
Photos: 55, plus illustrations
Recipes: 66
Give To: Passionate home cooks with a bent toward Italian cooking

At the risk of being accused of having a bias toward Italian cookbooks, I’m going to review two in a row. But, other than the fact that each book has tasty Italian recipes, they couldn’t be more different. And, Canal House Cooking, Volume 7: La Dolce Vita is a gem.

Canal House — which happens to be on a canal — isn’t a restaurant but rather a studio/kitchen/atelier where Christopher Hirsheimer and Melissa Hamilton cook every day. They are proponents of home cooking – even the tagline is “home cooking, by home cooks, for home cooks.”

Oh, and you noticed that this is Volume No. 7? Previous volumes focused on seasonal, holiday, and farmers’ market cooking. Then one afternoon, a lunch of cannelloni inspired them to focus on Italian food, specifically homemade food.

To have true in-depth knowledge of Italian home cooking, they needed to be on Italian soil. A rustic Tuscan farmhouse was their base camp for a month – daily excusions would be their fodder. The first day they noticed that a vegetable farmer was within walking distance and hiking a bit further they “passed a garage with the door rolled up and noticed two aproned women… chatting away as they plucked a pile of chickens.” Back at the farmhouse that evening, they dined on roasted capon with chestnut stuffing. Each day was an adventure that ended in the kitchen developing recipes and recreating flavors.

The experience yielded toothsome recipes like Speck, Fontina & Lemon Panino, Salt Cod with Tomatoes and Green Olives, Braised Lamb & Green Beans and Vin Santo-Poached Pears with Gorgonzola Dolce. All courses are represented in clear and well written recipes, i.e., a few cocktail recipes followed by antipasti, soups, pasta and rice, fish, meats and desserts. Salute Melissa and Christopher!

To see Canal House and hear the authors talk about Italianate cooking watch this video.

Gelato di Gianduia

Makes about 1 quart

photo © by Christopher Hirsheimer

In any form, the classic Piemontese combination of toasted hazelnuts and chocolate is one of our favorite flavors. You’ll see why, when you taste this luxurious gelato.

Ingredients
3 cups skinned hazelnuts
2 1/4 cups whole milk
1 1/4 cups heavy cream
3/4 cup sugar
6 egg yolks
Pinch of salt
6 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa
1 tablespoon Frangelico or other hazelnut liqueur
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Method
1. Heat the oven to 350°F and toast the hazelnuts on a baking sheet until deep golden brown, about 15 minutes. When cool, finely grind 2 cups of the nuts in a food processor. Chop the remaining cup of nuts and set them aside.

2. Put the milk and cream into a saucepan and bring to a simmer over medium heat. Remove the pan from the heat, and stir in finely ground nuts, and steep for one hour. Strain through a fine-mesh sieve into another saucepan, pressing on the solids before discarding them. Add 1/2 cup of sugar to the milk. Bring to a simmer over medium heat, stirring until the sugar dissolves.

3. Put the egg yolks, salt, and the remaining 1/4 cup sugar into a medium mixing bowl and whisk together until thick and pale yellow. Whisk in the cocoa. Gradually ladle about 1 cup hot milk into the yolks, whisking constantly. Stir the warm yolk mixture into the hot milk in the saucepan. Reduce the heat to low, stirring constantly, until the custard is thick enough to coat the back of a spoon and registers between 175°F and 180°F on an instant read thermometer, about 3-5 minutes.

4. Strain the custard into a medium bowl. Add the liqueur and vanilla and stir frequently until cool. Cover and refrigerate until completely chilled, about 4 hours. This will keep in the refrigerator for up to 2 days.

5. Churn the custard in an ice-cream maker following the manufacturer’s directions. Just before the gelato has finished churning, add the reserved chopped nuts, letting the paddle stir them in. Transfer the gelato to a quart container with a lid. Cover and freeze for a couple of hours or until it is just firm.

Tags: Canal House Cooking Volume 7 La Dolce Vita, chocolate hazelnut gelato, Christopher Hirsheimer, cookbook review, Linda Avery, Melissa Hamilton, recipe
Posted in Book & Product Reviews, Desserts, Recipes | No Comments »

Jaclyn Douma did something lots of people dream of doing but never do: she published a cookbook.

It isn’t fancy or filled with page-after-page of glorious food close-ups (although there is a small section at the beginning with 28 professional photos of some of the dishes).

Instead, the book is filled with simple, easy to read and understand recipes. These aren’t the kind of dishes I would cook, but darn if I’m not smitten with this book and the way Douma put it together.

Our First Year is a compilation of recipes (84 in all) Douma developed during her first year of marriage. She figured there were other newlyweds who didn’t know where to begin in the kitchen, so she drew them a map from here to there, beginning with a pantry list and section called “Bits of Advice.”

She put together 13 party ideas and gives tips on how to execute them. There’s a section on menus, too, so the new bride knows how to put a meal together, and just in case there’s a question about an ingredient or cooking technique, she penned a basic glossary.

Snuggle Pigs

Makes 40 wieners

Ingredients:
1 (14-oz.) package cocktail wieners/little sausage smokies
1 1/2 cups brown sugar (loosely packed)
10 strips of bacon
Toothpicks

Method:
Preheat oven: 400° F. Place sausages in a bowl so they are easier to handle. Cut uncooked bacon into 4 sections and wrap each wiener with bacon, securing with a toothpick. Place wrapped wieners in a 9″ X 9″ casserole dish and cover with brown sugar. Make sure you cannot see any wieners. Then cover with aluminum foil and bake at 400 ºF for 18 to 20 minutes covered and an additional 15 minutes uncovered or until brown sugar has turned into a liquid.

Just a little Secret

No need to keep these babies warm. Snuggle Pigs are great at room temperature as well.

Jaclyn Douma’s website: a-sugarnspice-life.com and blog: passion2crave.blogspot.com 

Tags: appetizer, cocktail wieners, cookbook, Jaclyn Douma, Our First Year cookbook, recipe
Posted in Appetizers, Book & Product Reviews | 4 Comments »

Editor’s note: Linda Avery returns with a look at Colman Andrews’ new cookbook, The Country Cooking of Italy and an easy recipe for frico (cheese crisps). Interestingly, Gabrielle Hamilton, author of Blood, Bones & Butter, was in Phoenix recently for a book signing  and said “ if we think we have enough Italian cookbooks, we don’t and — and we need his The Country Cooking of Italy.”

The Country Cooking of Italy

by Colman Andrews
photos by Christopher Hirsheimer and Melissa Hamilton

Facts: Chronicle Books, 392 pages, $50.00 (or Amazon at $29.56)
Photos: I counted 60 in the first 150 pages – let’s consider that representative
Recipes: Hundreds – literally
Give To: passionate home cooks, Italian food lovers

When I reviewed Colman Andrews’ The Country Cooking of Ireland in 2009, I wondered how long it him took to put together such a collection. Apparently the answer is about two years. This is a man who grabs the bull by the horns; a man who doesn’t do anything slipshod.

After the success and awards garnered by “Ireland” (his sixth James Beard and the Julia Child/IACP award), he kicked it into high gear and two years later, another voluminous cookbook is introduced: The Country Cooking of Italy. He again partnered with noted photographer Christopher Hirsheimer. (By the way, Andrews and Hirsheimer were two of the co-founders of Saveur Magazine in 1994.)

The book is formatted like the Ireland book. Beautifully photographed recipes are peppered with page-long stories, some historical, some educational, some anecdotal from Andrews’ travels. Although images of recipe dishes abound, lifestyle photos deepen the interest and are testimony to Hirsheimer’s talent.

These aren’t the recipes of fine restaurants but of the casalinga (housewife) or what one would be served at an agriturismo (an Italian farm property offering accommodations and meals).

Most pan-Italy cookbooks forget about the little known regions so I was gratified to see numerous mentions of Le Marche, birthplace of my grandparents and Olive all’Ascolana, the deep-fried olives stuffed with meat particularly famous in Le Marche and served in local bars from Venice to Tuscany.

Go to Amazon and use their “Search Inside This Book” feature to see the index of recipes. Remarkable. In no time you’ll be humming “That’s Amore!”

Frico  (Friulano Cheese Crisps)

© photo by Christopher Hirsheimer and Melissa Hamilton

Makes about 20 fritters; serves 6 to 8

These easy-to-make cheese crisps or fritters are a specialty of Friuli, and are best made with Montasio, a firm cow’s milk cheese from that corner of Italy. there is also a cheese from Valcellina in Friuli’s Pordenone Province, rarely seen today, called frico Balacia, specifically meant to be fried. Some purists insist that the cheese must be fried in lard. (A source for Montasio is Corti Brothers).

Ingredients
1 pound/500 grams Montasio or Asiago, grated
2 tablespoons flour
1 tablespoon butter
2 to 3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

Method
1. Combine the cheese and flour in a large bowl, and mix together well but gently with your hands.

2. Melt the butter in a large frying pan over medium-low heat, and add 2 tablespoons of oil.

3. When the oil-butter mixture is hot, working in batches, use a spoon to form fritters 2 to 3 inches/5 to 7.5 centimeters in diameter, using about 2 tablespoons of the cheese mixture for each fritter and gently tamping down each fritter with a spatula. Make sure the edges of the fritters don’t touch.

4. Cook the fritters, without moving them, until their edges turn golden brown, about 3 minutes.

5. Then, using the spatula, carefully turn them and cook until golden, about 2 minutes longer. As the fritters are ready, drain them on paper towels.

6. Serve the fritters at room temperature.

Tags: cheese crisps, Colman Andrews, cookbook review, frico, Linda Avery, recipe, The Country Cooking of Italy
Posted in Appetizers, Book & Product Reviews | No Comments »

I will say this right off the bat: there is nothing authentic or particularly traditional about my carbonara. Zero. Zip. Starting with the pasta.

For example, I use linguine instead of spaghetti.

I realize that’s not that big of a stretch, but I use some other unconventional ingredients, too: half-and-half and smoked salmon.

My carbonara is smoky, smoky — first hit of smoke: applewood smoked bacon; second punch: hardwood smoked salmon. (I told you this isn’t conventional.)

Authentic Roman carbonara calls for pancetta (unsmoked bacon). It also calls for egg yolks, but I use whole eggs instead.

This next part isn’t traditional either. Part of it is — whisking the eggs with the cheese — but whisking in half-and-half instead of pasta water is a guilty deviation.

Some people would balk at adding cream or half-and-half to carbonara. I’m not one of those people.

I don’t throw all caution to the wind — I do heavily salt the pasta water.

It’s important to salt the water (after it comes to a boil) to “season” the pasta. It’s also important to stir the pasta as soon as it’s added to the boiling water to submerge it and keep it from settling to the bottom into a gloppy mess.

I reduce the heat, too. No need to boil it to death, but you do want a good simmer.

After the pasta is gently boiling, start the bacon in a cold skillet over medium heat (I don’t mean chill the skillet first, I mean don’t turn the heat on until the bacon is in the pan). This helps render out as much fat as it’s going to give.

When the bacon is showing signs of crisping, but still hanging on to the last vestals of fat, stir in the garlic. Stir the garlic in too soon, and it will crisp up like the bacon, maybe even burn.

Smoked salmon is the least traditional ingredient in my recipe, but it sure makes a good, smoky carbonara.

This Red King chinook salmon is not cheap ($8 for a 6.5 oz. can). I buy it at a local farmers’ market from Roger Kamb, a jolly fisherman who splits his time between Seattle and Scottsdale. His business is Especial Tuna, and I’d point you to his website, but it doesn’t seem to be working.

Too bad, because this is some great stuff — nothing like the commercial brands found at most supermarkets. You can certainly use one of those brands (my mother made salmon patties with Honey Boy Red (not pink) salmon, but you have to clean it up a bit, removing the skin here and there, and Honey Boy isn’t smoked).

Once the pasta is al dente, drain it (reserve a half a cup or so of the pasta water) and put the pasta in the skillet with the bacon and garlic.

WAIT! Before you do that, I have a confession: I deglaze the pan with rosé first — definitely not traditional.

But it is delicious. You can skip this step if you want.

Once the hot pasta is in the pan with the deglazed bacon and garlic, turn the heat off.

Stir in the egg/cheese/half-and-half mixture. If you leave the heat on, the eggs will scramble (it’s not the end of the world if you get a little scramble, it’s just not traditional, and you know what a stickler for tradition I am).

Toss in the can of smoked salmon and keep tossing. If the sauce seems too thick (and it likely will), pour in some reserved hot pasta water, just enough to make the sauce look creamy.

Season with a good dose of freshly ground black pepper. Top with more grated Parmesan. (And no, the basil leaf isn’t traditional either.)

Pour a glass of rosé if you haven’t already, and dig in quickly, before it cools off.

Smoked Salmon Carbonara

[printable recipe]

This rich, comforting,  if unconventional, carbonara comes together quickly — less than 30 minutes. You can do the prep while you’re waiting for the pasta water to boil. It’s a good idea to warm your pasta bowls, too, as this dish gets cold quick once it’s done. It makes three hearty servings, but you can stretch it to four reasonable size portions, especially if you serve a side salad and crusty bread. Wine pairing: I drink a dry rosé (not surprising if you know me) but an unoaked or lightly oaked Chardonnay pairs well, too.

Serves 3-4

Ingredients:

1/2 pound linguine
2 to 3 tablespoons kosher salt

2 strips of bacon, sliced into 1/4-inch strips crosswise
2 medium cloves garlic, minced
1/4 cup dry rosé or dry white wine

2 large eggs
1/2 cup grated Parmesan, plus more for garnishing
1/4 cup half-and-half
Generous pinch fresh grated nutmeg

1 (6.5 oz.) can high quality smoked salmon, drained

1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Method:

1. Bring 5-1/2 to 6 quarts of cold water to a boil in a large pot. Stir in salt when water comes to a full boil.
2. Stir in pasta, constantly stirring until pasta is submerged and soft. Reduce heat to medium-high (just enough to get a gentle but active boil).
3. Place bacon in a large skillet over medium heat. Cook until almost crisp, about four to five minutes, then stir in garlic. Cook until garlic is fragrant, about a minute, and then deglaze pan with 1/4 cup wine, scraping up the browned bacon bits. Cook until the wine is reduced to 2 tablespoons.
4. Whisk the eggs, Parmesan, half-and-half, and nutmeg together in a bowl or measuring cup while the bacon is cooking and set aside.
5. Drain pasta when it is al dente (about 7 to 8 minutes total cooking time). Reserve about a half a cup of the pasta cooking water.
6. Place the hot pasta into the deglazed skillet with the bacon and garlic. Turn off the heat.
7. Pour the egg mixture into the hot pasta, tossing quickly as you pour. Stir in the drained can of salmon, breaking up the big lumps.
8. Stir in reserved pasta water if the sauce seems too thick. Sometimes I need 1/4 cup, other times I use 1/2 cup. The sauce should look creamy.
9. Stir in the black pepper. Toss well to distribute the pepper. Taste and if desired, season with more pepper and/or kosher salt.
10. Divide among warmed pasta bowls and garnish with more Parmesan. Serve immediately.

NOTE: Recipe halves easily, but if you want to double, only double the amount of pasta, and 1.5 times the remaining ingredients.

Tags: Especial Tuna, linguine, Linguine Carbonara, pasta, recipe, Scottsdale farmers' market, smoked salmon, smoked salmon carbonara
Posted in Fish & Seafood, Pasta, Recipes | 13 Comments »

Funny thing, I was hunting for truffle oil, not pepper sauces.

But four pepper sauces were tucked in my box of truffle oil. They were a gift from the small business that makes both truffle oil (from Oregon white truffles) and now pepper sauces.

I contacted the company  – Oregon Truffle Oil, Inc. — and explained that I don’t ask for or generally accept free product. (In the interest of full disclosure, most, but not all, of the cookbooks Linda Avery reviews for Pen & Fork are sent to her from publishers.) I asked the company for a bill for the sauces I didn’t order. They countered with, how about we send you an invoice for the extra shipping? Fine.

So, these sauces were free (save the extra $5 shipping plus the original $51 order I placed for their truffle oils — more on those another time).

All four sauces ($8 each, or $25 for all four) are wheat free and contain no preservatives. The first ingredient is Pinot Noir wine, hence the name Pinot & ____. It makes sense. The company is based in Willamette Valley, Oregon, arguably home of the best American Pinot Noirs.

In fact, all four have a winey nose when you take a sniff. The wine taste, however, is lost in a myriad of other flavors, but it seems to be a good base for a sauce, just as tomato concentrate is.

All four sauces contain gluten-free soy sauce, and cornstarch as a thickener. From there, it’s lemon juice and/or distilled vinegar for tartness, some brown sugar to cut the acid, and salt and spices.

Sodium content ranges from 170 mg (7%) to 370 mg (15%) per tablespoon, which seems low to normal for sauces, but all taste salty straight from the bottle. Could be because soy sauce is the second ingredient and table salt is also listed in the ingredient list. For comparison, my beloved A-1 sauce has 280 mg (12%) of sodium per tablespoon. Once I cooked with the Pinot sauces, however, the saltiness mellowed, although it did impact how much additional salt I used.

The most intriguing of the bunch is the Pinot Szechuan. It has Chinese 5-Spice notes and a hefty heat kick. According to the ingredient list, it gets its kick from habanero chile, not Sichuan peppercorns (perhaps Sichuan peppercorns are included in the generic “spices” ingredient). No matter, it’s still an intriguing sauce.

The chipotle flavored sauce is appropriately smoky, and the habanero is appropriately fruity hot — make that HOT, but in a pleasant lip-numbing way – (it has a touch of orange peel, and even chipotle to add some smokiness). In fact, the habanero might be my favorite, and I’ll try it out in creamy coleslaw and even on a baked potato. (Why not? I have been known to load up a baked potato with A-1 sauce instead of butter. Try it.)

I used the Pinot & Pepper Sauce to make the Bloody Jack, a recipe included with the sauces. It wasn’t the best bloody Mary I’ve ever tasted (that would be this one) but then again, I never claimed to be a cocktail maven (smoothie savant, yes, cocktail savant, no).

Still, it was a fine bloody Mary (I garnished it with feta stuffed olives from Queen Creek Olive Mill) and it made reading the local newspaper all the more fun.

CZAR’S Bloody Jack

(adapted from CZAR’s Fine Foods)

Makes 1 small cocktail

Ingredients:

3 ounces tomato juice (I used low-sodium V-8)
1-1/2 ounces vodka
1 ounce Pinot-Pepper Sauce
1/8 teaspoon celery salt
1/2 ounce lemon juice (about 1/4 of a medium lemon)

Method:

Combine all ingredients in a cocktail shaker (without ice). Shake and strain mixture over a small cocktail glass filled with ice. Garnish with celery stick, cucumber spear or olives.

Tags: bloody Mary, CZAR'S pepper sauces, Oregon Truffle Oil, Queen Creek olives, recipe
Posted in Beverages, Book & Product Reviews, Recipes | 2 Comments »

UPDATE: Who says 13 isn’t a lucky number? The random number generator spit out 13 and the 13th commenter was Krissy, who says “pulled pork is the BEST!” Congrats, Krissy, the signed copy of Bryan’s Black Mountain Barbecue is on its way to you!
Last month we gave you a sneak peek into Chef Bryan Dooley’s brand new cookbook featuring stories and recipes from his award-winning BBQ joint, Bryan’s Black Mountain Barbecue in Cave Creek, AZ.

We think you’d really like to have this book, so we bought you one. We’re thoughtful that way. And, we also had the chef sign it!

(Fess-up time — actually, we only bought one of you a copy (we’re thoughtful but we’re not rich).  However, YOU might win the book. All you have to do is leave a comment telling us what your favorite BBQ dish is.)

Maybe you like ribs. Bryan’s BBQ ribs were featured in Grub Street’s Big-City Barbecue: 101 Places to Satisfy Your Urban ‘Cue Craving.

Or maybe you love brisket or pulled pork or who knows what you like? Tell us and we’ll put your name in the drawing for the signed copy of the book. If you entry is the random number winner, we’ll mail you a copy of Bryan’s book. It’ that simple.

Fine print: Only one entry per person. Deadline to enter is Friday, January 20th, 2012, at midnight (EST). Winner will be notified via email on Saturday, January 21, 2012. USA addresses only for shipping.

Tags: BBQ beans, BBQ recipes, Bryan Dooley, Bryan's BBQ, Bryan's Black Mountain Barbecue, cookbook giveaway, recipe
Posted in Book & Product Reviews, Recipes, Side Dishes | 25 Comments »

Editor’s note: We promised another cookbook review from Linda Avery to inspire your New Year cooking and here it is: Melissa Clark’s Cook This Now, along with a recipe for grilled lamb sausages paired with an arugula and celery root salad. 

Cook This Now

by Melissa Clark
photos by Andrew Scrivani

Facts: Hyperion, 416 pages, $29.99 (or Amazon at $19.79)
Photos: 21
Recipes: 137 (see Note)
Give To: cooks looking for seasonal inspiration

Cook This Now by Melissa Clark topped Epicurious’ Best Books of 2011 and Clark is all about seasonal cooking.

She sets the stage from the start with content pages listing recipes by month, when their main ingredients can be optimally obtained. Of course, there are plenty of crossovers and nothing will stop you from having November’s Carroty Mac and Cheese if you have a hankering in March.

Each recipe has an addendum, which I really like, dubbed “What Else?” This is where she notes suggestions for substitutions and other information such as buying Atlantic or Spanish mackerel rather than the larger king mackerel with a higher mercury content, or substituting a combination of a lemon and a tangerine for a similar flavor if you don’t happen to have Meyer lemons on hand.

Note: The dustcover of this book announces 120 recipes but that doesn’t include the 17 bonus recipes from Melissa Clark’s cookbook In the Kitchen with A Good Appetite

Also, for space considerations, we cut Ms. Clark’s engaging headnote down a bit. (Sorry, you’ll just have to buy the book to read every delicious word.)

Grilled Sausages with Celery Root Salad with Hazelnuts and Arugula

photo © by Andrew Scrivani

During my junior year abroad in Paris, in between gobbling warm croissants, raw milk cheeses, and countless macaroons, I ate an awful lot of celery root rémoulade.

I never bothered making celery root rémoulade when I was in Paris because it was ubiquitous and cheap. But once I got back to New York, if I wanted any more of the silky, savory salad, I’d have to tackle the homely root and whip some up myself.

And that’s the thing about celery root rémoulade. It starts with celery roots, which, with their hairy skins and muddy crevices, are never going to be the most inviting vegetable in the bin. But once those roots are peeled and grated, a quick toss with lemony, mustard-imbued mayonnaise will make the most of their inner beauty.

These days, my celery root salad of choice is a lighter take on a rémoulade. Instead a mayonnaise, I use a zippy mustard vinaigrette, and serve the salad on a bed of tangy arugula topped with hazelnuts for crunch. It’s marvelous as a first course on its own. Or to make it mealworthy, grill up your favorite sausages-lamb sausages are particularly good-and serve them alongside the salad, letting the mustard from the vinaigrette sauce the sausages and the sausage grease flavor the salad.

Serves 4

Ingredients
For the mustard vinaigrette
1 small garlic clove, finely chopped
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt plus 1 small pinch
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
2 teaspoons sherry vinegar
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
Freshly ground black pepper to taste

1 1/4 pounds sausages, whatever kind you like

For the salad
1 medium celery root, trimmed and peeled (see What Else? below)
5 cups arugula or other salad green, torn into bite-size pieces
1/4 cups finely chopped toasted hazelnuts

Method
Make the mustard vinaigrette
1. With a mortar and pestle or using the flat side of a knife, smash the garlic and tiny pinch of salt to make a paste. Whisk it in a small bowl with the mustard, vinegar, and remaining salt. Whisking constantly, slowly drizzle in the oil until fully incorporated. Season with pepper.

2. Preheat the broiler. Prick the sausages all over with a fork, then lay them on a baking sheet. Broil them about 3 inches from the heat until browned on both sides, 3 to 4 minutes per side (exactly how long will depend on your oven and the thickness of your sausage).

Make the salad
1. Fit a food processor with a large grating blade; grate the celery root. You can also use a box grater, though beware your knuckles. Transfer to a large bowl and add the salad greens and hazelnuts. Pour the vinaigrette over the salad and toss well. season with more salt, lemon juice, and/or olive oil if needed before serving.

What Else?

• This recipe calls for a medium celery root, which is about the same size as a large navel orange (4 or 5 inches in diameter). If you can only get one of the giant, grapefruit-size roots, use about three-quarters of it. Or use it all; just make a little extra vinaigrette to make sure it’s well seasoned.
• Trimming the celery root is probably the hardest and most annoying thing about this recipe. You can use a sharp vegetable peeler, but a sharp paring knife is more efficient.  Either way, be prepared to go deep. You will likely need to hack off about a quarter inch of the surface to get past the divots of dirt.
• This goes really well with mashed Yukon Gold potatoes. To make them, try this: boil the potatoes (unpeeled) in plenty of water until very soft. Drain, let cool, then slip them off the skins. In the same pot you used to boil the potatoes, heat some milk or chicken stock seasoned with salt until simmering. Add the potatoes and a lump of butter (use as much as you can bear; my tolerance is high), and mash with a potato masher or fork over very low heat until as smooth as you like it. We like lumps. Sometimes I leave the skin on the potatoes. Serve all at once.

Tags: Cook This Now, cookbook review, grilled lamb sausage, lamb, Linda Avery, Melissa Clark, recipe, salad
Posted in Book & Product Reviews, Lamb, Recipes, Salads | No Comments »

Some cities outright own a particular dish.

Boston? Clam Chowder. Austin? BBQ — beef brisket to be specific. Atlanta? Fried chicken. Santa Fe? Green chile stew.

In Charleston, it’s shrimp & grits.

You can order shrimp & grits in any city these days — Southern food is a hot trend — but in Charleston, it’s not a trend. It is breakfast, lunch and dinner, and it is woven into the very fabric of this historical city. There is hoity-toity shrimp & grits, down-home shrimp & grits, and everything in between.

Here is a look at six Charleston restaurants and their version of the dish that defines this gracious Southern city.

1. Husk: Bon Appetit magazine’s Best New Restaurant, Husk, serves their seasonal shrimp & grits (above) in a bowl with a roasted tomato broth ladled over Anson Mills grits, with artisan sausage, lardons, and plump, jumbo shrimp. (here is the recipe in NYT.)

2. Jestine’s Kitchen: Rachael Ray, Anthony Bourdain and Roadfood’s Jane & Michael Stern all had a hand in putting Jestine’s Kitchen on the national radar for home-cooking Southern grub like meatloaf, fried chicken and of course, shrimp & grits (above). Jestine’s version features soupy grits with a meaty tasting brown gravy, onions and roasted red peppers. Very basic and delicious, although the shrimp were a tad overcooked.

3. Southend Brewery’s shrimp and grits (above) is more akin to cheese soup with tomatoes, Tasso ham and oh yes, shrimp and grits. The tomato wedges didn’t add much — it would have been better had they been diced, but the shrimp was perfectly cooked. Pair it with the hoppy Castle Pinckney Pale Ale.

4. Marina Variety Store: (left) There is always a line at this kitschy, seafaring restaurant overlooking the marina, but it moves quickly. Ask to sit in the front room for the marina view. MVS serves up a whopping plate of plain white grits topped with a modest amount of sauteed shrimp, cooked just right.

The fried green tomatoes pictured on the plate are optional. Adding a dash of hot sauce is not.

5. Poogan’s Porch: (right) uses yellow, coarse ground grits, thick and sturdy, along with a generous helping of onions, scallions, ham, sausage and tail-on shrimp, sauced in a blue crab gravy. I loved the rough and firm texture of the grits. I did not love having to take the tails off the shrimp.

6. Hominy Grill: I saved the best for last (below). Nothing fancy about this shrimp and grits plate. But everything in this dish has a purpose. The grits were firm but creamy. The shrimp were spiced and perfectly cooked. Bits of salty, smoky bacon and meaty mushrooms provide the supporting cast. Green scallions and a spritz of lemon, and this dish is everything I could ask from this humble, Lowcountry dish. If you love this dish as much as I did, pick up a copy of the recipe booklet. It includes the recipe.

Details:
All six restaurants are located in the historic district of Charleston.
Husk
76 Queen Street
843-577-2500

Jestine’s Kitchen
251 Meeting Street
843-722-7224

Southend Brewery
161 East Bay Street
843-853-4677

Marina Variety Store
17 Lockwood Drive
843-723-6325

Poogan’s Porch (next door to Husk)
72 Queen Street
843-577-2337

Hominy Grill
207 Rutledge Avenue
843-937-0930

Tags: Charleston dining, grits, Hominy Grill, Husk, Jestine's, Marina Variety Store, Poogan's Porch, recipe, shrimp, shrimp and grits, shrimp and grits in Charleston, Southend Brewery
Posted in Travel Eats | 3 Comments »

Editor’s note: Linda Avery reviews the recently released cookbook by super chef Ferran Adrià, a collection of “family meals” prepared for his staff at the now closed El Bulli restaurant in Spain.

The Family Meal: Home Cooking with Ferran Adrià
by Ferran Adrià
photos by Francese Guillamet

Facts: Phaidon Press Inc. 384 pages, $29.95 (or Amazon at $17.15)
Photos: Grab a calculator and do the math (see 4th paragraph below: Open the Book)
Recipes: 93 plus basic recipes
Give to: Gourmet home cooks, professional chefs, cookbook collectors

The name Ferran Adrià immediately summons thoughts of molecular gastronomy: his famous spherical olives which appear as jellied green blobs jiggling on a spoon but burst to fill the mouth with the flavor of intense olive juice. Or the frozen Gorgonzola balloon, a hollow white sphere, about eight inches across and the color of fresh ricotta, topped with a grate of nutmeg meant to be broken (with your fist?) and eaten in shards.

photo © by Francese Guillamet

Ferran Adrià is the father and inspiration of a creative culinary era of deconstructing the dish and reassembling in a way you’ve never seen. His three Michelin star restaurant El Bulli closed last July after 24 years. He will reopen as the El Bulli Foundation in two years, most likely transforming the space as he transforms food.

When I first saw The Family Meal: Home Cooking with Ferran Adrià, I wondered if I need buy a chemistry set or cylinder of liquid nitrogen.

No, this truly is home cooking, the maestro demonstrating in detail how a dish should be done. You see, “family meals” are the repasts of his restaurant family; the menus of dinners prepared and eaten daily by his staff of 75.

He insisted on good food, easy-to-find ingredients that are mostly fresh and the aggregate couldn’t be expensive. (I think I read that the cost could not exceed €6/person but I can’t confirm).

Open the Book. There are 31 meals within. Each meal has a starter, a main, and a dessert. Recipe ingredients are listed for 2, 6, 20 or 75 and carefully calculated (not mathematically but via testing at each level) for each group. So using a bit of math, we know that 31 meals x 3 recipes equals 93 recipes.

photo © by Francese Guillamet

Each recipe has photos showing every step — about 15 photos per recipe. That’s almost 1,400 photos not counting the photo stack of appetizer, main and dessert preceding the meal, photos of utensils, types of fish and more.

It’s a blog but on paper: each step of every recipe is a photo with instructions superimposed. One almost doesn’t need to read English.

Aside: is this some sort of Bizarro world? Maybe the first caveman recipes were chiseled into a rock wall. Then the Egyptians invented paper and recipes were portable and accompanied by illustrations and later photos. Fast-forward to the internet: food blogs have photos of every step of the recipe. Is this where the world turns around? Now photos of every step put back on paper? Should we be sharpening our chisels?

Here is the entrée from Meal 24 which consists of Garbanzo Beans with Spinach & Egg, Glazed Teriyaki Pork Belly, and Sweet Potato with Honey & Cream.

Glazed Teriyaki Pork Belly

Teriyaki is a sweet Japanese sauce used for marinating before roasting or broiling. You can make the teriyaki sauce yourself or use a good-quality, store-bought sauce.

photo © by Francese Guillamet

Serves 6
Ingredients
For the teriyaki sauce
(Makes 4 1/3 cups)
1/3 cup lemongrass, chopped
2 tablespoons fresh ginger, chopped
1 3/4 cups chicken stock
3 cups sugar
1 3/4 cups soy sauce
1 3/4 honey

For the pork belly
2 1/2 pounds pork belly
10 1/2 cups water
2 teaspoons salt
12 black peppercorns
3 garlic cloves
1 onion, roughly chopped
2 1/2 cups teriyaki sauce

Method
For the teriyaki sauce
1. Using a rolling pin or other heavy utensil, crush the lemongrass and ginger.

2. Put the chicken stock, sugar, and soy sauce into a large saucepan.

3. Add the honey.

4. Add the crushed lemongrass and ginger. Put the pan over medium heat, bring to a boil, then boil for 15 minutes.

5. Strain and reserve.

Make the pork belly
1. Put the pork into a large pan with the water. The pork should be well covered, so add more (water) if necessary. Add the salt and peppercorns.

2. Coarsely chop the onions and add to the pan with the garlic.

3. Bring the water to a simmer.

4. Cook the pork covered, for 1 1/2 hours, until cooked through, adding more water if necessary to cover. Remove and place on a cutting board.

5. Preheat the oven to 350°F.

6. Cut the pork into strips about 3/4 inch thick.

7. Place the pork in a roasting pan in a single layer, then cover with the teriyaki sauce.

8. Roast the pork for 30 minutes, regularly basting with teriyaki sauce to glaze.

9. Serve the pork with spoonfuls of the teriyaki sauce.

Tags: cookbook review, El Bulli, Glazed Teriyaki Pork Belly, Linda Avery, pork, recipe, The Family Meal: Home Cooking with Ferran Adria
Posted in Book & Product Reviews, Pork, Recipes | 5 Comments »

Editor’s note: Linda Avery returns with a look at Stephanie Izard’s new cookbook, The Girl in the Kitchen. If you are in Scottsdale on October 16, take a look at the Share Our Strength fundraiser with Stephanie at The Accidental Yard. It’s a chance to get up close and personal with Stephanie, support a great cause and take home a signed copy of the cookbook.

Girl in the Kitchen: How a Top Chef Cooks, Thinks, Shops, Eats, and Drinks
by Stephanie Izard with Heather Shouse
photos by Dan Goldberg

Facts: Chronicle Books, 256 pages, $29.95 (or Amazon at $19.77)
Photos: 45
Recipes: 100
Give to: food-loving home cooks; Top Chef fans; cookbook addicts

The big Chicago buzz last summer (2010) was “Have you been to the goat?” … “How’s the food at the goat?” … “Girl & the Goat? That sounds lewd!” … “Is there actually goat on the menu?” And, in short order, a reservation at Stephanie Izard’s Girl & the Goat restaurant was the hot ticket.

(BTW, the answers to those questions are yes, I’ve been a couple times; the food is creative in composition with complex flavors and delicious; not lewd but rather clever as Stephanie shares her last name, Izard, with a goat antelope which lives in the Pyrenees; and, yes, there are various choices of goat on the menu: confit, sausage on flatbread, empanadas and more).

Stephanie Izard packs 36 hours into a day. While working at “the goat” (an affectionate reference),  she completed her cookbook, The Girl in the Kitchen, and is in the development process of her second restaurant. Plus she spends a good deal of time doing demos for good causes. How does this self-proclaimed party hearty gal find time to throw back a few?

About the cookbook: The recipes in The Girl in the Kitchen are unique and yet Izard states the book is intended to be a guide where sauces and sides can be mixed and matched as you prefer. It only takes an understanding of the “flavor profile of ingredients and their effect on the overall dish” which she successfully explains in each of her headnotes. At heart she is an educator – she wants you to be able to “use visual clues rather than watch the clock” by knowing your kitchen, your equipment and tools, so she tells you what to watch for as you’re cooking.

Appearing every few pages is the feature Ingredient Spotlight (think ramps, miso paste, tomatillos, Wondra flour, et al) explaining again flavor profile, plus how she uses the ingredient and what to look for when purchasing.

There were a lot of mental “ohs” and “ahs” as I read through the recipe list: Sweet-and-Sour Eggplant with Tomatillos, Grilled Lamb-Stuffed Calamari with Crispy Shallots, Pear-Pistachio-Parsnip Soup, Apple-Pork Ragu with Pappardelle, and how about a side of Roasted Radishes with Blue Cheese, Peanuts, and Cilantro? Even the recipe names convey the dimension and balance of tart, sweet, spicy, salty, crispy, creamy, etc.

JUST A MINUTE! I went through the recipes another time. Where is the infamous Wood Oven Roasted Pig Face? Hmmm, I guess that one is reserved for the restaurant but even so, there is no shortage of inventive recipes in this book. If you want to know Stephanie a bit better, watch the Girl in the Kitchen Book trailer on youtube.

Pan-Roasted New York Steaks with Sautéed Cucumbers and Salted Goat Milk Caramel

photo © by Dan Goldberg

Serves 4

While working on some “goat” ideas for my new restaurant, Girl & the Goat, I played around with goat meat, as well as goat’s milk. My old pastry chef from Scylla, Jessie Oloroso, makes an awesome ice cream with goat’s milk caramel, known as cajeta in Mexico. She added cashews for crunch and a bit of salt, convincing me that salted caramel is the only way to go; otherwise, the caramel is just too sweet. Inspired by Jessie’s ice cream (which she now sells at her shop Black Dog Gelato in Chicago), I decided to try a salted goat’s milk caramel as a sauce for a savory dish. The interesting thing with cajeta is that it’s not a classic caramel sauce, as the sugar is not actually what caramelizes. The liquid never reaches a high enough temperature for the added sugar to caramelize; instead, the fats of the milk caramelize with the help of the added baking soda, which neutralizes the natural acids and also helps the milk solids to turn a rich brown color.

So now that you know everything you’d ever want to know about caramelizing goat’s milk, let me explain why I added fish sauce to it. It might seem strange, but that’s the salty element, with just enough earthy funk to pair perfectly with the equally earthy “browned” flavor of the caramel. Sounds weird, but trust me, you’ll love it.

And finally, because the beef and the sauce are so rich, we need to cut through it a bit with some lightly sautéed cucumbers. I realize it also sounds strange to cook cucumbers, but doing so releases some of their natural juices and allows them to quickly soak up the salt, taking on a great flavor and texture while keeping things perfectly refreshing.

Plan of Attack
Up to 3 days ahead: Make the goat milk caramel. Refrigerate.
The night before: Marinate the steaks.
Cook time: Prepare the steaks. While the meat is resting, sauté the cucumbers and reheat the caramel over low heat in a saucepan.

Ingredients
For the Salted Goat Milk Caramel
1 quart goat milk
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 tablespoon fish sauce
2 teaspoons sambal paste
1 teaspoon balsamic vinegar
1 teaspoon soy sauce
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
Salt
Freshly ground black pepper

For the Pan-Roasted New York Strip Steak
3 tablespoons olive oil
3 garlic cloves, minced
1 tablespoon grainy mustard
1 1/2 teaspoons sambal
4 New York strip steaks (about 12 ounces each)
Salt
Freshly ground black pepper
1 tablespoon canola oil
1 tablespoon butter

For the Sautéed Cucumbers
2 tablespoons olive oil
One 12-inch English cucumber, sliced into 1/8-inch rounds
Salt
Freshly ground black pepper
1 tablespoon thinly sliced fresh basil

Method
Make the caramel
1. In a heavy-bottomed saucepan, combine the milk and sugar and slowly bring them to a boil over medium-high heat. Dissolve the baking soda in 1/2 teaspoon warm water. Whisk it into the milk mixture, reduce the heat to medium, and let it simmer. Stir often with a whisk until the mixture reduces and begins to thicken and turn a light caramel color, about 1 hour and 10 minutes. As the caramel begins to darken, reduce the heat and continue to stir constantly with a whisk, making sure the caramel doesn’t stick to the bottom of the pot and burn. Continue to cook and whisk constantly, until the caramel darkens and is thick enough to coat the back of a spoon, about 20 minutes more. It will have reduced to about 1/2 cup when finished. Strain the caramel through a fine-mesh sieve into a small pot. Add the fish sauce, sambal, vinegar, soy sauce, and mustard and season with salt and pepper. Cover and keep warm.

Make the steak
1. Whisk together the olive oil, garlic, mustard, and sambal for the marinade, then rub it into the steaks and refrigerate, preferably overnight but for at least 3 hours. Take the steaks out of the fridge about 30 minutes before getting started so they cook more evenly.

2. Salt and pepper both sides of the steaks. Heat a large skillet or sauté pan over high heat until it’s almost smoking. Add the canola oil, then the steaks. (Don’t overcrowd the pan; cook in two batches if you must.) Once the steaks brown on one side, flip them over, then add the butter to the pan. Tilt the pan and spoon the melted butter over the steaks to baste. Once the edges of the steak are nice and brown, make a small slit to the center of the steak to check for doneness.

3. You’re aiming for medium-rare, so the very center should still be red because the meat will continue to “carry-over cook” as it rests. Remove the steaks from the pan and let them rest on a plate for 5 to 10 minutes to allow the steak to retain its juices and to even out the doneness.

Make the Sautéed Cucumbers
1. While the meat rests, heat a large sauté pan over medium heat. Add the oil, then the cucumbers, and cook until the cucumbers just begins to soften, about 3 minutes. Remove from heat and season with salt and pepper. When ready to serve, toss with the basil.

2. To serve, spoon a couple tablespoons of the caramel onto each plate, top with a steak, and place the sautéed cucumbers alongside.

Tags: beef, Girl & The Goat, Linda Avery, recipe, Stephanie Izard, The Girl in The Kitchen
Posted in Beef, Book & Product Reviews, Recipes | No Comments »

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