Among people who cook, one of the signs that they really, REALLY love you is that you get to pick what they cook. I'm serious about that. Putting aside whatever other comments, kind or otherwise, that someone will make, in the kitchen, Annalena RULES. But occasionally, I will ask someone "what do you want to eat, I will cook it for you."
And today, I cooked for David. I've written about David in these blogs before, so I won't repeat the stories. but David gets to choose. At least this time. And David asked for chicken scaloppine. And so it was.
But what, exactly, is chicken scaloppine? There is no definite answer. A "scaloppine" is literally, a thin slice of something. That's all it is. There is no hint in the name "pollo scaloppine" that gives you any hint as to what goes into it. And if you start looking for recipes, for vitello scaloppine (veal), or maiale scaloppine (pork), and so forth, you will find absolutely no consistency whatsoever. This is unlike pollo cacciatore (chicken hunter style), which begins to give you some idea of what is going on. And there isn't a codified recipe, like with vitello piccata, which ALWAYS has butter, lemon juice, and white wine in it.
But certain things are constant in cooking any scaloppine. First, since the slices are usually thin, and from a bland part of the animal or bird, there has to be butter in the cooking medium. Oil , even olive oil, will not give it enough flavor. And there is always a fortified alcohol of some kind. Beyond that, it's open season. So, with this in mind, and knowing a bit about what David likes, here's how I did it.
I started with a pound of very small scaloppine. These are, essentially, thin chicken cutlets. I put equal amounts of olive oil and butter into a large pan, and after I had floured the chicken, I started heating the fat.
By "flouring the chicken," what I mean is I took a plastic bag, tossed in about a cup of flour and a big teaspoon of salt, and a bit of pepper. Then I put all the chicken in (there were about 10 of them), and shook. I took out each cutlet, and let it rest on a tray, while the butter melted. Then I sauteed them, on both sides. For this, remember Annalena's favorite phrase: "engage your senses." You can't see the side that's browning, so listen. When the chicken has browned, there is a distinct change in the sound of the fat. That's when you flip it, and you listen again.
When the chicken was browned, I put it back on the tray, and put it in the oven just to keep it warm while I prepped vegetables. I have a king's ransom worth of morel mushrooms in the refrigerator, and I know David likes mushrooms. So do I, and so does Guy. I sliced up about a pound of them, and tossed them into a new pan, with oil (don't clean the chicken pan yet. We're coming back to that) And... inspired by a restaurant visit from a while ago, I had a bunch of watercress where I cut the tough stems off, and just tossed the tender part in. That took all of about five minutes to cook down , while the chicken took about 8 minutes (had I been more organized, I could have done these simultaneously).
NOW, onto the pan you cooked the chicken in. Pour off about half the fat, and add, oh, about a third of a cup of dry marsala wine into it. (you can use other spirits, like vermouth, or sherry, or even a dry port. You could use red wine, too). Turn up the heat (you should add the spirits to a cold pan, because otherwise, you can get a flare up from all the alcohol), and let it cook down to about a half of the volume. At this point, I wanted more sauce, so I added sherry, as I was out of marsala. I cooked it down the same way. Then, I put the chicken back in, and just turned them in it until they were coated.
VOILA. A perfect dish. You could certainly serve this forth for dinner. If you wanted more heft, you could make polenta, or pasta, or another vegetable. And you should play with this. You can use any vegetables you want, or you can leave them out.
David is one of those friends who can have anything he wants for a meal. I'm lucky to have that quality of friend.
Saturday, May 31, 2008
Friday, May 30, 2008
The rice thing to do
That title is even less clever than the other ones I've written, but the only other one I could come up with is "rice is nice." It really is, but as a catchy line? BLECH. Sort of the "Hey, what sign are you?" or "Do you know karate, because your body is killing me."
People really say those things, don't they? Oh, here I go, digressing again. Back to the subject at hand.
We learn, from food anthropologists, that rice is the staple food of a larger percentage of the world's population than any other. In fact, Annalena knows from her undergraduate years when she studied Asian languages, that the character for rice and the character for food , in Chinese, are one and the same (and she could probably write it into this blog if she knew more about computers, but she doesn't, so you'll have to accept it as fact). Also, as a point of fact, the standard way to say "good morning" in Chinese is to ask "have you had your morning rice yet?" It's that important. Think about it: the word for "food" generally is "rice." There's something pretty deep there.
Many of us don't eat much rice at home. We eat potatoes, bread, but little rice. I suspect that this is due , in part, to a feeling that it's hard to cook, or "mysterious." To some extent I can understand this from my early life. Bear with me through a story that I SWEAR is true.
You know from this blog that my grandmother did the cooking, and I got what skills I have from her. Mother, on the other hand, was a wreck as a cook. Everyone knew it too. Except Mom. Yup. She thought she was an excellent cook. So, one Saturday, when Nana was visiting my aunt, Mom decided to make rice for dinner. She was using one of the precooked rices. Their advertising material said "you don't boil it so you can't overcook it." It was, literally, supposed to be ready in a minute. If I recall how this ghastly stuff was prepared, you poured it into a pot, added water, turned on the heat, brought the w ater to the simmer, then covered the pot and left it alone. A "minute" later, you had rice.
I hesitate to think what they did to it. Anyway, that Saturday, I remember sitting in the living room, as my mother came out of the kitchen, shaking her head "I can't believe it. It's been two hours and that rice still isn't done yet." I looked up and said "You've had it on the flame for two hours and it's not cooked? " And she looked at me, smiling benignly, the way one does to a person who one thinks is stupid, and said "Oh, how sweet. But dear, you don't put rice on the heat to cook it. Everyone knows that."
Well, the young Annalena (Annalenette, perhaps?) took over. Even then, she was a food snob but she bravely made the rice, finding the hidden stick of butter in the refrigerator instead of the margarine mom was planning to use, and made the rice. Guess who took credit?
When I speak of rice here, I need to be clear that I am speaking of long grain, and medium grain white rices. Short grain rices, like arborio, carnaroli and nano are used for risotto and desserts, and are cooked differently. So, too, are the Asian short grain varieties. Brown rice is a subject onto itself, as is any of the "hulled" rices, like Hawaiian red, or black rice, and so forth. "Wild rice" is not rice at all, and it, too, is cooked differently. But generic "rice" or "valencia" rice, or "basmati" rice are all cooked the same way. Annalena, like her friend Chris, prefers basmati to all others, but uses valencia for paella in her constant quest for autheticity. Here's how she does it, combining several techniques and a "trick" she taught to her two friends, Louie and Michael (mentioned earlier in this blog) last night (Annalena will NOT comment on this dinner other than to say, well, that she will say nothing).
We are taught to cook rice using proportions: one part rice to two parts liquid. That may very well be the right proportions; however, there are some things to be careful of. If you try to cook too little rice, you will inevitably burn it. Try not to ever cook less than one cup of dry rice. If there are leftovers, they will keep, and they can be used as reheated rice, or in a bread loaf, or fried, or many other ways.
I actually use a trick that many cooks do, in determining how much liquid to use. I put the rice into a three or four quart pot, and then use my finger as a measuring point. If you touch the rice at the top, and then add liquid to the first joint of your index finger, your proportions are right. I have been doing rice this way for many years, and it never fails.
Now, I said liquid. Not water. Water is traditional, but you can use stock of any kind of course. You can use mixtures of wine, water, stock, vegetable juices, anything you want, as long as the liquid has a water base. If you try to cook rice in milk or cream, you will not be able to cook it completely. That is because the fats and proteins in the dairy cook on the surface of the rice grain, and keep the liquid from getting inside of it, and cooking it. If you want a dairy based rice (coconut milk rice, for example), what you will want to do is twice cook the rice. Anyway, after you have the liquid in the rice, you add salt if the liquid isn't salty. UNLESS you're cooking a Chinese or Japanese meal, because then the rice is unseasoned. How much salt? A very good question. Less than you think you'll need. At this point, you also add any dry spices you might want to add. I like saffron in my rice, and I always add a really big pinch of this wonderful stuff. It dissolves into the water, gives the rice a beautiful color, and a terrific, subtle flavor. You can use other spices. Chili powder, cinnamon, ginger, are all good. So is a bay leaf, but take it out before you serve the rice.
Adding fat is optional, and I usually don't. If the meal I am serving is especially lean, I will add a tablespoon of butter to about a cup and a half of dry rice, but otherwise , no. And speaking of butter, here's a "truc" that Annalena learned years ago, didn't believe, but it works. One of the problems with rice cooking is that bubbles form, and there is "boil over." How to prevent it? Rub a bit of butter along the rim of the pot, just before you cover it. And cover it you must. TIGHTLY. Then put it on the heat. Medium heat. And let it cook.
How long? Again, a good question. Annalena was taught to cook rice for "exactly 17 minutes." Don't ask me where this came from. In my experience, this is too long. Engage your senses. When rice is done, the liquid will be gone, and you will see "craters" in the rice, where bubbles have come up. At this point, unless you want a rice crust - and you might - turn off the rice , fluff it with a spoon or fork, cover it and let it rest for five minutes. In some cooking, for example, Persian cooking, you want the bottom of the rice to form a crispy crust. If you're looking for that, cook the rice further and listen. You will start to hear a "snapping" (the "snap, crackle pop" of rice crispies), and you may smell a bit of a toastiness. That's what you want. Then you stop the cooking. In Persian cooking, if this type of rice is served, you must put a bit of crust on everyone's plate, otherwise they have been insulted. This is why Annalena doesn't make it very often: she likes the crust, and will eat it all herself, insulting everyone.
And that's all there is to it. Except.... Rice admits of additives. You can stir bits of meat, or vegetables into it, cooked or not. Here, you have to use your judgement. Peas go really well with rice, and they cook so quickly that you should put them in at the very end, and cover for not more than five minutes. Longer than that and they lose their lovely color. Other vegetables, that may take longer to cook, like asparagus tips, should be put in sooner. And if it's a vegetable that takes a while to cook - like mushrooms, or onions, then cook them separately and stir them in at the end.
So, like Louie and Michael claim to be, learn to be versatile. Instead of potatoes and bread every night, make some saffron rice. Or other rice. You'll be happy. Louie and Michael were.
People really say those things, don't they? Oh, here I go, digressing again. Back to the subject at hand.
We learn, from food anthropologists, that rice is the staple food of a larger percentage of the world's population than any other. In fact, Annalena knows from her undergraduate years when she studied Asian languages, that the character for rice and the character for food , in Chinese, are one and the same (and she could probably write it into this blog if she knew more about computers, but she doesn't, so you'll have to accept it as fact). Also, as a point of fact, the standard way to say "good morning" in Chinese is to ask "have you had your morning rice yet?" It's that important. Think about it: the word for "food" generally is "rice." There's something pretty deep there.
Many of us don't eat much rice at home. We eat potatoes, bread, but little rice. I suspect that this is due , in part, to a feeling that it's hard to cook, or "mysterious." To some extent I can understand this from my early life. Bear with me through a story that I SWEAR is true.
You know from this blog that my grandmother did the cooking, and I got what skills I have from her. Mother, on the other hand, was a wreck as a cook. Everyone knew it too. Except Mom. Yup. She thought she was an excellent cook. So, one Saturday, when Nana was visiting my aunt, Mom decided to make rice for dinner. She was using one of the precooked rices. Their advertising material said "you don't boil it so you can't overcook it." It was, literally, supposed to be ready in a minute. If I recall how this ghastly stuff was prepared, you poured it into a pot, added water, turned on the heat, brought the w ater to the simmer, then covered the pot and left it alone. A "minute" later, you had rice.
I hesitate to think what they did to it. Anyway, that Saturday, I remember sitting in the living room, as my mother came out of the kitchen, shaking her head "I can't believe it. It's been two hours and that rice still isn't done yet." I looked up and said "You've had it on the flame for two hours and it's not cooked? " And she looked at me, smiling benignly, the way one does to a person who one thinks is stupid, and said "Oh, how sweet. But dear, you don't put rice on the heat to cook it. Everyone knows that."
Well, the young Annalena (Annalenette, perhaps?) took over. Even then, she was a food snob but she bravely made the rice, finding the hidden stick of butter in the refrigerator instead of the margarine mom was planning to use, and made the rice. Guess who took credit?
When I speak of rice here, I need to be clear that I am speaking of long grain, and medium grain white rices. Short grain rices, like arborio, carnaroli and nano are used for risotto and desserts, and are cooked differently. So, too, are the Asian short grain varieties. Brown rice is a subject onto itself, as is any of the "hulled" rices, like Hawaiian red, or black rice, and so forth. "Wild rice" is not rice at all, and it, too, is cooked differently. But generic "rice" or "valencia" rice, or "basmati" rice are all cooked the same way. Annalena, like her friend Chris, prefers basmati to all others, but uses valencia for paella in her constant quest for autheticity. Here's how she does it, combining several techniques and a "trick" she taught to her two friends, Louie and Michael (mentioned earlier in this blog) last night (Annalena will NOT comment on this dinner other than to say, well, that she will say nothing).
We are taught to cook rice using proportions: one part rice to two parts liquid. That may very well be the right proportions; however, there are some things to be careful of. If you try to cook too little rice, you will inevitably burn it. Try not to ever cook less than one cup of dry rice. If there are leftovers, they will keep, and they can be used as reheated rice, or in a bread loaf, or fried, or many other ways.
I actually use a trick that many cooks do, in determining how much liquid to use. I put the rice into a three or four quart pot, and then use my finger as a measuring point. If you touch the rice at the top, and then add liquid to the first joint of your index finger, your proportions are right. I have been doing rice this way for many years, and it never fails.
Now, I said liquid. Not water. Water is traditional, but you can use stock of any kind of course. You can use mixtures of wine, water, stock, vegetable juices, anything you want, as long as the liquid has a water base. If you try to cook rice in milk or cream, you will not be able to cook it completely. That is because the fats and proteins in the dairy cook on the surface of the rice grain, and keep the liquid from getting inside of it, and cooking it. If you want a dairy based rice (coconut milk rice, for example), what you will want to do is twice cook the rice. Anyway, after you have the liquid in the rice, you add salt if the liquid isn't salty. UNLESS you're cooking a Chinese or Japanese meal, because then the rice is unseasoned. How much salt? A very good question. Less than you think you'll need. At this point, you also add any dry spices you might want to add. I like saffron in my rice, and I always add a really big pinch of this wonderful stuff. It dissolves into the water, gives the rice a beautiful color, and a terrific, subtle flavor. You can use other spices. Chili powder, cinnamon, ginger, are all good. So is a bay leaf, but take it out before you serve the rice.
Adding fat is optional, and I usually don't. If the meal I am serving is especially lean, I will add a tablespoon of butter to about a cup and a half of dry rice, but otherwise , no. And speaking of butter, here's a "truc" that Annalena learned years ago, didn't believe, but it works. One of the problems with rice cooking is that bubbles form, and there is "boil over." How to prevent it? Rub a bit of butter along the rim of the pot, just before you cover it. And cover it you must. TIGHTLY. Then put it on the heat. Medium heat. And let it cook.
How long? Again, a good question. Annalena was taught to cook rice for "exactly 17 minutes." Don't ask me where this came from. In my experience, this is too long. Engage your senses. When rice is done, the liquid will be gone, and you will see "craters" in the rice, where bubbles have come up. At this point, unless you want a rice crust - and you might - turn off the rice , fluff it with a spoon or fork, cover it and let it rest for five minutes. In some cooking, for example, Persian cooking, you want the bottom of the rice to form a crispy crust. If you're looking for that, cook the rice further and listen. You will start to hear a "snapping" (the "snap, crackle pop" of rice crispies), and you may smell a bit of a toastiness. That's what you want. Then you stop the cooking. In Persian cooking, if this type of rice is served, you must put a bit of crust on everyone's plate, otherwise they have been insulted. This is why Annalena doesn't make it very often: she likes the crust, and will eat it all herself, insulting everyone.
And that's all there is to it. Except.... Rice admits of additives. You can stir bits of meat, or vegetables into it, cooked or not. Here, you have to use your judgement. Peas go really well with rice, and they cook so quickly that you should put them in at the very end, and cover for not more than five minutes. Longer than that and they lose their lovely color. Other vegetables, that may take longer to cook, like asparagus tips, should be put in sooner. And if it's a vegetable that takes a while to cook - like mushrooms, or onions, then cook them separately and stir them in at the end.
So, like Louie and Michael claim to be, learn to be versatile. Instead of potatoes and bread every night, make some saffron rice. Or other rice. You'll be happy. Louie and Michael were.
Thursday, May 29, 2008
SNAPS for sugar snaps
When I was a child, there was a favorite cereal called "Sugar Snaps." It was undoubtedly ghastly, nutritionally and just about any other way you could think of it, but we all liked it, the dentists got rich, and I still have the taste of those crunchy, sweet morsels in my mouth. I wonder if the developers of sugar snap peas had that cereal in mind.
I say "developers" because when I was growing up, there was no such thing as sugar snap peas. In fact, I don't recall seeing them until I was in law school. Perhaps I'm wrong, but then again, I've led a very sheltered life, and they may have been there, waiting to surprise me, and never got the change. Legumes are like that you know.
Ok, I lied about that. But I didn't know about the sugar snaps until law school or maybe even after that. I remembered reading that they were a cross of Asian snow peas, and the "common" English or pod pea. (Interestingly, without even knowing it, I am yet again treading into the promiscuous world of vegetables and fruit). I don't know if this was a controlled mating, or if it happened by happenstance, but I suspect it was the former. I can't think of a situation where a farm would grow both varieties, but again, someone may prove me wrong.
Sugar snaps are one of the earliest of the vegetables in any climate - even before pod peas and snow peas. The first ones of the season showed up yesterday, and of course, Annalena, who spends her lunch hour haunting farmers' markets (I know, I know, I need a life), pounced on them, immediately displacing asparagus from her plans for tonight's dinner vegetable (roast chicken, the snap peas, and saffron rice. Don't that sound yummy?).
You know these guys. These are the peas where you can eat the pod (you can eat the pod on English peas too, you just need to know how to cook them. More on that when they come into season). But like regular peas, they need some prep work. They do have a string down their middle, which is too tough to eat, will floss your teeth if you try, and is just downright unpleasant. So when you buy them, take the little end that looks like it was attached to the plant, hold it between your fingers, and pull down. You'll get the hang of it and it will move quickly, but you DO need to do this (if you find a vendor that is advertising that they've done it for you already, skip the convenience. Those peas have already lost their freshness).
It's also important to buy these guys in season. That means NOW. As the spring turns into summer, they get bigger, and tougher and the pods are very nasty tasting. You CAN shuck them and use the peas, but what you'll find is that these are really "all about" the pod. The peas themselves are very shriveled and tiny. Buy them when they're bright, pale green, and small. And taste them before you buy. You should get a rush of a sugar flavor, followed by the "green" taste that you associate with fresh peas .
Now, how do you prepare them? Well, this is an interesting question, because I have had to break with what I was taught. When I first bought sugar snaps, the standard instructions were to boil them, in salted water, for 5-6 minutes. I did that for a while, and always wondered if I were missing something, because they just tasted, well, BLECH to me. But I carried on, because this was how we were supposed to eat. OK. I've eaten things I didn't like, some of them even inanimate, because I was supposed to (that's my next blog, gentle reader), and just went along with it.
Then, in the early -mid 90s, I was reading an article on "what's wrong with sugar snap peas." (Yes, I know, I know. I need a life). The article instructed that we were cooking the peas too long, and that they should never be cooked for more than three minutes. AH! Here was the answer to the problem. I KNEW I was cooking them too long. So I immediately bought a pound of snap peas and cooked them for three minutes as instructed.
And they tasted exactly like the ones that I had been making at 7 minutes.
Well, then Annalena turned her incredible powers of inductive and deductive reasoning (stop snickering), to this issue. Since they had Asian parentage, and Asian vegetable cooking calls for minimal time in the pan, was it perhaps the case that 3 minutes was even too long? So, another pound of snaps came home, and another pot of water went to the boil, and this time, Annlena took out peas at 30 seconds, 1 minute 2 minutes and 3 minutes.
1 minute was perfect. 30 seconds was good, but more warm and raw than cooked (which is fine). 2 and 3 minutes were not good at all. So, here's Annalena's advise: salted water, at the boil, one minute, drain them. Just as they go from bright green to a darker green. You retain the sugar flavor in them, you retain the crispness, and you will not begin singing that wonderful Peggy Lee song "Is that all there is?" (Annalena finds herself singing that song a lot, but usually in the Bette Midler arrangement. It suits her voice better).
So after you've cooked them for a minute, what next? Well, like all members of the pea and green bean family, snap peas are fabulous with a lump of butter, and/or a bit of fresh mint. They are also superb with lemon. In fact, they take to just about anything you can mix them with. Fresh ginger is nice. If you cook them and let them get cold, you can combine them with some cherry tomatoes, halved. One of the nicest lunches I ever had was a mix of these guys with cherry tomatoes, red and golden, and Italian tuna packed in olive oil. Snap peas make a wonderful vegetable salad, as discussed in the following.
One of my favorite restaurants, and one of everyone's favorite restaurants, is Union Square Cafe. We frequently go there for Guy's birthday dinner. It's celebratory as well as informal. Annalena was extremely miffed one year, however, when it was Guy's 50th birthday and the hostess asked her "well, you must be the birthday boy, because this gentleman CANNOT be fifty."
HARUMPH.
Well, the kitchen was on good behavior, and they had a salad on the menu that was memorable. I requested the recipe, and I got it. And when I took it home, I modified it, as explained below. You should make this. I am making lunch for my friend David on Saturday, and I may put this on the plate with the rest of the food.
You start with a pound of snap peas, which you cook as per the instructions above (and I will point out that, in the Union Square recipe, they warn against cooking for more than a minute. Annlena was VINDICATED). Then you shock them in cold ice water to stop the cooking. This is a good step, but not really all that necessary. I think restaurants do it because they're not going to get to the final step until later, but if you're moving along in the kitchen, and you don't want to dirty another bowl and/or take up space, leave this step out. But DO pat them dry.
Union Square then advises us to julienne cut the snap peas.
Right.
Perhaps your fingers are small enough to do this and you have the patience. Annalena's arent and she doesn't, so I just cut them at a diagonal into halves and thirds. Then, prepare a dressing of sherry vinegar, salt, a bit of mustard, and olive oil. How much of each is really to your taste. The sherry vinegar is sweet, but the sweetness is different from the peas. You can substitute something else if you want, but I would stick to the sweet end of things. If you don't have sherry vinegar, how about balsamic? Or perhaps apple cider? After you've whisked the dressing, toss the snap peas into it.
THEN.... add some crumbled ricotta salata cheese. Not a lot, just a bit, and serve the thing forth, preferably with some flatbread or crackers.
I will tell you, this is sugar snap peas , canonized. They are SO good this way. And if you feel like playing with the recipe, you have leave to add something like asparagus, or fava beans, or peas, or any or all of them. This would be good with cherry tomatoes as well.
I am thinking of tossing this together, in fact, as an interesting filling for a pita sandwich. If I do that, I will probably add more cheese to give it some "oomph" as a lunch dish.
So there they are. A new vegetable makes its appearance at the farmers' market, and a day later, Annalena is helping you along. I hope you are grateful .
I say "developers" because when I was growing up, there was no such thing as sugar snap peas. In fact, I don't recall seeing them until I was in law school. Perhaps I'm wrong, but then again, I've led a very sheltered life, and they may have been there, waiting to surprise me, and never got the change. Legumes are like that you know.
Ok, I lied about that. But I didn't know about the sugar snaps until law school or maybe even after that. I remembered reading that they were a cross of Asian snow peas, and the "common" English or pod pea. (Interestingly, without even knowing it, I am yet again treading into the promiscuous world of vegetables and fruit). I don't know if this was a controlled mating, or if it happened by happenstance, but I suspect it was the former. I can't think of a situation where a farm would grow both varieties, but again, someone may prove me wrong.
Sugar snaps are one of the earliest of the vegetables in any climate - even before pod peas and snow peas. The first ones of the season showed up yesterday, and of course, Annalena, who spends her lunch hour haunting farmers' markets (I know, I know, I need a life), pounced on them, immediately displacing asparagus from her plans for tonight's dinner vegetable (roast chicken, the snap peas, and saffron rice. Don't that sound yummy?).
You know these guys. These are the peas where you can eat the pod (you can eat the pod on English peas too, you just need to know how to cook them. More on that when they come into season). But like regular peas, they need some prep work. They do have a string down their middle, which is too tough to eat, will floss your teeth if you try, and is just downright unpleasant. So when you buy them, take the little end that looks like it was attached to the plant, hold it between your fingers, and pull down. You'll get the hang of it and it will move quickly, but you DO need to do this (if you find a vendor that is advertising that they've done it for you already, skip the convenience. Those peas have already lost their freshness).
It's also important to buy these guys in season. That means NOW. As the spring turns into summer, they get bigger, and tougher and the pods are very nasty tasting. You CAN shuck them and use the peas, but what you'll find is that these are really "all about" the pod. The peas themselves are very shriveled and tiny. Buy them when they're bright, pale green, and small. And taste them before you buy. You should get a rush of a sugar flavor, followed by the "green" taste that you associate with fresh peas .
Now, how do you prepare them? Well, this is an interesting question, because I have had to break with what I was taught. When I first bought sugar snaps, the standard instructions were to boil them, in salted water, for 5-6 minutes. I did that for a while, and always wondered if I were missing something, because they just tasted, well, BLECH to me. But I carried on, because this was how we were supposed to eat. OK. I've eaten things I didn't like, some of them even inanimate, because I was supposed to (that's my next blog, gentle reader), and just went along with it.
Then, in the early -mid 90s, I was reading an article on "what's wrong with sugar snap peas." (Yes, I know, I know. I need a life). The article instructed that we were cooking the peas too long, and that they should never be cooked for more than three minutes. AH! Here was the answer to the problem. I KNEW I was cooking them too long. So I immediately bought a pound of snap peas and cooked them for three minutes as instructed.
And they tasted exactly like the ones that I had been making at 7 minutes.
Well, then Annalena turned her incredible powers of inductive and deductive reasoning (stop snickering), to this issue. Since they had Asian parentage, and Asian vegetable cooking calls for minimal time in the pan, was it perhaps the case that 3 minutes was even too long? So, another pound of snaps came home, and another pot of water went to the boil, and this time, Annlena took out peas at 30 seconds, 1 minute 2 minutes and 3 minutes.
1 minute was perfect. 30 seconds was good, but more warm and raw than cooked (which is fine). 2 and 3 minutes were not good at all. So, here's Annalena's advise: salted water, at the boil, one minute, drain them. Just as they go from bright green to a darker green. You retain the sugar flavor in them, you retain the crispness, and you will not begin singing that wonderful Peggy Lee song "Is that all there is?" (Annalena finds herself singing that song a lot, but usually in the Bette Midler arrangement. It suits her voice better).
So after you've cooked them for a minute, what next? Well, like all members of the pea and green bean family, snap peas are fabulous with a lump of butter, and/or a bit of fresh mint. They are also superb with lemon. In fact, they take to just about anything you can mix them with. Fresh ginger is nice. If you cook them and let them get cold, you can combine them with some cherry tomatoes, halved. One of the nicest lunches I ever had was a mix of these guys with cherry tomatoes, red and golden, and Italian tuna packed in olive oil. Snap peas make a wonderful vegetable salad, as discussed in the following.
One of my favorite restaurants, and one of everyone's favorite restaurants, is Union Square Cafe. We frequently go there for Guy's birthday dinner. It's celebratory as well as informal. Annalena was extremely miffed one year, however, when it was Guy's 50th birthday and the hostess asked her "well, you must be the birthday boy, because this gentleman CANNOT be fifty."
HARUMPH.
Well, the kitchen was on good behavior, and they had a salad on the menu that was memorable. I requested the recipe, and I got it. And when I took it home, I modified it, as explained below. You should make this. I am making lunch for my friend David on Saturday, and I may put this on the plate with the rest of the food.
You start with a pound of snap peas, which you cook as per the instructions above (and I will point out that, in the Union Square recipe, they warn against cooking for more than a minute. Annlena was VINDICATED). Then you shock them in cold ice water to stop the cooking. This is a good step, but not really all that necessary. I think restaurants do it because they're not going to get to the final step until later, but if you're moving along in the kitchen, and you don't want to dirty another bowl and/or take up space, leave this step out. But DO pat them dry.
Union Square then advises us to julienne cut the snap peas.
Right.
Perhaps your fingers are small enough to do this and you have the patience. Annalena's arent and she doesn't, so I just cut them at a diagonal into halves and thirds. Then, prepare a dressing of sherry vinegar, salt, a bit of mustard, and olive oil. How much of each is really to your taste. The sherry vinegar is sweet, but the sweetness is different from the peas. You can substitute something else if you want, but I would stick to the sweet end of things. If you don't have sherry vinegar, how about balsamic? Or perhaps apple cider? After you've whisked the dressing, toss the snap peas into it.
THEN.... add some crumbled ricotta salata cheese. Not a lot, just a bit, and serve the thing forth, preferably with some flatbread or crackers.
I will tell you, this is sugar snap peas , canonized. They are SO good this way. And if you feel like playing with the recipe, you have leave to add something like asparagus, or fava beans, or peas, or any or all of them. This would be good with cherry tomatoes as well.
I am thinking of tossing this together, in fact, as an interesting filling for a pita sandwich. If I do that, I will probably add more cheese to give it some "oomph" as a lunch dish.
So there they are. A new vegetable makes its appearance at the farmers' market, and a day later, Annalena is helping you along. I hope you are grateful .
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Mixed marriages: apricots and plums: apriums
Fruit is promiscuous. There, I've said it. And you probably haven't a clue what I mean. Well, good. That means you'll keep on reading.
For all the talk of genetically engineered food, and mixing genomes of different plants, the fact is, this has been going on forever, and it will continue to do so. If you talk to anyone who is a professional citrus farmer (like my friend Eric), they will tell you about how a cross of a lemon and tangelo made one thing, while a cross of a grapefruit and an orange made another thing, etc, etc, etc. Sometimes, these crosses are "by design," i.e, someone basically takes a paintbrush, gets the pollen off of a flower from one species and puts it on the pistil of the flower of another species, and then you wait to see what happens. I'm oversimplifying here, but that is, basically what happens. It's how the skazillion types of lillies we use as cut flowers came about, and it's how a lot of other things did, too.
Some years ago, when the government actually thought nutrition was important, funding for agricultural research was a lot easier to get. And the money went to some interesting projects. One of the most interesting ones to me was work, done in California, to investigate crosses between various stone fruits. Apricots and plums were crossed, and recrossed, and back crossed, and so forth. From that work, three distinct new varieties emerged. And their names reflect their parentage: apriums, plumcots, and pluots.
Pluots are probably the best known of the three. If you've seen a round purple fruit in a supermarket that looks like a plum, with the label "dinosaur egg" on it, you're looking at a pluot. There are many varieties of these guys, with names like "dappled dandy" and "flavor king" and "flavor queen," etc. They are late season fruit, just like plums. Probably because plums are sturdier, and handle shipping better, so , too, do pluots, and that's why you'll see them more often than others. I will revisit pluots when I'm cooking with them. They're worth getting to know.
Plumcots and apriums, are harder to find. As they are closer to apricots than plums, they are softer, and don't travel very well. There are a few farmers in NY who grow plumcots, which have a soft, sweet texture to me, and taste first of apricots, and then have a follow through flavor of plum. I've never seen a local aprium. These are so close to apricots that some farm stands actually call them apricots so as not to confuse customers. Interestingly, although they are crossed with plums, which ripen late, they actually ripen before apricots do. And we brought a bunch of them home with us from California, as we both wait, eagerly for apricots to make their all too brief appearance.
If you are fortunate enough to find apriums, savor them. And if you happen to find them and apricots at the same time, have a taste comparison. See if you can tell the differences. But if "all" you have are apriums, use them where you would apricots. Like in the recipe that follows.
There is a very brief period in the season when apricots and cherries are both at their peak. That's the time for mixed fruit cobblers, plates of apricot sherbet and cherry ice cream, or vice versa, bicolored galettes, and all kinds of fun things. Sometimes, I try to extend this season by freezing some of both. I never freeze enough. When they are both at your hand, however, make the cake that follows.
Annalena considers this a "fancy cake." What does she mean by that? Well, to Annalena, a "fancy cake" is one you would never make for yourself, and actually would not serve as dessert at the end of a multicourse dinner, but if you had people coming over for an afternoon, or wanted to have a nice brunch, this is a cake to make. It's a bit on the complicated side, but it's not that bad. It's an adaptation of a recipe from one of the cookbooks published by Greens restaurant, Deborah Madison's indispensable "The Savory Way."
Ms. Madison's recipe "gilds the lilly" by stuffing her apricot halves with almond paste. I've done this and honestly did not see the point. It just made a sweet cake even sweeter. And as it is an upside down cake, it's pretty sweet. Also, she halves and pits her cherries. I think of my "audience." If I can safely tell them "watch for pits" I don't bother. To me, cherry pits do add a little extra almond flavor on their own. But if you are serving this to children, men , or other species who don't listen, (I exaggerate, but not too much), you may want to avoid personal liability by pitting the cherries.
Ms. Madison also uses a cast iron skillet. That's perfect for upside down cake BAKING. Trying to unmold a hot cake, in a hot, heavy cast iron skillet can be difficult, and you can get burned (trust me on this). So I use a regular, 9 or 10 inch cake pan with high sides. You can heat them on the top of the stove, it's not dangerous to the pan if it's well made. Okay, here we go.
You'll need apriums or apricots, and these you should cut in half. How many? Good question. How big are your apriums? I would say you will need somewhere between 10 and 15 of them. You'll also need about that number of cherries. You'll be able to squeeze more of them in, if you like. Have them ready.
Preheat your oven to 375. Then, on your stove top, melt 1 stick of unsalted butter with 3/4 cup of brown sugar. Watch how it bubbles and looks like caramel, and smells like "dessert." When the sugar melts, take the pan off the heat (wear a mitt), and put it on a heat proof surface . Swirl the pan if the sugar isn't evenly distributed. Then put your halved apriums, cut side up, right on the caramel. Do this on the outside of the pan first, and move in. Then add your cherries. If it looks like you've got gaps (the fruit is going to shrink in the baking), add some more.
Make your batter, by mixing a half stick of softened butter with a half cup of white sugar, until it's light and fluffy. You'll need some arm action here, or a good, strong mixer. You're looking for the sugar and butter to almost turn white in color. Then beat in three large eggs, one at a time. Deborah then adds a half teaspoon each of almond extract and vanilla. I stick with a full teaspoon of vanilla. It's your call here.
Stop the mixer, and then combine 1.24 cups of white, unbleached flour, a teaspoon of baking powder, and a quarter teaspoon of baking soda and salt. You also will need half a cup of buttermilk, sour cream, or yogurt, whatever you have on hand. Add about 1/3 of the flour and mix it with the butter, then stir in 1/3 of the dairy. Keep on repeating this, and stir it until it's just combined.
Pour this over the fruit. Get a spatula and spread it out, and don't worry too much if it looks uneven. Baking smooths out a a lot of things. Put it in the hot oven, and bake it for about 40 minutes. Be careful about that timing. I have had this cake finish on me in 30 minutes, and also take a full hour and a quarter. How can you tell? Two ways. First, look at the surface: is it nice and golden brown and tasty looking? If it does, get a toothpick or a straw and insert it in the center. Do you get dry crumbs? If you do, it's done. If you get wet batter, bake it longer.
When it's done, take the cake out carefully, and now do something you haven't done yet: look for a plate bigger than your pan. If you used a 9 inch pan, get something that's about 11 inches across (that's a standard American dinner plate). If you used a 10 inch pan (which you can), you'll need a serving platter kind of thing. Run a knife around the perimeter of the cake, after it's cooled for about ten minutes. Now, you have to be brave and gutsy. Put that plate over the pan, so that the pan is centered. Slide everything so that your protected hand is in the middle of the pan. Put your other hand firmly on the top of the plate and then, quickly and decisively, turn it over. The cake will "plop" into the plate. Some of the fruit will stick. It always does. Pull it out and put it where it belongs. It's usually pretty clear what goes where.
This is a cake that doesn't keep real well, so you should plan on eating it the day you make it. It's really good warm, but I like it cold , i.e., at room temperature , even better. If you DO have leftovers, refrigerate them, and try something like warming the pieces in the oven the next day, maybe with some cream over them.
Once you have this recipe in hand, you can play with it. For example, remember those pluots? Well, later in the season, make this with pluots and late season blueberries or even blackberries for a dramatic looking one. In the fall or winter, do it with apples or pears and cranberries. As you change the fruit, change the flavoring too. I love using candied ginger in the plum/pluot version, and orange flavoring in the apple one. For pears, I toss in a teaspoon of cinammon.
Really, if you get the technique of making the caramel, and the batter under control, the fruit is something you can play with. In the winter, you might try using d ried apricots and dried cherries. Hmmmm. If I do say so myself, that's brilliant.
For all the talk of genetically engineered food, and mixing genomes of different plants, the fact is, this has been going on forever, and it will continue to do so. If you talk to anyone who is a professional citrus farmer (like my friend Eric), they will tell you about how a cross of a lemon and tangelo made one thing, while a cross of a grapefruit and an orange made another thing, etc, etc, etc. Sometimes, these crosses are "by design," i.e, someone basically takes a paintbrush, gets the pollen off of a flower from one species and puts it on the pistil of the flower of another species, and then you wait to see what happens. I'm oversimplifying here, but that is, basically what happens. It's how the skazillion types of lillies we use as cut flowers came about, and it's how a lot of other things did, too.
Some years ago, when the government actually thought nutrition was important, funding for agricultural research was a lot easier to get. And the money went to some interesting projects. One of the most interesting ones to me was work, done in California, to investigate crosses between various stone fruits. Apricots and plums were crossed, and recrossed, and back crossed, and so forth. From that work, three distinct new varieties emerged. And their names reflect their parentage: apriums, plumcots, and pluots.
Pluots are probably the best known of the three. If you've seen a round purple fruit in a supermarket that looks like a plum, with the label "dinosaur egg" on it, you're looking at a pluot. There are many varieties of these guys, with names like "dappled dandy" and "flavor king" and "flavor queen," etc. They are late season fruit, just like plums. Probably because plums are sturdier, and handle shipping better, so , too, do pluots, and that's why you'll see them more often than others. I will revisit pluots when I'm cooking with them. They're worth getting to know.
Plumcots and apriums, are harder to find. As they are closer to apricots than plums, they are softer, and don't travel very well. There are a few farmers in NY who grow plumcots, which have a soft, sweet texture to me, and taste first of apricots, and then have a follow through flavor of plum. I've never seen a local aprium. These are so close to apricots that some farm stands actually call them apricots so as not to confuse customers. Interestingly, although they are crossed with plums, which ripen late, they actually ripen before apricots do. And we brought a bunch of them home with us from California, as we both wait, eagerly for apricots to make their all too brief appearance.
If you are fortunate enough to find apriums, savor them. And if you happen to find them and apricots at the same time, have a taste comparison. See if you can tell the differences. But if "all" you have are apriums, use them where you would apricots. Like in the recipe that follows.
There is a very brief period in the season when apricots and cherries are both at their peak. That's the time for mixed fruit cobblers, plates of apricot sherbet and cherry ice cream, or vice versa, bicolored galettes, and all kinds of fun things. Sometimes, I try to extend this season by freezing some of both. I never freeze enough. When they are both at your hand, however, make the cake that follows.
Annalena considers this a "fancy cake." What does she mean by that? Well, to Annalena, a "fancy cake" is one you would never make for yourself, and actually would not serve as dessert at the end of a multicourse dinner, but if you had people coming over for an afternoon, or wanted to have a nice brunch, this is a cake to make. It's a bit on the complicated side, but it's not that bad. It's an adaptation of a recipe from one of the cookbooks published by Greens restaurant, Deborah Madison's indispensable "The Savory Way."
Ms. Madison's recipe "gilds the lilly" by stuffing her apricot halves with almond paste. I've done this and honestly did not see the point. It just made a sweet cake even sweeter. And as it is an upside down cake, it's pretty sweet. Also, she halves and pits her cherries. I think of my "audience." If I can safely tell them "watch for pits" I don't bother. To me, cherry pits do add a little extra almond flavor on their own. But if you are serving this to children, men , or other species who don't listen, (I exaggerate, but not too much), you may want to avoid personal liability by pitting the cherries.
Ms. Madison also uses a cast iron skillet. That's perfect for upside down cake BAKING. Trying to unmold a hot cake, in a hot, heavy cast iron skillet can be difficult, and you can get burned (trust me on this). So I use a regular, 9 or 10 inch cake pan with high sides. You can heat them on the top of the stove, it's not dangerous to the pan if it's well made. Okay, here we go.
You'll need apriums or apricots, and these you should cut in half. How many? Good question. How big are your apriums? I would say you will need somewhere between 10 and 15 of them. You'll also need about that number of cherries. You'll be able to squeeze more of them in, if you like. Have them ready.
Preheat your oven to 375. Then, on your stove top, melt 1 stick of unsalted butter with 3/4 cup of brown sugar. Watch how it bubbles and looks like caramel, and smells like "dessert." When the sugar melts, take the pan off the heat (wear a mitt), and put it on a heat proof surface . Swirl the pan if the sugar isn't evenly distributed. Then put your halved apriums, cut side up, right on the caramel. Do this on the outside of the pan first, and move in. Then add your cherries. If it looks like you've got gaps (the fruit is going to shrink in the baking), add some more.
Make your batter, by mixing a half stick of softened butter with a half cup of white sugar, until it's light and fluffy. You'll need some arm action here, or a good, strong mixer. You're looking for the sugar and butter to almost turn white in color. Then beat in three large eggs, one at a time. Deborah then adds a half teaspoon each of almond extract and vanilla. I stick with a full teaspoon of vanilla. It's your call here.
Stop the mixer, and then combine 1.24 cups of white, unbleached flour, a teaspoon of baking powder, and a quarter teaspoon of baking soda and salt. You also will need half a cup of buttermilk, sour cream, or yogurt, whatever you have on hand. Add about 1/3 of the flour and mix it with the butter, then stir in 1/3 of the dairy. Keep on repeating this, and stir it until it's just combined.
Pour this over the fruit. Get a spatula and spread it out, and don't worry too much if it looks uneven. Baking smooths out a a lot of things. Put it in the hot oven, and bake it for about 40 minutes. Be careful about that timing. I have had this cake finish on me in 30 minutes, and also take a full hour and a quarter. How can you tell? Two ways. First, look at the surface: is it nice and golden brown and tasty looking? If it does, get a toothpick or a straw and insert it in the center. Do you get dry crumbs? If you do, it's done. If you get wet batter, bake it longer.
When it's done, take the cake out carefully, and now do something you haven't done yet: look for a plate bigger than your pan. If you used a 9 inch pan, get something that's about 11 inches across (that's a standard American dinner plate). If you used a 10 inch pan (which you can), you'll need a serving platter kind of thing. Run a knife around the perimeter of the cake, after it's cooled for about ten minutes. Now, you have to be brave and gutsy. Put that plate over the pan, so that the pan is centered. Slide everything so that your protected hand is in the middle of the pan. Put your other hand firmly on the top of the plate and then, quickly and decisively, turn it over. The cake will "plop" into the plate. Some of the fruit will stick. It always does. Pull it out and put it where it belongs. It's usually pretty clear what goes where.
This is a cake that doesn't keep real well, so you should plan on eating it the day you make it. It's really good warm, but I like it cold , i.e., at room temperature , even better. If you DO have leftovers, refrigerate them, and try something like warming the pieces in the oven the next day, maybe with some cream over them.
Once you have this recipe in hand, you can play with it. For example, remember those pluots? Well, later in the season, make this with pluots and late season blueberries or even blackberries for a dramatic looking one. In the fall or winter, do it with apples or pears and cranberries. As you change the fruit, change the flavoring too. I love using candied ginger in the plum/pluot version, and orange flavoring in the apple one. For pears, I toss in a teaspoon of cinammon.
Really, if you get the technique of making the caramel, and the batter under control, the fruit is something you can play with. In the winter, you might try using d ried apricots and dried cherries. Hmmmm. If I do say so myself, that's brilliant.
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Still more from Northern California
One of the things that I always bring back from our trips to San Francisco, are fava beans. We will have them in NYC, in due course, but fava beans are my favorite vegetable, and given the chance to have them ahead of schedule, well, it's just too tempting.
Loving fava beans, of course, makes people ask questions like "DUDE. Do you know Anthony Hopkins?" or "DUDE. Do you drink chianti with them?"
PLEASE. There were fava beans before Anthony Hopkins. In fact, there were fava beans before just about any other cultivated vegetable. The Romans ate them. So did the Greeks. In fact, because of one of their rather, ahem, "gassy" characteristics, it was believed that the souls of the dead were contained within the beans, and it took their, ahem "passage" to be released to go to their eternal reward.
Kinda cool idea, don't ya think? Favas were also probably the first legume used in felafel, before being replaced by the much more economical and much less labor intensive chickpea. But look at that green color in felafel before he tosses it into the hot oil. That's not the color of chickpeas. It's not food coloring, it's probably parsley, but why do you think it's green in the first place?
My love for fava beans goes all the way back to childhood. Nana would make them for the two of us, usually with toasted bread. Years later, when I was in law school, I was absolutely ecstatic about finding them in a vegetable market. In what was a daily call to my mother (let's not go there), I told her how excited I was. She paused, and then, through clenched teeth, advised me "I did NOT send you to law school to eat like a peasant. EAT STEAK."
Whether she sent me to law school or not is arguable, but what is not is that I would rather eat fava beans than steak any day. But my mom's reaction is understandable, because, socially, well, before they became chick, "poor people" ate fava beans. They were inexpensive, and incredibly labor intensive (I'll explain that in a minute). So if you had someone at home, doing nothing but housework (like my Nana), you could take the time to do them. "Professionals," however, had no time for this kind of thing.
To the labor intensiveness: favas come in very thick, spongy pods. Sometimes, but not often, you can get them really, REALLY young and then if you grill the pods, you can scrape the flesh off of them, but you hae to be lucky to get them this small. Once they develop any kind of "sponge," those pods are really inedible. And once you get the beans out of the pods, they are encased in a skin that has to come off. THAT's where the labor comes in. You can sit there and peel them, painstakingly (which is the job that a lot of beginning cooks get in restaurants), or you can parboil them and dump them in ice water, and peel them. I came up with an approach once, which it turns out Paula Wolfert, the great Moroccan food expert, also uses. She takes the beans out of the pods, freezes and thaws them, and then just pushes them out of the pod. You need some patience for this, but for folks like Annalena, it is worth it.
You can be disappointed with the yield from fresh favas, if you're not prepped. A pound of favas will give you just a bit under a cup of beans, when podded and peeled. For some people, this is just not worth it. To me, the flavor has an intensity and uniqueness that makes them indispensable; however, it also means that you'll very rarely see a "side order" of fresh fava beans (dried ones, cooked are another matter). They are combined with other vegetables, like peas or asparagus and artichokes, in various combinations. Romans puree the three with stock in their famous "vignarola" soup, and they are mixed with other vegetables in various "spring vegetable ragouts." At this time of year, I love cooking them with green garlic and olive oil, until they are very soft. Normally, I add some stock or water to the olive oil, and sort of "boil/saute" them. As the water/stock boils away, the beans soften. Then the olive oil does its magic and permeates the beans, making them so good you'll want to eat the whole pot. If I'm there, you'll have to fight me.
In my little piece on "Woodward's Garden," some entries below, I talked about Dana's treatment of them, as a mash, with some salsa verde mixed in with them. That one was new to me, and I'm going to try it. Under scallops perhaps, or perhaps on some really good toast.
Yes, they're work, but can ya tell I love them? Annalena has very limited freezer space, but this is one veggie that she stocks for the winter. Not many, perhaps five, one pound bags, and then she doles them out sparingly during the winter. A breath of spring when it's freezing out, is always welcome.
Loving fava beans, of course, makes people ask questions like "DUDE. Do you know Anthony Hopkins?" or "DUDE. Do you drink chianti with them?"
PLEASE. There were fava beans before Anthony Hopkins. In fact, there were fava beans before just about any other cultivated vegetable. The Romans ate them. So did the Greeks. In fact, because of one of their rather, ahem, "gassy" characteristics, it was believed that the souls of the dead were contained within the beans, and it took their, ahem "passage" to be released to go to their eternal reward.
Kinda cool idea, don't ya think? Favas were also probably the first legume used in felafel, before being replaced by the much more economical and much less labor intensive chickpea. But look at that green color in felafel before he tosses it into the hot oil. That's not the color of chickpeas. It's not food coloring, it's probably parsley, but why do you think it's green in the first place?
My love for fava beans goes all the way back to childhood. Nana would make them for the two of us, usually with toasted bread. Years later, when I was in law school, I was absolutely ecstatic about finding them in a vegetable market. In what was a daily call to my mother (let's not go there), I told her how excited I was. She paused, and then, through clenched teeth, advised me "I did NOT send you to law school to eat like a peasant. EAT STEAK."
Whether she sent me to law school or not is arguable, but what is not is that I would rather eat fava beans than steak any day. But my mom's reaction is understandable, because, socially, well, before they became chick, "poor people" ate fava beans. They were inexpensive, and incredibly labor intensive (I'll explain that in a minute). So if you had someone at home, doing nothing but housework (like my Nana), you could take the time to do them. "Professionals," however, had no time for this kind of thing.
To the labor intensiveness: favas come in very thick, spongy pods. Sometimes, but not often, you can get them really, REALLY young and then if you grill the pods, you can scrape the flesh off of them, but you hae to be lucky to get them this small. Once they develop any kind of "sponge," those pods are really inedible. And once you get the beans out of the pods, they are encased in a skin that has to come off. THAT's where the labor comes in. You can sit there and peel them, painstakingly (which is the job that a lot of beginning cooks get in restaurants), or you can parboil them and dump them in ice water, and peel them. I came up with an approach once, which it turns out Paula Wolfert, the great Moroccan food expert, also uses. She takes the beans out of the pods, freezes and thaws them, and then just pushes them out of the pod. You need some patience for this, but for folks like Annalena, it is worth it.
You can be disappointed with the yield from fresh favas, if you're not prepped. A pound of favas will give you just a bit under a cup of beans, when podded and peeled. For some people, this is just not worth it. To me, the flavor has an intensity and uniqueness that makes them indispensable; however, it also means that you'll very rarely see a "side order" of fresh fava beans (dried ones, cooked are another matter). They are combined with other vegetables, like peas or asparagus and artichokes, in various combinations. Romans puree the three with stock in their famous "vignarola" soup, and they are mixed with other vegetables in various "spring vegetable ragouts." At this time of year, I love cooking them with green garlic and olive oil, until they are very soft. Normally, I add some stock or water to the olive oil, and sort of "boil/saute" them. As the water/stock boils away, the beans soften. Then the olive oil does its magic and permeates the beans, making them so good you'll want to eat the whole pot. If I'm there, you'll have to fight me.
In my little piece on "Woodward's Garden," some entries below, I talked about Dana's treatment of them, as a mash, with some salsa verde mixed in with them. That one was new to me, and I'm going to try it. Under scallops perhaps, or perhaps on some really good toast.
Yes, they're work, but can ya tell I love them? Annalena has very limited freezer space, but this is one veggie that she stocks for the winter. Not many, perhaps five, one pound bags, and then she doles them out sparingly during the winter. A breath of spring when it's freezing out, is always welcome.
Monday, May 26, 2008
Keeping it green
One of the things we brought back from SF was what is called "green garlic." You can get this in NY, at farmers' markets too, but it isn't quite ready yet. The stuff in SF, however, was, and we love it.
So what is "green garlic?" Well, if you garden, you know that garlic is one of the more interesting plants you can grow and harvest. It goes through different stages, from a point where it is no bigger than a small scallion, to those full, dry bulbs of it you see in the fall. "Green garlic," or "spring garlic," or "young garlic," is garlic that has formed a bulb, but has not yet formed true cloves within the bulb. The green leaf that comes out of the ground is still fresh. The aroma of green garlic is, perhaps, more overpowering than any of the other forms of garlic. But the bulb itself is quite mild. It is very useful in a number of different dishes. It seems "made" for dairy products like ricotta, and also pairs beautifully with potatoes (remember the pizza I had at Greens? Or the custard we shared at Chez Panisse?). I will tell you this: I bet it confused more than one blood hound in my luggage, if in fact it was checked in that way. The bag that I carried it home with still smells of it, after being out in the air for about six hours.
I used it after we came home (for some reason, no jet lag this time), to make a pot of soup. Whenever I come back from a trip of some length, be it business or vacation, I NEED to get into the kitchen. I HAVE to cook. This is where I gather my strength, it's a way of knowing I'm "home" And soup does that for me like nothing else. This is a soup right out of the books of Chez Panisse, but it's very versatile (unlike gay men, whatever they say). I will give you the basic recipe, and then give you some ideas for what else you can do with it.
You need one pound of green garlic. That's more than you think. I thought I had tons of it, in the ten plants I brought home. In fact, I needed eight of them. You also need half a pound of potatoes, two onions, a stick of unsalted butter, and two quarts of something liquid. I used half chicken stock and half water (because I only had one quart of stock in the house), but you can use all water, or all stock, or different stocks. I think you could probably substitute some wine as well.
Examine your green garlics and if there is any skin that seems too tough to eat, peel it away. This will vary, from plant to plant. I think I had it on four of mine, and not on the others. After you've done this, slice off the root end and trash it, then slice everything else into circles. ALL THE WAY UP. You will be using the whole plant. You will also want to peel and dice the potatoes into small pieces, and also dice the onion somewhat finely.
Now, you're ready. Melt the stick of butter in a stock pot, and when it's almost done, add the onions. Cook them slowly, and watch for when they go to translucent. This is a good thing to get used to doing. When onions get to that white translucency, they lose some of their sulfuric flavors, and begin to soften in taste. Add some salt. Then add the potatoes, the garlic, and the liquid, and let the stuff come to a simmer. Go away for fifteen minutes. Check the potatoes and the garlic slices to see if they're nice and soft. If the potatoes are, but the garlic resists a little, you're okay. It will continue to cook as it cools. If the potatoes are not soft enough, cook for another five minutes.
Chez Panisse gives you the option of pureeing this soup. I wouldn't if I were you. There is something wonderfully "soul satisfying "in the rustic, chunky simplicity of the soup. But if you prefer something smoother, by all means. DO know you will have bits that you will have to strain out, because you WILL miss some of the garlic skin, and it will not puree nicely.
If this soup sounds a bit like vichissoyse, you're on the same page as I am, and the variations you can do with that French soup are all usable here. You can add dairy, if you like, or some cooked greens. I have had this soup with an egg poached onto each portion. It has to be a SMALL egg. A quail egg is nice if you're strange and have them around, but a small chicken egg will be fine, as well. So, too, would a little crumbled bacon or pancetta that you've fried.
I'm sure you can think of other things to put into this wonderful soup. For example, Annalena was wondering how it would taste with some beets in it? Hmmmmm.
Use it. It's only here for a while, so get some, try it and enjoy it. I know you will
So what is "green garlic?" Well, if you garden, you know that garlic is one of the more interesting plants you can grow and harvest. It goes through different stages, from a point where it is no bigger than a small scallion, to those full, dry bulbs of it you see in the fall. "Green garlic," or "spring garlic," or "young garlic," is garlic that has formed a bulb, but has not yet formed true cloves within the bulb. The green leaf that comes out of the ground is still fresh. The aroma of green garlic is, perhaps, more overpowering than any of the other forms of garlic. But the bulb itself is quite mild. It is very useful in a number of different dishes. It seems "made" for dairy products like ricotta, and also pairs beautifully with potatoes (remember the pizza I had at Greens? Or the custard we shared at Chez Panisse?). I will tell you this: I bet it confused more than one blood hound in my luggage, if in fact it was checked in that way. The bag that I carried it home with still smells of it, after being out in the air for about six hours.
I used it after we came home (for some reason, no jet lag this time), to make a pot of soup. Whenever I come back from a trip of some length, be it business or vacation, I NEED to get into the kitchen. I HAVE to cook. This is where I gather my strength, it's a way of knowing I'm "home" And soup does that for me like nothing else. This is a soup right out of the books of Chez Panisse, but it's very versatile (unlike gay men, whatever they say). I will give you the basic recipe, and then give you some ideas for what else you can do with it.
You need one pound of green garlic. That's more than you think. I thought I had tons of it, in the ten plants I brought home. In fact, I needed eight of them. You also need half a pound of potatoes, two onions, a stick of unsalted butter, and two quarts of something liquid. I used half chicken stock and half water (because I only had one quart of stock in the house), but you can use all water, or all stock, or different stocks. I think you could probably substitute some wine as well.
Examine your green garlics and if there is any skin that seems too tough to eat, peel it away. This will vary, from plant to plant. I think I had it on four of mine, and not on the others. After you've done this, slice off the root end and trash it, then slice everything else into circles. ALL THE WAY UP. You will be using the whole plant. You will also want to peel and dice the potatoes into small pieces, and also dice the onion somewhat finely.
Now, you're ready. Melt the stick of butter in a stock pot, and when it's almost done, add the onions. Cook them slowly, and watch for when they go to translucent. This is a good thing to get used to doing. When onions get to that white translucency, they lose some of their sulfuric flavors, and begin to soften in taste. Add some salt. Then add the potatoes, the garlic, and the liquid, and let the stuff come to a simmer. Go away for fifteen minutes. Check the potatoes and the garlic slices to see if they're nice and soft. If the potatoes are, but the garlic resists a little, you're okay. It will continue to cook as it cools. If the potatoes are not soft enough, cook for another five minutes.
Chez Panisse gives you the option of pureeing this soup. I wouldn't if I were you. There is something wonderfully "soul satisfying "in the rustic, chunky simplicity of the soup. But if you prefer something smoother, by all means. DO know you will have bits that you will have to strain out, because you WILL miss some of the garlic skin, and it will not puree nicely.
If this soup sounds a bit like vichissoyse, you're on the same page as I am, and the variations you can do with that French soup are all usable here. You can add dairy, if you like, or some cooked greens. I have had this soup with an egg poached onto each portion. It has to be a SMALL egg. A quail egg is nice if you're strange and have them around, but a small chicken egg will be fine, as well. So, too, would a little crumbled bacon or pancetta that you've fried.
I'm sure you can think of other things to put into this wonderful soup. For example, Annalena was wondering how it would taste with some beets in it? Hmmmmm.
Use it. It's only here for a while, so get some, try it and enjoy it. I know you will
Saving the best for last
Every time we trip out to San Francisco, there is an unspoken question that is in back of both of our minds: where are we going to have THE BEST MEAL of the trip? Of course, you never know when that's going to happen, and you don't always know until the very end. And there have been times when it happened at the beginning, and then the middle. This time, it was the last one .We were probably Woodward's Garden 's third and fourth customers. It's an example of how chance meetings lead to wonderful relationships. I was taking private Japanese lessons, and my teacher told me how her friend and classmate Margie, was opening a restaurant with her partner Dana. They were opening while we were there, and we should check it out .Check it out, we did. It was tiny. The dishes didn't match, the silverware didn't match, they didn't have a credit card machine, and the phone was, well, spotty (made more spotty by the fact that my Japanese teacher called during our dinner to chat and ask for help on how to work our VCR machine - REMEMBER VCR MACHINES????). But the meal was wonderful. Margie was working that night at the front of the house, and we really had a wonderful meal and wanted to go back. And go back we did. And it was good that we had the "connection," because the place caught on. Somehow, the offbeat location (it's really not in a great part of town, but it's safe), the idea of these two lesbians cooking some really wicked food, and the SF "bloodsport" mentality about eating out made it one of the "hotspots." Getting a reservation was not always easy. Then, two things happened. One was the demolition of the Embarcadero freeway. Made it nearly impossible to get there. And then, when that was done, September 11, 2001. The combination nearly put the place under. The ladies were looking, very hard, at closing the place, moving to another city to raise their daughter Claire, and just get out of town. Then, something else happened, uniquely San Francisco. Like any city, SF has its cooking shows, one of which is called "Check, please." In this show, three people talk about their favorite restaurant, the three of them go to all three places, and then vote. Hands down, Woodward's won. SF is a food town. People watched the show. They started going. And while the buzz isn't the way it was, there's no question about leaving. In fact, there's discussion of getting a bigger place. And we'll be a part of it. No question about it So, why do we come back? Well, here's some idea. We really didn't want to choose our food. Margie chose a griled goat cheese fritter with ramps and a tomato ramp vinaigrette for us. We've actually had this before. Frying soft cheese is not easy. Annalena always makes a mess of it. This was NOT a mess. Man, was it good. Dana who does the cooking is not afraid of high heat. The toast under the cheese is TOAST. The cheese is BLACK on the outside. And it melts, like dairy lava, all over everything. Also, a plate aof scallops over fava bean puree . This was the third scallop dish we had out here. It was the best. I think there were also peas in the fava beans, and it was chunky, spicy and wonderful. A great counterpoint, and I kept on thinking "I could make this for Caz. He would eat this. " Yes, we're going to get together and have this soon, Caz. I promise. I'm bringing fava beans home with me, and once there back in season in NY, a date? Margie always sneaks something in, and she did : a bowl of new fennel soup, with a crostini of sweet ricotta on it. Annalena loves fennel soup, this was superb. It was like an anisey onion soup. I didn't have to say it. Margie said "I know, you're going to make it when you get home." Yes I am. Onto main courses, and more challenges with choosing. No one cooks a steak better than Dana does, and Guy had the hanger steak, with a grain of fava beans asparagus and potatoes. It was the FIRST gratin we've had out here that didn't taste sweet. For me? Pork chop, grilled so beautifuly, and so succulent, with a salsa of meyer lemons, olives, almonds, and the wonderful slice of grilled prosciutto right over it. That came with one of Dana's signature items, gigante beans. She loves cooking with them, and she does such a great job. I was cracking the bones to get whatever was left. In the past, we wondered whether the ladies really had their heart in desserts, and often didn't want to have them, but did, because they insisted. I think now it was a learning curve. Margie and Dana are savory chefs, not pastry chefs. But now.... Desserts that are simple, but wonderful. I had a cherry almond tart, that didn't change my mind about cherries (I think sweet cherries should be left alone, eaten out of hand, and that's it. I think they lose their magic when they're cooked), but was still wonderful. Guy had a chocolate meringue, split open and filled with strawberry ice cream with chocolate sauce. Annalena is not a fan of chocolate, but she liked this. Everytime we're there, we get into discussions with the people around us. It seems that everyone who goes to Woodward's knows each other, in some form or another of "six degrees of separation." We were chatting with a group of four on one side, and a group of three on the other. One of the three had been an assistant cook there before. That happens here a lot. the former cooks come back and eat. It's always hard to say goodbye to "The girls" as we call them. It was easier last night, because when we left, the place was booming. Dana had ten pans on the stove at the same time, and was smiling as much as she was when we walked in and there were two. Margie was looking frantic and nervous, the way she always does, but she stopped for a hug and to give us a bottle of the wine we had drunk for dinner, because there's history behind it and she wants us to know it. Annalena's galettes are based on Dana's crust. You will be seeing them soon, now that the summer fruit crop is upon us. And she will make that fennel soup. Without question, the best meal of the trip. No qualms, no problems, no nothing. The ladies rock. Can't wait to get back. ********And so, that ends Annalena's romp through SF restaurants. I hope you enjoyed reading about some of the places we love, and I hope you'll try some. We get on a plane tonight, going home with groceries picked up at the farmer's market. I'll be talking about those in days to come, as I cook through the yummies. It has been a wonderful trip. We DID do things other than eat, if you can believe it. Guy's pictures - all 2000 of them - will be available if you want to
Saturday, May 24, 2008
Basking in Basque food
Ok, some background here. Years ago, Guy and I decided to give a SF French restaurant a try, a place called Fringale. Wildly popular with San Franciscans, less formal than places like La Folie (which we did NOT like), it sounded good. We were told that reservations were both necessary, and a fluid concept at the place. Indeed. When we got there, for our 7:30 reservation, there was a line. A LONG line. And an unpleasant one. Some guy three people behind us started making a real ruckus, and they seated him in front of everyone else. Yours truly was not going to put up with this, and said something to the restaurant, and to him. After applause all around, the group of us (we hadn't gone in a group, but we had "united" ) were seated, apologized to, comped on dessert and wine, and had a very good meal. However, how do you eliminate the unpleasantness of that intro? I can't. So we didn't go back.
Then, there was a "buzz" both in the SF restaurant community and nationwide. The chef, Chef Hirgoyen, was opening up his own place, a fairly elegant one, to serve Basque food. The chef was Basque himself, and he wanted to try it.
With all the buzz, so did we. And we liked it. At the start, the delightfully friendly and handsome chef was there every night, cooking in extremely well fitting jeans and a cooking smock, smiling, coming to tables, with a wonderful staff, and dishes that didn't fit into anything anyone knew: were they French? Were they Spanish? WHAT WERE THEY? Indeed, they seemed to partake of both cuisines and be neither one. A dish I remember very well, a winter dessert of baked ricotta cheese, with walnuts and honey, sort of says it all. And there's always some kind of variation on this "slightly sharp cheese" with something" dessert on the menu. Last night, it was thick yogurt with berries and honey. It sounded good, but Annalena went for a classic, as below.
There is always a menu that changes somewhat, filled with both classical and "nouveau" Basque cooking. The restaurant, called "Piperade," always serves this national dish. They also serve fish stews, stuffed piquillo peppers (HAVE THEM), bacalao , various fish dishes, and other goodies. And we have always been taken care of by a server who looks like he COULD be scary (tall, shaved head, big glasses, named Daniel), he adores us. It's good to have a contact like that. Daniel led me to the fava bean salad, rather than the bacalao. GOOD CALL. The salad, of cooked, cooled fava beans and bitter treviso lettuce, was redolent with basil and mint, and a sweet vinaigrette (one key to this cuisine is sweetness. Desserts are very sweet, dressings are very sweet. If this doesn't appeal to you, the place isn't foryou.). Guy had squid "on a plank" with fennel, olives, capers, coriander and almonds. So tender it fell apart. We were there with three friends, Phil, Frank and Crystal. Everyone was having fun.
Back to that salad. There were "older" fava beans in it, that is, beans that had gone from green to yellow. NOW I KNOW WHAT TO DO WITH THEM.
Onto main courses. Excellent duck in blackberry sauce, and the special, pan seared codfish with "porrusalda" which is essentially very thick vichissoyse. YUM. Steaks and duck and lamb for our friends, and then dessert.
There is a national dessert "Gateau basque." I've made it, it ain't easy, but it sure is good. Two layers of cake, filled with a thick, usually liqueured flavored cream, with candied cherries on the side. REAL sweet. chocolate desserts, apple tart, the aformentioned yogurt, with Daniel approving or not.
Frank "the wine guy" had brought wine with him, and Daniel waived the corkage fee. A lovely gesture, from a restaurant that is lovely all around.
No question about it. Back here we shall come.
One more to go. Next, you'll be hearing about our dear friends Margie and Dana, and a friendship that has grown over the years
Then, there was a "buzz" both in the SF restaurant community and nationwide. The chef, Chef Hirgoyen, was opening up his own place, a fairly elegant one, to serve Basque food. The chef was Basque himself, and he wanted to try it.
With all the buzz, so did we. And we liked it. At the start, the delightfully friendly and handsome chef was there every night, cooking in extremely well fitting jeans and a cooking smock, smiling, coming to tables, with a wonderful staff, and dishes that didn't fit into anything anyone knew: were they French? Were they Spanish? WHAT WERE THEY? Indeed, they seemed to partake of both cuisines and be neither one. A dish I remember very well, a winter dessert of baked ricotta cheese, with walnuts and honey, sort of says it all. And there's always some kind of variation on this "slightly sharp cheese" with something" dessert on the menu. Last night, it was thick yogurt with berries and honey. It sounded good, but Annalena went for a classic, as below.
There is always a menu that changes somewhat, filled with both classical and "nouveau" Basque cooking. The restaurant, called "Piperade," always serves this national dish. They also serve fish stews, stuffed piquillo peppers (HAVE THEM), bacalao , various fish dishes, and other goodies. And we have always been taken care of by a server who looks like he COULD be scary (tall, shaved head, big glasses, named Daniel), he adores us. It's good to have a contact like that. Daniel led me to the fava bean salad, rather than the bacalao. GOOD CALL. The salad, of cooked, cooled fava beans and bitter treviso lettuce, was redolent with basil and mint, and a sweet vinaigrette (one key to this cuisine is sweetness. Desserts are very sweet, dressings are very sweet. If this doesn't appeal to you, the place isn't foryou.). Guy had squid "on a plank" with fennel, olives, capers, coriander and almonds. So tender it fell apart. We were there with three friends, Phil, Frank and Crystal. Everyone was having fun.
Back to that salad. There were "older" fava beans in it, that is, beans that had gone from green to yellow. NOW I KNOW WHAT TO DO WITH THEM.
Onto main courses. Excellent duck in blackberry sauce, and the special, pan seared codfish with "porrusalda" which is essentially very thick vichissoyse. YUM. Steaks and duck and lamb for our friends, and then dessert.
There is a national dessert "Gateau basque." I've made it, it ain't easy, but it sure is good. Two layers of cake, filled with a thick, usually liqueured flavored cream, with candied cherries on the side. REAL sweet. chocolate desserts, apple tart, the aformentioned yogurt, with Daniel approving or not.
Frank "the wine guy" had brought wine with him, and Daniel waived the corkage fee. A lovely gesture, from a restaurant that is lovely all around.
No question about it. Back here we shall come.
One more to go. Next, you'll be hearing about our dear friends Margie and Dana, and a friendship that has grown over the years
Friday, May 23, 2008
Going green
I keep on referring to things like "if you're under 30" when talking about these restaurants, and it's because it's relevant.
When Guy and I were first starting out as a couple, we were vegetarians. The reasons why we switched are many, and for another day, but "back then," it was difficult to be a vegetarian. Apart from the fact that the farmers market phenomenon was just starting, eating out was not easy. Yes, you could scramble together a meal by asking for, e.g., a salad and spaghetti with plain tomato sauce, you found very little out there designed to cater to vegetarians.
There were two restaurants, however, that started the trend. One was Moosewood, in Ithaca New York. Moosewood, which has changed its mission somewhat, served very hearty, very good honest food. Molly Katzen, the first chef there, was and is not a vegetarian; however, a cook who understands what he or she is doing can work in any medium. And for many of us, Moosewood and its cookbooks remain a key part of what we cook, and our history. We may not refer to the books a lot anymore, but we remember them, we remember Moosewood, and we love it.
On the other coast, there was Greens. Greens took another approach. Greens made vegetarian food elegant. Set in a huge, airy, historic building right on the San Francisco bay, the cooking was "haute" by the standard of the day (still is, in my view). Greens made vegetarian dining elegant, although you didn't have to dress up for it. Reservations were not easy to come by, and for us, it was a "special event" restaurant when we came here.
The world caught up to vegetarian cooking, and it's easy to let Greens get eclipsed by other trends and restaurants. And as the current chef, Annie Sommerville told us last night, Greens, like any restaurant "has had its ups and downs." Guy and I would agree. We have had fabulous meals here, we have had mediocre meals here. We have had superb service, we have had downright BAD service. We've had good attitude, we've had bad attitude.
Things are on the up now.
One thing to know: if you're a vegan, you can eat at Greens, but you have to work. Dairy very much rules, and it's hard to turn down some of the dishes. I want to sit there and eat at Greens for three solid days. I certainly did last night.
The front of the house can be a bit snooty. They've never been able to work this out completely, but it is a fact. Once you sit down, however, things change. The restaurant serves no hard liquor, but the wine list is amazing, as is the menu of non alcoholic drink. Organic beverages are featured, including wines, many of which are very good.
Onto the food. There are always incredible salads. A soup. A pizza. Two pastas. A dish with an Indian bent. And "which one, which one, which one." After much agonizing, we settled. Our friend Phil was with us.
Grilled asparagus panzanella, a salad of wonderful bread croutons, cheese, greens, thick asparagus, and lovely manchego cheese. Wilted spinach salad - BARELY wilted, with other greens, feta, olives onions. MMM. Lettus and wild arugula. Cherries, almonds, blue cheese. One winner after the other.
A respite of andante cheese (not available outside of the area, made by a Korean violinist turned cheese maker), Mt. Tam, a cheese that beat the French in the "cheese olympics " (yes, they exist), with salad, and bread.
Onto main courses. Ravioli filled with fresh pea filling, fava beans, onion butter and a broth of great complexity. A vegan brochette with fruited rice. And then a pizza, my first pizza of the trip, of roasted potatoes, green garlic, fontina cheese, sundried tomatoes. So good, so rich, I couldn't finish, but I did. (the pizza dough is the dough recipe I use when making pizzas. It's great).
Too full for dessert, except for a plate of sorbets- blueberry, raspberry and huckleberry. They insisted that they were new and market fresh, I'm not sure about that. But they were wonderful.
You should get the books and cook from them. It's fun to look at them. The first one was impossible to cook from in NY, because the ingredients weren't available. Now they are. And the cooks have "gotten it," and now the recipes are all workable. I make many of them.
Even if you don't like vegetarian food, you should bring a camera and take pictures. And just smile a lot. This is a great place to spend some time.
When Guy and I were first starting out as a couple, we were vegetarians. The reasons why we switched are many, and for another day, but "back then," it was difficult to be a vegetarian. Apart from the fact that the farmers market phenomenon was just starting, eating out was not easy. Yes, you could scramble together a meal by asking for, e.g., a salad and spaghetti with plain tomato sauce, you found very little out there designed to cater to vegetarians.
There were two restaurants, however, that started the trend. One was Moosewood, in Ithaca New York. Moosewood, which has changed its mission somewhat, served very hearty, very good honest food. Molly Katzen, the first chef there, was and is not a vegetarian; however, a cook who understands what he or she is doing can work in any medium. And for many of us, Moosewood and its cookbooks remain a key part of what we cook, and our history. We may not refer to the books a lot anymore, but we remember them, we remember Moosewood, and we love it.
On the other coast, there was Greens. Greens took another approach. Greens made vegetarian food elegant. Set in a huge, airy, historic building right on the San Francisco bay, the cooking was "haute" by the standard of the day (still is, in my view). Greens made vegetarian dining elegant, although you didn't have to dress up for it. Reservations were not easy to come by, and for us, it was a "special event" restaurant when we came here.
The world caught up to vegetarian cooking, and it's easy to let Greens get eclipsed by other trends and restaurants. And as the current chef, Annie Sommerville told us last night, Greens, like any restaurant "has had its ups and downs." Guy and I would agree. We have had fabulous meals here, we have had mediocre meals here. We have had superb service, we have had downright BAD service. We've had good attitude, we've had bad attitude.
Things are on the up now.
One thing to know: if you're a vegan, you can eat at Greens, but you have to work. Dairy very much rules, and it's hard to turn down some of the dishes. I want to sit there and eat at Greens for three solid days. I certainly did last night.
The front of the house can be a bit snooty. They've never been able to work this out completely, but it is a fact. Once you sit down, however, things change. The restaurant serves no hard liquor, but the wine list is amazing, as is the menu of non alcoholic drink. Organic beverages are featured, including wines, many of which are very good.
Onto the food. There are always incredible salads. A soup. A pizza. Two pastas. A dish with an Indian bent. And "which one, which one, which one." After much agonizing, we settled. Our friend Phil was with us.
Grilled asparagus panzanella, a salad of wonderful bread croutons, cheese, greens, thick asparagus, and lovely manchego cheese. Wilted spinach salad - BARELY wilted, with other greens, feta, olives onions. MMM. Lettus and wild arugula. Cherries, almonds, blue cheese. One winner after the other.
A respite of andante cheese (not available outside of the area, made by a Korean violinist turned cheese maker), Mt. Tam, a cheese that beat the French in the "cheese olympics " (yes, they exist), with salad, and bread.
Onto main courses. Ravioli filled with fresh pea filling, fava beans, onion butter and a broth of great complexity. A vegan brochette with fruited rice. And then a pizza, my first pizza of the trip, of roasted potatoes, green garlic, fontina cheese, sundried tomatoes. So good, so rich, I couldn't finish, but I did. (the pizza dough is the dough recipe I use when making pizzas. It's great).
Too full for dessert, except for a plate of sorbets- blueberry, raspberry and huckleberry. They insisted that they were new and market fresh, I'm not sure about that. But they were wonderful.
You should get the books and cook from them. It's fun to look at them. The first one was impossible to cook from in NY, because the ingredients weren't available. Now they are. And the cooks have "gotten it," and now the recipes are all workable. I make many of them.
Even if you don't like vegetarian food, you should bring a camera and take pictures. And just smile a lot. This is a great place to spend some time.
Thursday, May 22, 2008
Visiting Alice's Temple
For those of us of a certain age, and "into food," the title above will provoke an immediate response: I'm talking about Chez Panisse, the restaurant Alice Waters opened in the 70s, which revolutionized the way we eat. It is difficult to imagine this if you are under, say 30, but there was a time where "salad" in a restaurant, regardless of the level of sophistication, was a wedge of iceberg lettuce, with thick French dresing on it. There were no baby greens, there was no vinaigrette. There weren't a LOT of things that we now take for granted. Like decent bread. Or fresh vegetables. And so on, and so forth. Ms. Waters had come back to the United States from a trip to France, her taste buds revolutionized, and she asked a simple question "why can't we do that here?" Answering it has taken more than 30 years, and answering it goes on.
I will confess that the first time we went to Chez Panisse, we didn't "get it." We ate downstairs, which is a fixed menu: you eat what they serve, period. You can find out what they are serving the week of your meal, but since you need to make a reservation a month ahead of time, this can be a problem. Suppose, for example, you don't eat pork, and the main dish that night is a pork roast? They will try to accommodate these things, but this restaurant is not very flexible. I don't know how vegetarians do there, but I'm told they do go. When we went, we had no idea what we were getting into, and actually left feeling like "is that all there is?" And we left hungry.
What we found, as we did research, was that when you eat at Chez Panisse, you DO have to carry the history: local, fresh, organic, sustainable. If it isn't available locally, or if it isn't something unique and fresh to somewhere not , it isn't served. So, for example, in spring , you will get strawberries and cherries, you will not get apples or pears. Conversely, in the fall, you will get figs and pears, but no apricots.
I oversimplify, but you see the idea. And now, this sort of dining is fairly common. But Alice got there first. And Chez Panisse still does it better than anyone else.
I mentioned the downstairs restaurant. There is also an upstairs, called the Cafe, where we've gone ever since. In Annalena's opinion, this is the place to go. The menu changes every day, although there are some constants. The garden salad, for example, is always there, as is a salad with baked goat cheese (yup. It started here folks). There is always fresh fruit offered as a dessert. There's a soup, but beyond that, you have to be there to see what there is. I think that the menu is decided in the morning, after the deliveries come in. There is some planning. For example, last night there was a huge bowl of apricots on a counter, but no apricots on the menu. The host told me they were ripening for service today. And that's how it works.
So, how about the food? Well, let me wait one more minute to talk about some other issues. This isn't a fancy place, at all. And the tables are a little cramped. Service can be slow, or it can be wonderful. For example, one time we were there with an infirm friend. He couldn't see very well, and he walked with a cane. The hostess came over and said to me "I just want you to see your table to see if you like it." As we walked, she whispered to me "please pay attention to the floor. There's a slight incline here, your friend may have trouble." Discrete, and classy. So, too the waiter that time who, when he saw that our friend was having trouble getting his salad to his mouth came over and said "I love that salad too, sir, but I love it more with bread. See if you like it my way." And put our friend's hand on the bread, and saved the day.
Yes, we tipped well that time. There are other times, on the other hand, where service is slow, or poor. Last night it wasn't poor, but it was slow. COuldn't figure out why, but people were cancelling things because they took too long to get to them.
Foodwise, we have had meals that have been more than perfect. Sometimes not. Last night, it wasn't perfect. We should have gone with instincts here, but we didn't.
The menu last night had nine appetizers on it, six entrees. All of the appetizers looked, well, appetizing, and we should have made our meal of these. We didn't. Instead, Guy had a salad of beets, avocados, and frisee, with grapefruit vinaigrette. It was, in fact , textbook good. Beets cooked perfectly, ripe avocados, just enough grapefruit. Annalena had a plate of humus, "spicy" carrot salad, and flatbread. The humus was lovely, the carrots not spicy but good, and the flatbread nice and crispy. Both presentations were stunning. Both left us wanting more.
You can leave hungry if you don't order carefully, because portions are very "European." So we had a mid course of green garlic souffle with spring vegetable ragout. This is the kind of dish that NO ONE comes close to Chez Panisse in presenting. Gorgeous, quivering eggs and cheese, with a "mess" of fava beans, peas, turnips, and artichokes. Each vegetable had been cooked individually. Try that at home. The souffle, perfect, but the kind of dish you can make at home (and should: the recipe is available in the Cafe cookbook), and never get in a restaurant.
Main courses: Guy had a braised chicken leg with asparagus, celery root puree and morels. I was surprised to see celery root, but hey, there it was, and creamy good. The chicken seemed rather expensive, but there were so many morels on the plate that we couldn't finish them. My dish was spaghetti with local clams, peas, saffron and marjoram. Someone had a very heavy hand with the marjoram. I happen to like this taste, but if you don't, you would have sent this back. I didn't know that there was saffron in the dish until I looked at the menu on the way home: the marjoram was too overpowering for the delicate saffron. But the clams were superb.
Dessert: rhubarb cobbler for Guy, and strawberry red wine sherbet with strawberries and a cookie. I was hard pressed to taste the red wine, but the sherbet was delicious. Cobbler was a revelation. They got the rhubarb just right, not too tart, not too sweet. Vanilla ice cream and a biscuit made it great.
At the end: coffee for Guy, and one of the reasons I LOVE THIS PLACE: tissane for me. Tissane is "just" boiled water, with fresh herbs in it. Mint and lemon verbena last night. A glass pot comes out, nice and heavy, showing the beautiful fresh herbs in it. A Moroccan tea glass is used to serve it. Now, this simple elegance is something that any restaurant can do, and few of them bother with. That's one of the things that sets this place apart.
All in all, a really solid evening here. IF we didn't know better, we might reconsider this one, next time around. But there are many people who say that if they could eat at only one restaurant, this is the one that they'd pick. You should go. Make your reservation as far ahead as you can, (they take them a month ahead), and be ready to be surprised. Then go home and cook the dishes. You can. That's the point.
I will confess that the first time we went to Chez Panisse, we didn't "get it." We ate downstairs, which is a fixed menu: you eat what they serve, period. You can find out what they are serving the week of your meal, but since you need to make a reservation a month ahead of time, this can be a problem. Suppose, for example, you don't eat pork, and the main dish that night is a pork roast? They will try to accommodate these things, but this restaurant is not very flexible. I don't know how vegetarians do there, but I'm told they do go. When we went, we had no idea what we were getting into, and actually left feeling like "is that all there is?" And we left hungry.
What we found, as we did research, was that when you eat at Chez Panisse, you DO have to carry the history: local, fresh, organic, sustainable. If it isn't available locally, or if it isn't something unique and fresh to somewhere not , it isn't served. So, for example, in spring , you will get strawberries and cherries, you will not get apples or pears. Conversely, in the fall, you will get figs and pears, but no apricots.
I oversimplify, but you see the idea. And now, this sort of dining is fairly common. But Alice got there first. And Chez Panisse still does it better than anyone else.
I mentioned the downstairs restaurant. There is also an upstairs, called the Cafe, where we've gone ever since. In Annalena's opinion, this is the place to go. The menu changes every day, although there are some constants. The garden salad, for example, is always there, as is a salad with baked goat cheese (yup. It started here folks). There is always fresh fruit offered as a dessert. There's a soup, but beyond that, you have to be there to see what there is. I think that the menu is decided in the morning, after the deliveries come in. There is some planning. For example, last night there was a huge bowl of apricots on a counter, but no apricots on the menu. The host told me they were ripening for service today. And that's how it works.
So, how about the food? Well, let me wait one more minute to talk about some other issues. This isn't a fancy place, at all. And the tables are a little cramped. Service can be slow, or it can be wonderful. For example, one time we were there with an infirm friend. He couldn't see very well, and he walked with a cane. The hostess came over and said to me "I just want you to see your table to see if you like it." As we walked, she whispered to me "please pay attention to the floor. There's a slight incline here, your friend may have trouble." Discrete, and classy. So, too the waiter that time who, when he saw that our friend was having trouble getting his salad to his mouth came over and said "I love that salad too, sir, but I love it more with bread. See if you like it my way." And put our friend's hand on the bread, and saved the day.
Yes, we tipped well that time. There are other times, on the other hand, where service is slow, or poor. Last night it wasn't poor, but it was slow. COuldn't figure out why, but people were cancelling things because they took too long to get to them.
Foodwise, we have had meals that have been more than perfect. Sometimes not. Last night, it wasn't perfect. We should have gone with instincts here, but we didn't.
The menu last night had nine appetizers on it, six entrees. All of the appetizers looked, well, appetizing, and we should have made our meal of these. We didn't. Instead, Guy had a salad of beets, avocados, and frisee, with grapefruit vinaigrette. It was, in fact , textbook good. Beets cooked perfectly, ripe avocados, just enough grapefruit. Annalena had a plate of humus, "spicy" carrot salad, and flatbread. The humus was lovely, the carrots not spicy but good, and the flatbread nice and crispy. Both presentations were stunning. Both left us wanting more.
You can leave hungry if you don't order carefully, because portions are very "European." So we had a mid course of green garlic souffle with spring vegetable ragout. This is the kind of dish that NO ONE comes close to Chez Panisse in presenting. Gorgeous, quivering eggs and cheese, with a "mess" of fava beans, peas, turnips, and artichokes. Each vegetable had been cooked individually. Try that at home. The souffle, perfect, but the kind of dish you can make at home (and should: the recipe is available in the Cafe cookbook), and never get in a restaurant.
Main courses: Guy had a braised chicken leg with asparagus, celery root puree and morels. I was surprised to see celery root, but hey, there it was, and creamy good. The chicken seemed rather expensive, but there were so many morels on the plate that we couldn't finish them. My dish was spaghetti with local clams, peas, saffron and marjoram. Someone had a very heavy hand with the marjoram. I happen to like this taste, but if you don't, you would have sent this back. I didn't know that there was saffron in the dish until I looked at the menu on the way home: the marjoram was too overpowering for the delicate saffron. But the clams were superb.
Dessert: rhubarb cobbler for Guy, and strawberry red wine sherbet with strawberries and a cookie. I was hard pressed to taste the red wine, but the sherbet was delicious. Cobbler was a revelation. They got the rhubarb just right, not too tart, not too sweet. Vanilla ice cream and a biscuit made it great.
At the end: coffee for Guy, and one of the reasons I LOVE THIS PLACE: tissane for me. Tissane is "just" boiled water, with fresh herbs in it. Mint and lemon verbena last night. A glass pot comes out, nice and heavy, showing the beautiful fresh herbs in it. A Moroccan tea glass is used to serve it. Now, this simple elegance is something that any restaurant can do, and few of them bother with. That's one of the things that sets this place apart.
All in all, a really solid evening here. IF we didn't know better, we might reconsider this one, next time around. But there are many people who say that if they could eat at only one restaurant, this is the one that they'd pick. You should go. Make your reservation as far ahead as you can, (they take them a month ahead), and be ready to be surprised. Then go home and cook the dishes. You can. That's the point.
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Like a movie: campton place
When you dine out , there are certain "rules" that you're taught. One of them is that you treat hotel dining rooms as a place of last resort for dinner. Breakfast maybe, but you NEVER go to a hotel for dinner, unless you have to.
Every rule has an exception. For us, it's Campton Place.
It wasn't always that way. We had looked at their menu, and decided no, years ago. The fact that someone who's taste I do NOT respect always ate there added to that. But then one day, the lovely Shania Dilworth, who was the wine person at Jardiniere (only in SF can a bull dyke be a wine sommelier, and she's a damn good one), moved to Campton Place, after the Campton Place crew went to NY, and we followed her.
It was like a college reunion when we got there. It's impossible to talk about how good a time we had. I think the dinner took three or four hours, we probably had 8 wines, and even though the subway was a block away, it was out of the question we were so, well, uh, you know.
Well, Shania has moved on, the chefs have changed, many times, but we've gone back. And it's still good. In fact, it's still well worth going.
I should say that, when we walked in, I felt like I was in a scene from a Fellini movie. It was 7 o'clock, and the room was empty. NO ONE was eating. Very odd for San Francisco. The grill outside, was jammed. There was soft music, white orchids, beautiful glass sculpture... and no people. Eventually, I think it "filled" with seven of us, plus the general manager's table, but it was kind of odd feeling like there was personal attention. And there was. From yet another amazing 20 something. Joseph took care of us. Joseph is 23. If I didn't love him, I would hate him.
So what did we eat? First, an "amuse bouche" of avocado and apple foam, which looked, and tasted like kiwi, especially with the black sea salt that was in it When the chef came out and I asked him, he smiled and said "maybe" it was a pun. That came with a small slice of seared tuna. (Interestingly, later that night, the GM's table got the same soup, but with a fried cod beignet. I was tempted to ask for one). There was a second amuse bouche of a raw halibut chop, with some nuts and vegetables, not as good as the first one, but good.
Onto the real food. Scallops, "barely seared," as they say, and that was accurate, with just a bit of risotto of peas, ham and green soybeans. Perfect match. And this time, the scallops were RIGHT.
The next course might have been my favorite, and I will try to copy it. A soup of Little Gem lettuce, served with a spoon of cooked wheat , bacon and a poached quail egg. Now, Annalena has said that she is not a fan of poached eggs; however, a quail egg is about the size of a comma and she gave this a try. WONDERFUL. And lettuce soup (Little gems are baby heads of romaine lettuce. You almost never see these in NY, but they're very big here). Lettuce soup is one of Annalena's obsessions. The cook promised me the recipe, but it didn't happen.
Next, halibut, seared well, with a puree of basil and parsnip and preserved lemons. This may have been Guy's favorite dish. It is the case that halibut come to the bay area, like clockwork, at the end of May. It has been on the menu, every single restaurant. Having it "off the boat" does make a difference. So, Annalena suggests that if you like fish, and you're travelling, find out what has "come to shore" and eat that.
The meat course: grass fed beef with forels, fava beans, watercress, and a lyonnaise potato galette. The potatoes were too sweet for me, but the beef was fork cuttable. Interestingly enough, with all of the great beef available in California, this beef came from Pennsylvania. Hmmm. And the farm also specializes in quail. Interesting. Research for Annalena.
Finally, a perfectly poached peach, tea ice cream, white peach sorbet, and a chopped mango, with "granola." That was the ONE bad note in the whole meal. That granola could have stayed in the cereal box for tomorrow. But given how perfect everything else was, it was a perfect meal.
It was a splurge, no question about it. It always is here. The dinner was 85.00 per person. The wine added 60. 00 each, and we each had a glass of champagne for 19 bucks a glass. But given the level of care, the personal service, the GORGEOUS table settings (Annalena was very clear about wanting to steal each and every serving plate), the value is very, VERY high. And of course, we'll be back.
The one thing lacking, of course, was Gradisca and her gang from Amarcord, coming into the dining room to dance for us. THAT would have made things absolutely perfect. Perfect food, perfect wine, perfect service, perfect all around. Maybe next time, they'll pay Nino Rota's music for us.
Every rule has an exception. For us, it's Campton Place.
It wasn't always that way. We had looked at their menu, and decided no, years ago. The fact that someone who's taste I do NOT respect always ate there added to that. But then one day, the lovely Shania Dilworth, who was the wine person at Jardiniere (only in SF can a bull dyke be a wine sommelier, and she's a damn good one), moved to Campton Place, after the Campton Place crew went to NY, and we followed her.
It was like a college reunion when we got there. It's impossible to talk about how good a time we had. I think the dinner took three or four hours, we probably had 8 wines, and even though the subway was a block away, it was out of the question we were so, well, uh, you know.
Well, Shania has moved on, the chefs have changed, many times, but we've gone back. And it's still good. In fact, it's still well worth going.
I should say that, when we walked in, I felt like I was in a scene from a Fellini movie. It was 7 o'clock, and the room was empty. NO ONE was eating. Very odd for San Francisco. The grill outside, was jammed. There was soft music, white orchids, beautiful glass sculpture... and no people. Eventually, I think it "filled" with seven of us, plus the general manager's table, but it was kind of odd feeling like there was personal attention. And there was. From yet another amazing 20 something. Joseph took care of us. Joseph is 23. If I didn't love him, I would hate him.
So what did we eat? First, an "amuse bouche" of avocado and apple foam, which looked, and tasted like kiwi, especially with the black sea salt that was in it When the chef came out and I asked him, he smiled and said "maybe" it was a pun. That came with a small slice of seared tuna. (Interestingly, later that night, the GM's table got the same soup, but with a fried cod beignet. I was tempted to ask for one). There was a second amuse bouche of a raw halibut chop, with some nuts and vegetables, not as good as the first one, but good.
Onto the real food. Scallops, "barely seared," as they say, and that was accurate, with just a bit of risotto of peas, ham and green soybeans. Perfect match. And this time, the scallops were RIGHT.
The next course might have been my favorite, and I will try to copy it. A soup of Little Gem lettuce, served with a spoon of cooked wheat , bacon and a poached quail egg. Now, Annalena has said that she is not a fan of poached eggs; however, a quail egg is about the size of a comma and she gave this a try. WONDERFUL. And lettuce soup (Little gems are baby heads of romaine lettuce. You almost never see these in NY, but they're very big here). Lettuce soup is one of Annalena's obsessions. The cook promised me the recipe, but it didn't happen.
Next, halibut, seared well, with a puree of basil and parsnip and preserved lemons. This may have been Guy's favorite dish. It is the case that halibut come to the bay area, like clockwork, at the end of May. It has been on the menu, every single restaurant. Having it "off the boat" does make a difference. So, Annalena suggests that if you like fish, and you're travelling, find out what has "come to shore" and eat that.
The meat course: grass fed beef with forels, fava beans, watercress, and a lyonnaise potato galette. The potatoes were too sweet for me, but the beef was fork cuttable. Interestingly enough, with all of the great beef available in California, this beef came from Pennsylvania. Hmmm. And the farm also specializes in quail. Interesting. Research for Annalena.
Finally, a perfectly poached peach, tea ice cream, white peach sorbet, and a chopped mango, with "granola." That was the ONE bad note in the whole meal. That granola could have stayed in the cereal box for tomorrow. But given how perfect everything else was, it was a perfect meal.
It was a splurge, no question about it. It always is here. The dinner was 85.00 per person. The wine added 60. 00 each, and we each had a glass of champagne for 19 bucks a glass. But given the level of care, the personal service, the GORGEOUS table settings (Annalena was very clear about wanting to steal each and every serving plate), the value is very, VERY high. And of course, we'll be back.
The one thing lacking, of course, was Gradisca and her gang from Amarcord, coming into the dining room to dance for us. THAT would have made things absolutely perfect. Perfect food, perfect wine, perfect service, perfect all around. Maybe next time, they'll pay Nino Rota's music for us.
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
More than Pizza
Some years ago, a trend started in Italian restaurants that is not quite over. Instead of your typical "Italian" restaurant, which would serve dishes from all over the boot, "regional" Italian cooking became the rage. Of course, we were flooded with Tuscan restaurants, but there were also Sicilian restaurants, and restaurants specializing in Emilia Romagna, and so forth.
Of course, if you went to these places, and if you knew anything about regional Italian cooking, you soon found out that they really weren't all that "regional." The argument that many restaurants made was that Italian cooking had become very cosmpolitan, and you could get risottto, which is very much a product of the north, in a Sicilian restaurant, and you could get arancini, the wonderful fried rice balls of Sicily, in Milan. So, really, what they were saying was that there was no such thing as regional Italian cooking. (My view is that it was really simply an attempt to make as much money as possible. If you have a truly Northern Italian restaurant and serve only polenta and no pasta, you will be out of business in a year. And so forth).
San Francisco has held on to its Italian (as in "Italian American") community more than just about any American city, except possibly St. Louis. And the regional distinctions are kept, much more than in other cities. "A16," which is a newer restaurant on our list, serves the food of Campania. If you're thinking, "Campania? Where's that?" " think Naples . It's the region where Naples is located. There's much more here, but people know Naples.
And Naples is the birthplace of pizza. So it's here. And many people come in to eat what is wonderful pizza. We've had it, at lunch, but we don't usually eat it at dinner, looking for more fun food. and we had that last night.
Many of the "cliches" of southern Italian food ultimately come out of Campania. Meatballs, sausage, hearty tasting pastas, braises. Yup, they're all here. And they're all done the way you either grew up with (as Annalena did, with Nana cooking), or as you wish you grew up. Maccaronara, with a tomato ragu and ricotta salata, was picture perfect and I was back home with Nana, eating it for lunch. Fusilli with a white ragu (note to file: Annalena has got to start her ragu project), came with fava beans and pecorino romano cheese. The fava beans were a bit of a dress up: Nana didn't have the time to do them. But it sure was good.
Onto yellowtail tuna with a relish of almonds, capers, lemon and parsley. One of the "secrets" of this region's cooking is in fact the use of almonds and other nuts in places where you might expect either breadcrumbs or cheese. With fish, it's a natural. And in the style of Italy and other parts of Europe, the fish is NOT rare, you do NOT get a choice. But juicy. Oh, was it juicy. "Arrotalato" sounded like what Annalena knew as bracciole growing up, and indeed, it was very close, and OH, so tasty. There are dishes that are so "mouth filling" with flavor, that you really can't finish them, because there's just too much of the flavor. Your buds get sated. That happened to Annalena. She wanted to eat the whole thing and couldn't. She was glad that Guy was there to help finish it up.
A16 also does something that I wish more restaurants did. When you order a main dish, you get a vegetable. But you get to pick it. There were five options. You can order them in addition to your dish, but you get one as a matter of right. How many times have you wanted to have something for dinner, but didn't want the carrots, or the potatoes, or whatever it came with, and were too intimidated to ask? Or, were told "no, the restaurant doesn't make substitutions" (Annalena either needs a VERY good reason for the failure to make the substitution, or she doesn't go back). Well, you get to design the plate, at no charge. So Annalena had a mix of mustard greens and "spigariello."
Now, I had never heard of spigariello, and in doing a bit of research, it is another example of the same vegetable, with different names, depending on where you're from. I DO know this vegetable: "cima di rape" It's turnip greens. It's the original broccoli rape. But in Campania this is what they call it. I call it good and good for you.
No room for dessert, but the wonderful hostesses and waitresses, who were born here but could easily fit into a poster for Italalian tourism, they are so pretty, and so friendly, and so unshakeable, insists that we try her favorite: strawberry yogurt swirl sorbet.
Yogurt in an Italian restaurant? Oh well. But it's good. It's made in Italian style. You can tell that the gelato maker only picked out the ripest berries, and that it's sweetened to Italian style (VERY sweet). And it's good.
We had the most expensive bottle of wine we have ever had in a restaurant: 124.00. It was actually more than the meal. Was it worth it? Well, frankly, no. It was good. But when you have been so well trained to drink good wine, your standards are higher.
One last thing about this restaurant, and SF dining generally. Our reservation was for 7. When we got there, the restaurant was packed. And this is typical of this city. If you go into a NY restaurant at 7, you could be the only person there. We have gone to restaurants at 6 and had to wait for a table, and 7 is a mob scene. But by 9, everyone has gone home.
I could speculate on why this is, but I will leave that for pundits, or for when Annalena is back home and sitting in her queen chair and issuing edicts again. For now, however, we must prep for something physical today. We have a big fancy dinner tonight at Campton Place.
And you'll all have to wait to read about it....
Of course, if you went to these places, and if you knew anything about regional Italian cooking, you soon found out that they really weren't all that "regional." The argument that many restaurants made was that Italian cooking had become very cosmpolitan, and you could get risottto, which is very much a product of the north, in a Sicilian restaurant, and you could get arancini, the wonderful fried rice balls of Sicily, in Milan. So, really, what they were saying was that there was no such thing as regional Italian cooking. (My view is that it was really simply an attempt to make as much money as possible. If you have a truly Northern Italian restaurant and serve only polenta and no pasta, you will be out of business in a year. And so forth).
San Francisco has held on to its Italian (as in "Italian American") community more than just about any American city, except possibly St. Louis. And the regional distinctions are kept, much more than in other cities. "A16," which is a newer restaurant on our list, serves the food of Campania. If you're thinking, "Campania? Where's that?" " think Naples . It's the region where Naples is located. There's much more here, but people know Naples.
And Naples is the birthplace of pizza. So it's here. And many people come in to eat what is wonderful pizza. We've had it, at lunch, but we don't usually eat it at dinner, looking for more fun food. and we had that last night.
Many of the "cliches" of southern Italian food ultimately come out of Campania. Meatballs, sausage, hearty tasting pastas, braises. Yup, they're all here. And they're all done the way you either grew up with (as Annalena did, with Nana cooking), or as you wish you grew up. Maccaronara, with a tomato ragu and ricotta salata, was picture perfect and I was back home with Nana, eating it for lunch. Fusilli with a white ragu (note to file: Annalena has got to start her ragu project), came with fava beans and pecorino romano cheese. The fava beans were a bit of a dress up: Nana didn't have the time to do them. But it sure was good.
Onto yellowtail tuna with a relish of almonds, capers, lemon and parsley. One of the "secrets" of this region's cooking is in fact the use of almonds and other nuts in places where you might expect either breadcrumbs or cheese. With fish, it's a natural. And in the style of Italy and other parts of Europe, the fish is NOT rare, you do NOT get a choice. But juicy. Oh, was it juicy. "Arrotalato" sounded like what Annalena knew as bracciole growing up, and indeed, it was very close, and OH, so tasty. There are dishes that are so "mouth filling" with flavor, that you really can't finish them, because there's just too much of the flavor. Your buds get sated. That happened to Annalena. She wanted to eat the whole thing and couldn't. She was glad that Guy was there to help finish it up.
A16 also does something that I wish more restaurants did. When you order a main dish, you get a vegetable. But you get to pick it. There were five options. You can order them in addition to your dish, but you get one as a matter of right. How many times have you wanted to have something for dinner, but didn't want the carrots, or the potatoes, or whatever it came with, and were too intimidated to ask? Or, were told "no, the restaurant doesn't make substitutions" (Annalena either needs a VERY good reason for the failure to make the substitution, or she doesn't go back). Well, you get to design the plate, at no charge. So Annalena had a mix of mustard greens and "spigariello."
Now, I had never heard of spigariello, and in doing a bit of research, it is another example of the same vegetable, with different names, depending on where you're from. I DO know this vegetable: "cima di rape" It's turnip greens. It's the original broccoli rape. But in Campania this is what they call it. I call it good and good for you.
No room for dessert, but the wonderful hostesses and waitresses, who were born here but could easily fit into a poster for Italalian tourism, they are so pretty, and so friendly, and so unshakeable, insists that we try her favorite: strawberry yogurt swirl sorbet.
Yogurt in an Italian restaurant? Oh well. But it's good. It's made in Italian style. You can tell that the gelato maker only picked out the ripest berries, and that it's sweetened to Italian style (VERY sweet). And it's good.
We had the most expensive bottle of wine we have ever had in a restaurant: 124.00. It was actually more than the meal. Was it worth it? Well, frankly, no. It was good. But when you have been so well trained to drink good wine, your standards are higher.
One last thing about this restaurant, and SF dining generally. Our reservation was for 7. When we got there, the restaurant was packed. And this is typical of this city. If you go into a NY restaurant at 7, you could be the only person there. We have gone to restaurants at 6 and had to wait for a table, and 7 is a mob scene. But by 9, everyone has gone home.
I could speculate on why this is, but I will leave that for pundits, or for when Annalena is back home and sitting in her queen chair and issuing edicts again. For now, however, we must prep for something physical today. We have a big fancy dinner tonight at Campton Place.
And you'll all have to wait to read about it....
Monday, May 19, 2008
Visiting the grande dame
For years, Guy and I have had a tradition of dining in SF. Since we're usually only here for one Sunday, that day was our "big dinner." We picked a place that was "high on the food chain," so to speak, in the SF restaurant world. That restaurant was, and is, Jardiniere. Coincidentally, it's only a city block from where we stay, which makes it very convenient.
In the "early days" of our eating at good places, Jardiniere ROCKED. We had a fabulous friend there, Shania Dilworth, who moved on to another restaurant, (we followed her), and now she's moved on to England. But we kept on going. And we did again last night.
People change, restaurants change, and while Jardiniere is still a great restaurant, we may be reconsidering this one.
Don't get me wrong. Every element of the place is great. They have warm, competent - MORE than competent people working there, they do what they can to make it a wonderful visit. And the food is delicious. But I think that Guy and I have moved on with our taste buds, and it may be time to think about a new place.
Let me first say that, before we went to dinner, we got a lesson in how there are only four degrees of separation in the world. We were standing on line to get into Beach Blanket Babylon and started chatting with the people in front of us, as we do. The lady turned out to be the mother of the man who is the life partner of the head sommelier at Jardiniere. He was coming to the show, and we met him. And we found out that when he and his partner were living in NY, they were regulars at Savoy, one of our favorite restaurants. And he sent us with a message to the Sunday manager.
There are no coincidences.
Anyway, to the food. The menu is interesting and on one level, challenging. Jardiniere is trying to walk a path in between California casual, and high end French. That's a very difficult balance. To me, the dishes that are the best are the ones that stay true to one, but not the other, line. New potato salad with avocado and hard boiled egg, and mint oil. THAT was TERRIFIC. I am not a fan of eggs in boiled form, but I ate these. Now that's California all over. Guy had foie gras terrine with toasted brioche. Totally French.
Because Guy was interested in the scallop appetizer, our server Ann suggested splitting a plate as a middle course. It was "ok," and here is something we will be thinking about, as spoiled NY foodies. On the East Coast, we get wonderful, lovely scallops. They're not a special deal. And if you do too much to scallops, they lose their scallopness. (I made up that word). These were ok.
Main courses: blue nose bass - which we NEVER see in NY, with varous components, including a bacon "wash," and a mixed grill of grass fed lamb: chop, loin and belly, with veggies. Very rich, very filling and at 40 bucks it should have been. SO rich I couldn't finish.
Nick, the manager, did a special bit of wine pairing for us, choosing "tastes" that were really excellent.
No room for dessert, we had tea and espresso, and paid the very expensive tab.
Now, you can't really hear any complaints from Annalena in the above, and there really aren't any. Still thinking about this one. We'll have to decide...
Oh, and Annalena was very disturbed by one customer in the restaurant. As is traditional, she will speak out. A gentleman came in, who has more years than Annalena, with his daughter and her friends. He was wearing jeans. Jeans in a restaurant where the pricepoint of a maindish is 35.00 or more is a no no. Jeans in a restaurant on a 60 year old man are a no no. So, too, is a cowboy had, worn throughout the meal. So, too, is getting a glass of ice cubes to put in the red wine. Annalena nearly keeled over. But the worst of all: and you could have expected this: he ordered the most expensive appetizer on the menu: caviar, at 150.00. He didn't know what it was or how to eat it. Do I suspect a show off here? Oh, well, at least it was cause for some laughs betwixt us and the staff.
In the "early days" of our eating at good places, Jardiniere ROCKED. We had a fabulous friend there, Shania Dilworth, who moved on to another restaurant, (we followed her), and now she's moved on to England. But we kept on going. And we did again last night.
People change, restaurants change, and while Jardiniere is still a great restaurant, we may be reconsidering this one.
Don't get me wrong. Every element of the place is great. They have warm, competent - MORE than competent people working there, they do what they can to make it a wonderful visit. And the food is delicious. But I think that Guy and I have moved on with our taste buds, and it may be time to think about a new place.
Let me first say that, before we went to dinner, we got a lesson in how there are only four degrees of separation in the world. We were standing on line to get into Beach Blanket Babylon and started chatting with the people in front of us, as we do. The lady turned out to be the mother of the man who is the life partner of the head sommelier at Jardiniere. He was coming to the show, and we met him. And we found out that when he and his partner were living in NY, they were regulars at Savoy, one of our favorite restaurants. And he sent us with a message to the Sunday manager.
There are no coincidences.
Anyway, to the food. The menu is interesting and on one level, challenging. Jardiniere is trying to walk a path in between California casual, and high end French. That's a very difficult balance. To me, the dishes that are the best are the ones that stay true to one, but not the other, line. New potato salad with avocado and hard boiled egg, and mint oil. THAT was TERRIFIC. I am not a fan of eggs in boiled form, but I ate these. Now that's California all over. Guy had foie gras terrine with toasted brioche. Totally French.
Because Guy was interested in the scallop appetizer, our server Ann suggested splitting a plate as a middle course. It was "ok," and here is something we will be thinking about, as spoiled NY foodies. On the East Coast, we get wonderful, lovely scallops. They're not a special deal. And if you do too much to scallops, they lose their scallopness. (I made up that word). These were ok.
Main courses: blue nose bass - which we NEVER see in NY, with varous components, including a bacon "wash," and a mixed grill of grass fed lamb: chop, loin and belly, with veggies. Very rich, very filling and at 40 bucks it should have been. SO rich I couldn't finish.
Nick, the manager, did a special bit of wine pairing for us, choosing "tastes" that were really excellent.
No room for dessert, we had tea and espresso, and paid the very expensive tab.
Now, you can't really hear any complaints from Annalena in the above, and there really aren't any. Still thinking about this one. We'll have to decide...
Oh, and Annalena was very disturbed by one customer in the restaurant. As is traditional, she will speak out. A gentleman came in, who has more years than Annalena, with his daughter and her friends. He was wearing jeans. Jeans in a restaurant where the pricepoint of a maindish is 35.00 or more is a no no. Jeans in a restaurant on a 60 year old man are a no no. So, too, is a cowboy had, worn throughout the meal. So, too, is getting a glass of ice cubes to put in the red wine. Annalena nearly keeled over. But the worst of all: and you could have expected this: he ordered the most expensive appetizer on the menu: caviar, at 150.00. He didn't know what it was or how to eat it. Do I suspect a show off here? Oh, well, at least it was cause for some laughs betwixt us and the staff.
Sunday, May 18, 2008
Hello daddy
Everyone whom we know in San Francisco who knows we love Foreign Cinema expresses surprise. Yet everyone whom we send from NY, LOVES it. I guess it's because the "style" of the restaurant is not really all that Californian. It's an old movie theatre, with an outdoor area where you can watch the movie. As Annalena does not multitask well, we sit in the enclosed area, where all you need to do is eat. And if you come here, you should be prepared to eat.
The menu is interesting , and the "theme" seems to be playing with spices from the mideast. For example, Annalena ate tuna in Persian spices last night, cooked to the point where she likes it: cold at the center. Guy had orange cardamom chicken, with a pool of sauce that had all those wonderful flavors in it.
Before that, we had a shared appetizer of a duck salad, with chicken pate toasts and mache salad that was wonderful. And before that, the best brandade Annalena has ever tasted (and Annalena grew up on bacala), and a gorgeous arugula salad with a sweet type dressing and crunch pistachio nuts.
Desserts were a huckleberry fool , and lemon tart with pineapple sorbet.
There were flavor combinations here that Annalena is going to play with. She makes a gooseberry fool, but began thinking "Hmmm. the huckleberries have enough pectin," and the dessert is this beautiful lavender color. Annalena has used oranges and pineapple together before, but never lemon and pineapple. She will now. And cardamom and orange on chicken. Hmmmmm. We see yet another dish going into repertoire , from this restaurant.
See, Foreign Cinema is the source of Annalena's wildly successful lavender infused porkchops. They were on the menu last night, and there is always that wonderful tension of sticking with the familiar, and going with something new. But now, I want one of those chops for breakfast.
This is a restaurant where we have seen the best and worst of customers. And it is a shame that we see the worst. The restaurant has made an excellent decision, in hiring older staff, including our good buddy, Daddy P. The first time we went to the restaurant, it was love at first sight. He never forgets us. He has a colleague who leaves for Bosnia for two months every year. We got him on his last night before his trip. Hugs and tears all around. Two more people who are good, who know what they are doing, and do not tolerate fools lightly. You be rude to them, they will reciprocate. We have never had a bit of bad treatment from this guys. Say hello, ask questions, tip well, and they will love you and they will remember you.
And how can you NOT love a restaurant where it's probable that the guy who cooked your fish is the one with the serious mohawk, or perhaps the bulldyke in the corner who looks like she could have caught the tuna itself.
We love this place. It's casual, but the food is great, the oysters are cheap, the wine is excellent. YOU GOTTA GO. Give it a try.
The menu is interesting , and the "theme" seems to be playing with spices from the mideast. For example, Annalena ate tuna in Persian spices last night, cooked to the point where she likes it: cold at the center. Guy had orange cardamom chicken, with a pool of sauce that had all those wonderful flavors in it.
Before that, we had a shared appetizer of a duck salad, with chicken pate toasts and mache salad that was wonderful. And before that, the best brandade Annalena has ever tasted (and Annalena grew up on bacala), and a gorgeous arugula salad with a sweet type dressing and crunch pistachio nuts.
Desserts were a huckleberry fool , and lemon tart with pineapple sorbet.
There were flavor combinations here that Annalena is going to play with. She makes a gooseberry fool, but began thinking "Hmmm. the huckleberries have enough pectin," and the dessert is this beautiful lavender color. Annalena has used oranges and pineapple together before, but never lemon and pineapple. She will now. And cardamom and orange on chicken. Hmmmmm. We see yet another dish going into repertoire , from this restaurant.
See, Foreign Cinema is the source of Annalena's wildly successful lavender infused porkchops. They were on the menu last night, and there is always that wonderful tension of sticking with the familiar, and going with something new. But now, I want one of those chops for breakfast.
This is a restaurant where we have seen the best and worst of customers. And it is a shame that we see the worst. The restaurant has made an excellent decision, in hiring older staff, including our good buddy, Daddy P. The first time we went to the restaurant, it was love at first sight. He never forgets us. He has a colleague who leaves for Bosnia for two months every year. We got him on his last night before his trip. Hugs and tears all around. Two more people who are good, who know what they are doing, and do not tolerate fools lightly. You be rude to them, they will reciprocate. We have never had a bit of bad treatment from this guys. Say hello, ask questions, tip well, and they will love you and they will remember you.
And how can you NOT love a restaurant where it's probable that the guy who cooked your fish is the one with the serious mohawk, or perhaps the bulldyke in the corner who looks like she could have caught the tuna itself.
We love this place. It's casual, but the food is great, the oysters are cheap, the wine is excellent. YOU GOTTA GO. Give it a try.
Saturday, May 17, 2008
Zooming to Zuni
If it's possible to have a love affair with a restaurant, I have one with Zuni. So do many people. Come here at any time during its business hours, and it's jammed. But in the midst of this craziness, you will get a warm welcome, you will get great service (probably), and you will almost always get a great meal (I will explain the modifiers below).
I remember the first time we went to Zuni. It was totally by chance. We had landed in SF and were hanging out with a friend. We were hungry, and went looking. We found a place, it looked interesting, and asked if we could eat. We didn't have a reservation, and I guess at the time we were young and beautiful, and the host put us in the window. We had great food. Did we know we were at a landmark restaurant? NO. We found that out several years later.
We make it a point to go to Zuni every trip, usually on a Friday night, when it REALLY hops. Last night was no exception. We found our way to a table, and a lovely server named Sabrina. The level of service here has gone up in recent years. A time or two, we had servers who seemed more interested in being anywhere but work. That's changed. And while we have had one or two things that made us say "not again," that experience was very limited.
In the past, we've had grilled fava beans so tender you could eat the pods, and we did. We've had citrus and fennel salad that was good enough for dessert. Which is how we had it. Quail and sausage with roasted grapes And oysters. Eating at Zuni and not having oysters should not be permitted. Ask them to pick the best ones for you and slurp them down. We always ask for West coast ones. Why not?
There are certain dishes that define the restaurant, none moreso than the roasted chicken. It's done in a wood oven, to order, and it takes an hour. It says so, right on the menu. It's 48 bucks, with a bread salad and some vegetables. It's worth the wait. They sell hundreds a night. You can get very close to the original with the recipe in Judy Rodgers book, and you should try it. Also, the sheep milk ricotta gnocchi. They are a semiregular item, and Annalena will confess, she has tried, and failed, to duplicate them. So have them if they have them.
Last night they did not, but no matter. In addition to oysters, we had a salad of radishes and cactus paddles, and a plate of spaghetti with fava beans, peas, snap peas, pancetta, pea leaves and lemon. These are dishes that sort of define how the restaurant works. They are awfully "simple in concept," but without drop dead perfect produce, they are not going to work. They worked.
We followed with a roasted duck leg with roasted cherries , salad and hazelnuts. Now, "conventional wisdom" says you do not roast duck legs. This was SUPERB. And Annalena asked "how does the chef do it," and know what? She found out. "Long and slow." Basically, it was a play on the old mode of braising duck legs, only using fat instead of wine, and cooking them for an hour and a half. Annlena will be copying this dish. Also, peppered hanger steak, with potatoes and rapini. Again, drop dead WONDERFUL, together with the signature shoestring potatoes. You know the type: where you say "just one more bunch. Just one more bunch," as you shovel them down your gullet.
Dessert? Well, Chef Rodgers has been clear that this is not her favorite course. It kinda shows. The desserts were good and well conceived: apricot cherry crumble with ice cream, and strawberry sorbet with balsamic vinegar. The crumble was good, but tasted ore of butter than fruit, and the sorbet was as intense with strawberries as you can get, but I couldn't taste the vinegar. Guy did, so maybe my tastebuds were glutted.
DO try it. Everyone else does. You may very well become a "Zuni zealot"
I remember the first time we went to Zuni. It was totally by chance. We had landed in SF and were hanging out with a friend. We were hungry, and went looking. We found a place, it looked interesting, and asked if we could eat. We didn't have a reservation, and I guess at the time we were young and beautiful, and the host put us in the window. We had great food. Did we know we were at a landmark restaurant? NO. We found that out several years later.
We make it a point to go to Zuni every trip, usually on a Friday night, when it REALLY hops. Last night was no exception. We found our way to a table, and a lovely server named Sabrina. The level of service here has gone up in recent years. A time or two, we had servers who seemed more interested in being anywhere but work. That's changed. And while we have had one or two things that made us say "not again," that experience was very limited.
In the past, we've had grilled fava beans so tender you could eat the pods, and we did. We've had citrus and fennel salad that was good enough for dessert. Which is how we had it. Quail and sausage with roasted grapes And oysters. Eating at Zuni and not having oysters should not be permitted. Ask them to pick the best ones for you and slurp them down. We always ask for West coast ones. Why not?
There are certain dishes that define the restaurant, none moreso than the roasted chicken. It's done in a wood oven, to order, and it takes an hour. It says so, right on the menu. It's 48 bucks, with a bread salad and some vegetables. It's worth the wait. They sell hundreds a night. You can get very close to the original with the recipe in Judy Rodgers book, and you should try it. Also, the sheep milk ricotta gnocchi. They are a semiregular item, and Annalena will confess, she has tried, and failed, to duplicate them. So have them if they have them.
Last night they did not, but no matter. In addition to oysters, we had a salad of radishes and cactus paddles, and a plate of spaghetti with fava beans, peas, snap peas, pancetta, pea leaves and lemon. These are dishes that sort of define how the restaurant works. They are awfully "simple in concept," but without drop dead perfect produce, they are not going to work. They worked.
We followed with a roasted duck leg with roasted cherries , salad and hazelnuts. Now, "conventional wisdom" says you do not roast duck legs. This was SUPERB. And Annalena asked "how does the chef do it," and know what? She found out. "Long and slow." Basically, it was a play on the old mode of braising duck legs, only using fat instead of wine, and cooking them for an hour and a half. Annlena will be copying this dish. Also, peppered hanger steak, with potatoes and rapini. Again, drop dead WONDERFUL, together with the signature shoestring potatoes. You know the type: where you say "just one more bunch. Just one more bunch," as you shovel them down your gullet.
Dessert? Well, Chef Rodgers has been clear that this is not her favorite course. It kinda shows. The desserts were good and well conceived: apricot cherry crumble with ice cream, and strawberry sorbet with balsamic vinegar. The crumble was good, but tasted ore of butter than fruit, and the sorbet was as intense with strawberries as you can get, but I couldn't taste the vinegar. Guy did, so maybe my tastebuds were glutted.
DO try it. Everyone else does. You may very well become a "Zuni zealot"
Friday, May 16, 2008
"when you get there, there's no there there"
Some of you may recognize that quote. It's from Gertrude Stein, many years ago, on visiting Oakland during a tour of the United States.
Believe it or not, I'm not old enough to remember the world at the time when Miss Stein (that is how she preferred to be called) wrote that, and I can't claim to be an expert on Oakland; however, what IS there is one of our favorite restaurants: Oliveto's. We were there last night. And it just gets better.
How much does Annalena love this restaurant? Well, the first time I was there, I got food poisoning from eating a bad clam. I knew it, the minute it went down my throat. And I've been back twice a year ever since then. Serving a bad clam is not a major flaw with a restaurant. If the clams are closed and look right, you don't know what you're getting when they open up. I have opened up oysters that were closed tight, and smelled such a bad smell that I've had to dump them. Did the merchant no? No. Did I know when I checked them? Not at all. So I did not treat this as a flaw. And the high quality of the cooking and the ingredients bring us back, every year.
Olivetos was recommended to us by our friend Margorie. She used to work in Berkeley and Oakland, at various sushi restaurants and as a knife sharpender, and knew Paul Bertolli, who was once the head chef at Chez Panisse, and wrote their book entitled, simply "Cooking." Chef Bertolli truly is a believer in "back to basics." I won't say his recipes are unworkable, but... let's just say they require a deep commitment. For example, one of his recipes for sausage and peppers starts with "six ounces of casings, preferably organic." Yup, you're going to make your own sausage, stuff it, tie it, and then move on with the recipe. Many of them are the same way. Still, his recipe for blood orange cake is one of my standard recipes, and when I eat the food at Oliveto's, I'm inspired to go home and make the dishes as best as I can. Last year, we ate a pasta dish with sand dabs, and while sand dabs are not indigenous to the Atlantic coast, flounder are, and I did the best I could. I was close. One time, the menu celebrated the "odd fowls" like quail, squab, and guinea hen, and I had chestnut pasta with guinea hen meatballs. Chestnut pasta is well out of my league, even though Lidia Bastianich gave us all a recipe for it but I copied the guinea hen meatballs and they were good. And I'll do the same thing this time around. Chef Bertolli has moved on since those first visits, but the spirit of his cooking remains. At least, Annalena thinks so.
They remember us. They remember that there is a server, Molly, whom we've had before and we like. So they made sure we were taken care of by her. And take care, she did. Molly is not going to work as a server her whole life, but every server should be taking lessons from her on her patience, her verve, and the way she "reads" customers. There was nothing we could do but put ourselves in her hands for our first course. Out came raw halibut, with grapefruit, avocado, a light sauce, and olives. The dish, served on an elongated, pale green grass plate, was so beautiful it was hard to eat it. We got over it. The avocados were like butter, the counterpoint with pink grapefruit, the soft fish. OH MY GOD. I wanted to eat every other appetizer on the menu, but this was a good choice.
We went on to nettle taglierini with clams (this time, I did NOT get sick) The pasta was a beautiful riff on spinach pasta, which we've all had. But hey, nettles are in season, and everyone compares them to "wild spinach " (I don't agree), but the pasta was stunningly beautiful, and incredibly rich and tasty. Then, a plate of "gobetti," a cut of pasta I did not know, looking like huge commas, with the sweetest squid I have ever tasted, with a bit of tomato and hot pepper.
One of the qualities of the cooking here is no fear of seasoning. The gobetti were not for the timid. It said hot pepper? It MEANT hot pepper. And again, I wanted to try every pasta on the menu.
Molly recommended roasted black bass , stuffed with nettles, morels, breadcrumbs, in a light sauce of prosecco and wine. Now, this is where food comes out and I say "why didn't I think of that?" It was "simple," a whole fish, stuffed with a seasoned mix of cooked nettles and mushrooms, with just the faintest taste of the breadcrumbs the fish so fresh it was amazing, and a sauce light enough to not take away from everything else.
We also had a charcoal grilled pigeon, with onions that had been cooked in duck fat, walnuts and farro. This plate says a lot about why I like the restaurant. "Pigeon?" Yes, you have heard it called squab, but squab IS pigeon. Those nasty birds you see are actually wood doves, NOT pigeons. GET OVER WORDS. And, at the last minute, someone thought toasted walnuts would really be good, and they were. A simple, split bird, roasted to crispness, with the added elements just perfect.
We had a WHITE sicilian wine with this food, a revelation to me. And for dessert, crespelles - Italian crepes, fried to crispness in the shape of a horn, with creme fraiche ice cream and a few cherries in the style of a candied compote, and a bowl of pink grapefruit sorbet with a couple of cookies. Molly brought some dessert wine on the house. Perfect conclusions, until next time.
You will note, if you are a careful reader, certain ingredients repeating themselves: grapefruit, nettles, etc. Yes, that's right. A good cook knows how to work with a palette of a limited number of ingredients and how to use them in different ways. Also, the restaurant is not afraid to serve things that may challenge you. There was tripe on the menu. So was tongue of beef. So, too, mackerel, rabbit, "lardo," and skate.
These are not standard restaurant food, but you should try them. Make your palette grow.
If this sounds like a love letter, it is. In the midst of a Bay Area heat wave, and still getting over jet lag, Annalena was and is a happy person. I save Oliveto's menus. Now you know why.
Believe it or not, I'm not old enough to remember the world at the time when Miss Stein (that is how she preferred to be called) wrote that, and I can't claim to be an expert on Oakland; however, what IS there is one of our favorite restaurants: Oliveto's. We were there last night. And it just gets better.
How much does Annalena love this restaurant? Well, the first time I was there, I got food poisoning from eating a bad clam. I knew it, the minute it went down my throat. And I've been back twice a year ever since then. Serving a bad clam is not a major flaw with a restaurant. If the clams are closed and look right, you don't know what you're getting when they open up. I have opened up oysters that were closed tight, and smelled such a bad smell that I've had to dump them. Did the merchant no? No. Did I know when I checked them? Not at all. So I did not treat this as a flaw. And the high quality of the cooking and the ingredients bring us back, every year.
Olivetos was recommended to us by our friend Margorie. She used to work in Berkeley and Oakland, at various sushi restaurants and as a knife sharpender, and knew Paul Bertolli, who was once the head chef at Chez Panisse, and wrote their book entitled, simply "Cooking." Chef Bertolli truly is a believer in "back to basics." I won't say his recipes are unworkable, but... let's just say they require a deep commitment. For example, one of his recipes for sausage and peppers starts with "six ounces of casings, preferably organic." Yup, you're going to make your own sausage, stuff it, tie it, and then move on with the recipe. Many of them are the same way. Still, his recipe for blood orange cake is one of my standard recipes, and when I eat the food at Oliveto's, I'm inspired to go home and make the dishes as best as I can. Last year, we ate a pasta dish with sand dabs, and while sand dabs are not indigenous to the Atlantic coast, flounder are, and I did the best I could. I was close. One time, the menu celebrated the "odd fowls" like quail, squab, and guinea hen, and I had chestnut pasta with guinea hen meatballs. Chestnut pasta is well out of my league, even though Lidia Bastianich gave us all a recipe for it but I copied the guinea hen meatballs and they were good. And I'll do the same thing this time around. Chef Bertolli has moved on since those first visits, but the spirit of his cooking remains. At least, Annalena thinks so.
They remember us. They remember that there is a server, Molly, whom we've had before and we like. So they made sure we were taken care of by her. And take care, she did. Molly is not going to work as a server her whole life, but every server should be taking lessons from her on her patience, her verve, and the way she "reads" customers. There was nothing we could do but put ourselves in her hands for our first course. Out came raw halibut, with grapefruit, avocado, a light sauce, and olives. The dish, served on an elongated, pale green grass plate, was so beautiful it was hard to eat it. We got over it. The avocados were like butter, the counterpoint with pink grapefruit, the soft fish. OH MY GOD. I wanted to eat every other appetizer on the menu, but this was a good choice.
We went on to nettle taglierini with clams (this time, I did NOT get sick) The pasta was a beautiful riff on spinach pasta, which we've all had. But hey, nettles are in season, and everyone compares them to "wild spinach " (I don't agree), but the pasta was stunningly beautiful, and incredibly rich and tasty. Then, a plate of "gobetti," a cut of pasta I did not know, looking like huge commas, with the sweetest squid I have ever tasted, with a bit of tomato and hot pepper.
One of the qualities of the cooking here is no fear of seasoning. The gobetti were not for the timid. It said hot pepper? It MEANT hot pepper. And again, I wanted to try every pasta on the menu.
Molly recommended roasted black bass , stuffed with nettles, morels, breadcrumbs, in a light sauce of prosecco and wine. Now, this is where food comes out and I say "why didn't I think of that?" It was "simple," a whole fish, stuffed with a seasoned mix of cooked nettles and mushrooms, with just the faintest taste of the breadcrumbs the fish so fresh it was amazing, and a sauce light enough to not take away from everything else.
We also had a charcoal grilled pigeon, with onions that had been cooked in duck fat, walnuts and farro. This plate says a lot about why I like the restaurant. "Pigeon?" Yes, you have heard it called squab, but squab IS pigeon. Those nasty birds you see are actually wood doves, NOT pigeons. GET OVER WORDS. And, at the last minute, someone thought toasted walnuts would really be good, and they were. A simple, split bird, roasted to crispness, with the added elements just perfect.
We had a WHITE sicilian wine with this food, a revelation to me. And for dessert, crespelles - Italian crepes, fried to crispness in the shape of a horn, with creme fraiche ice cream and a few cherries in the style of a candied compote, and a bowl of pink grapefruit sorbet with a couple of cookies. Molly brought some dessert wine on the house. Perfect conclusions, until next time.
You will note, if you are a careful reader, certain ingredients repeating themselves: grapefruit, nettles, etc. Yes, that's right. A good cook knows how to work with a palette of a limited number of ingredients and how to use them in different ways. Also, the restaurant is not afraid to serve things that may challenge you. There was tripe on the menu. So was tongue of beef. So, too, mackerel, rabbit, "lardo," and skate.
These are not standard restaurant food, but you should try them. Make your palette grow.
If this sounds like a love letter, it is. In the midst of a Bay Area heat wave, and still getting over jet lag, Annalena was and is a happy person. I save Oliveto's menus. Now you know why.
Thursday, May 15, 2008
Lima By the Bay
So here we are in San Francisco. A flight with unexpected turbulence, but the fun of finding out that our pilot, first officer and the air controller responsible for getting the plane to SF were all women. First time I remember that happening. Let's hope it's not the last. And today, the California Supreme Court ruling on same sex marriage. It reminds Annalena of her law school years, when she tried to write an article on the topic, but couldn't find enough material. Ah. Tempus mutantur.
When in SF, we have a "tradition" of going to certain restaurants. Some of them are traditional "days" too. Our first day, we go to dinner at Limon, a Peruvian restaurant in the Mission District.
What exactly is Peruvian food? Well, that's a good question that I cannot answer. It involves a lot of fish, a lot of potatoes, rice, corn, and some interesting flavors like "amarillo peppers," a spic yellow pepper, "masamoro," which is a purple corn that is used as a drink or a dessert, and all kinds of interesting fish, including corvina. Corvina is not a fish I know, and I don't think it's indigenous to Peru. From what I've found, it occurs from Northern California, down to Panama, and that's about its range. But when you transplant a cuisine to a new place, you learn to make changes and I guess that's what happened here.
The corvina featured in what is one of our favorite things on the Limon menu: ceviche. They have a list of seven or so different ceviches. When we order these, and we always do, I think of how my friend Christopher would love this place. Fish, fish, nothing but fish, and spices. No oil, no nothing but seasoning and fish. See, Christopher has two serious flaws: he has a body fat content that is less than about 2%, and he doesn't eat carbohydrates. These flaws are outweighed by the fact that he adores me (which SOME may consider a third flaw), but I consider a virtue well in excess of these teeny flaws. In any event, Christopher would be in protein heaven. So were we. They allow you to order three small portions of any ceviche on the menu, and that's what we did.
BUT... and here's some advice to those of you who are in restaurants, either familiar or not. We turned the choice over to the waiter, asking him to pick his three favorites. You should do that kind of thing once in a while. Giving that level of trust to a waiter or other restaurant staffer will have positive results. They're not going to give you crap. They want you back, and they want the tip. And we were not disappointed. I could have shoveled four or five plates of the corvina ceviche, with those spicy yellow peppers, down my throat. So, too, with the lime one with toasted hominy. The third was ok. It wasn't my favorite.
We moved on to two hot appetizers: seabass seared in miso, and chicharron de pollo . Now, the seabass in miso may m ake you think: "that's PERUVIAN?" Well, yes, it is, bear with me here as I go over one of the uglier bits of US history.
All of us know of the disgrace of the internment camps for Japanese, in WWII. What almost none of us know about , is that the US government shipped THOUSANDS of Japanese to Peru at the same time period. Look it up, it's true.
Some chose not to come back. Who could blame them? And, in a nutshell, that is why one of Peru's presidents was named Fujimori, and why miso is used in Peruvian food.
It was a revelatory piece of fish, cooked just beyond raw, so that you DID have to work to break it into chunks. The chicharrons, served with a spicy vinegar sauce, were perfect too. And what I will tell you is this: when we ordered the items, our waiter, Juan, smiled. So, too, when we decided to finish up with a shared entry of "arroz con mariscas." This may be the apex of fancy Peruvian cooking: rice with an assortment of vegetables and shellfish, and some fish. Sort of like paella, but softer, not as seasoned. It was great.
There was no room for dessert after this, but had there been ,they had cookies stuffed with manjarblanco. Now, here is another bit of advice. Do you know what manjarblanco is? Well, Annalena does, and she has made it ONCE. She will never do it again. It took her five hours to cook down this incredibly sweet, rich, milk dessert. It's wonderful. But if you don't know what it is, ASK. Again, restaurant staff are incredibly interested in helping you, especially in a restaurant that qualifies as "ethnic." Had I had room for dessert, and passed this up instead of something else, I would have been berating myself, once I learned what it was.
Annalena has some final recommendations for dining at "ethnic" type restaurants. If you are a real fan of a particular type of food, say Vietnamese, or Persian, or Chinese, or even Italian, learn some words in the language. Some kitchen words, and some basic ones. Learn to ask the waiter where he's from , in Spanish, or what his favorite dishes are, in Chinese. Annalena's Spanish is far from good, and qualifies as "barely passable," but early on in the meal, she exchanged some words with Juan, in Spanish. That, and asking him to help pick the dishes, made the meal so much more delightful than it would have been (not that it would have been bad).
Anyway, that's the first dispatch. Tonight, we're off to a restaurant that really has pushed the "do it yourself" concept to an extreme. Stay tuned.
When in SF, we have a "tradition" of going to certain restaurants. Some of them are traditional "days" too. Our first day, we go to dinner at Limon, a Peruvian restaurant in the Mission District.
What exactly is Peruvian food? Well, that's a good question that I cannot answer. It involves a lot of fish, a lot of potatoes, rice, corn, and some interesting flavors like "amarillo peppers," a spic yellow pepper, "masamoro," which is a purple corn that is used as a drink or a dessert, and all kinds of interesting fish, including corvina. Corvina is not a fish I know, and I don't think it's indigenous to Peru. From what I've found, it occurs from Northern California, down to Panama, and that's about its range. But when you transplant a cuisine to a new place, you learn to make changes and I guess that's what happened here.
The corvina featured in what is one of our favorite things on the Limon menu: ceviche. They have a list of seven or so different ceviches. When we order these, and we always do, I think of how my friend Christopher would love this place. Fish, fish, nothing but fish, and spices. No oil, no nothing but seasoning and fish. See, Christopher has two serious flaws: he has a body fat content that is less than about 2%, and he doesn't eat carbohydrates. These flaws are outweighed by the fact that he adores me (which SOME may consider a third flaw), but I consider a virtue well in excess of these teeny flaws. In any event, Christopher would be in protein heaven. So were we. They allow you to order three small portions of any ceviche on the menu, and that's what we did.
BUT... and here's some advice to those of you who are in restaurants, either familiar or not. We turned the choice over to the waiter, asking him to pick his three favorites. You should do that kind of thing once in a while. Giving that level of trust to a waiter or other restaurant staffer will have positive results. They're not going to give you crap. They want you back, and they want the tip. And we were not disappointed. I could have shoveled four or five plates of the corvina ceviche, with those spicy yellow peppers, down my throat. So, too, with the lime one with toasted hominy. The third was ok. It wasn't my favorite.
We moved on to two hot appetizers: seabass seared in miso, and chicharron de pollo . Now, the seabass in miso may m ake you think: "that's PERUVIAN?" Well, yes, it is, bear with me here as I go over one of the uglier bits of US history.
All of us know of the disgrace of the internment camps for Japanese, in WWII. What almost none of us know about , is that the US government shipped THOUSANDS of Japanese to Peru at the same time period. Look it up, it's true.
Some chose not to come back. Who could blame them? And, in a nutshell, that is why one of Peru's presidents was named Fujimori, and why miso is used in Peruvian food.
It was a revelatory piece of fish, cooked just beyond raw, so that you DID have to work to break it into chunks. The chicharrons, served with a spicy vinegar sauce, were perfect too. And what I will tell you is this: when we ordered the items, our waiter, Juan, smiled. So, too, when we decided to finish up with a shared entry of "arroz con mariscas." This may be the apex of fancy Peruvian cooking: rice with an assortment of vegetables and shellfish, and some fish. Sort of like paella, but softer, not as seasoned. It was great.
There was no room for dessert after this, but had there been ,they had cookies stuffed with manjarblanco. Now, here is another bit of advice. Do you know what manjarblanco is? Well, Annalena does, and she has made it ONCE. She will never do it again. It took her five hours to cook down this incredibly sweet, rich, milk dessert. It's wonderful. But if you don't know what it is, ASK. Again, restaurant staff are incredibly interested in helping you, especially in a restaurant that qualifies as "ethnic." Had I had room for dessert, and passed this up instead of something else, I would have been berating myself, once I learned what it was.
Annalena has some final recommendations for dining at "ethnic" type restaurants. If you are a real fan of a particular type of food, say Vietnamese, or Persian, or Chinese, or even Italian, learn some words in the language. Some kitchen words, and some basic ones. Learn to ask the waiter where he's from , in Spanish, or what his favorite dishes are, in Chinese. Annalena's Spanish is far from good, and qualifies as "barely passable," but early on in the meal, she exchanged some words with Juan, in Spanish. That, and asking him to help pick the dishes, made the meal so much more delightful than it would have been (not that it would have been bad).
Anyway, that's the first dispatch. Tonight, we're off to a restaurant that really has pushed the "do it yourself" concept to an extreme. Stay tuned.
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Good, Fast, Cheap
Choose two. That was the motto of a biotech company some years ago. I think it's a good motto to use in the kitchen. GOOD, FAST food is not cheap. CHEAP food can be GOOD food. I can't think of examples of FAST CHEAP food. And it very much sums up the philosophy I bring to my own cooking.
I'm going to mention some good, cheap things I like to cook, but then talk about our "clean out the fridge" dinner from last night, because I had fun making it, and it shows how you can play with a limited number of ingredients and get great variety in your cooking. Good, cheap things include beans, and tougher cuts of meat, like shoulder, (I LOVE cooking shoulder of lamb, or pork). Polenta, relatively speaking, is not slow food, but it takes longer to cook than other starches you would think of in the same ilk, such as the famous thirty second couscous.
Now, to the fun part. The dinner. On the menu were scallops, rice spinach, and a salad. Rice and spinach aren't that expensive , although the spinach was red s tem spinach from the Farmer's Market. Scallops are expensive. I think I paid 14.00 for a pound of them. But there's no waste.
Now, simple sauteed scallops, boiled rice and sauteed spinach is a fine, easy dinner. Here's how I kicked it up. I looked at what else was in the fridge. I had some pancetta, some spring onions, and the end of a bottle of white wine. Butter, too , and olive oil.
I put some oil in a pan, and fried some pancetta until it was just crisp, and drained it on paper towel. By doing that, I had two, new flavor elements to add to the dinner: the pancetta itself, but also, the flavored oil. I've said this before, and I'll say it again: adding a bit of a pork product to most things will make them taste better. So while the pancetta was draining, I took the oil, and poured off most of it. Spinach has so much water in it, that you don't need much. I had stemmed the spinach, so it was ready. I tossed it into that little bit of oil that was left, with two cloves of garlic. In less than five minutes, the vegetable was ready. I had the pot of rice cooking, and I had tossed a pinch of saffron in it. After the spinach was done, I took that spring onion, sliced it, and cooked it in about two tablespoons of butter. It didn't take very long to get soft, and I just tossed them into the rice, leaving the butter behind in a non-stick pan.
When the rice was done, it was time to get to the scallops. I had dried them, and salted them. The butter was already hot, and I just heated it a bit more, so I could do a very quick sear. When the scallops browned nicely on one side, I flipped them and they were done in five minutes. After I had plated them, I took the last of that wine, poured it into the pan and had a quick pan sauce. The pancetta went over the spinach, and dinner was done. Fast and good, not cheap, and augmented with some tasty bits of things. Green salad followed. VOILA.
Now, there are options you have here. For example, I could have put the fried pancetta into the salad. I also could have used the onions on the scallops. Spring onions are mild, so they wouldn't have overpowered the fish. And instead of water in the rice, I could have used chicken stock, and used more of it to finish the sauce for the scallops if I didn't want the wine in it.
See what I mean? Ultimately, Good, and fast, without worrying very much about cost, is not that hard to do. Bringing your food to a new level with tasty bits like the onion and pancetta is the fun part. Play with things . Make connections. And HAVE FUN. If you're not having fun, get out of the way and let me mess up your kitchen for you
I'm going to mention some good, cheap things I like to cook, but then talk about our "clean out the fridge" dinner from last night, because I had fun making it, and it shows how you can play with a limited number of ingredients and get great variety in your cooking. Good, cheap things include beans, and tougher cuts of meat, like shoulder, (I LOVE cooking shoulder of lamb, or pork). Polenta, relatively speaking, is not slow food, but it takes longer to cook than other starches you would think of in the same ilk, such as the famous thirty second couscous.
Now, to the fun part. The dinner. On the menu were scallops, rice spinach, and a salad. Rice and spinach aren't that expensive , although the spinach was red s tem spinach from the Farmer's Market. Scallops are expensive. I think I paid 14.00 for a pound of them. But there's no waste.
Now, simple sauteed scallops, boiled rice and sauteed spinach is a fine, easy dinner. Here's how I kicked it up. I looked at what else was in the fridge. I had some pancetta, some spring onions, and the end of a bottle of white wine. Butter, too , and olive oil.
I put some oil in a pan, and fried some pancetta until it was just crisp, and drained it on paper towel. By doing that, I had two, new flavor elements to add to the dinner: the pancetta itself, but also, the flavored oil. I've said this before, and I'll say it again: adding a bit of a pork product to most things will make them taste better. So while the pancetta was draining, I took the oil, and poured off most of it. Spinach has so much water in it, that you don't need much. I had stemmed the spinach, so it was ready. I tossed it into that little bit of oil that was left, with two cloves of garlic. In less than five minutes, the vegetable was ready. I had the pot of rice cooking, and I had tossed a pinch of saffron in it. After the spinach was done, I took that spring onion, sliced it, and cooked it in about two tablespoons of butter. It didn't take very long to get soft, and I just tossed them into the rice, leaving the butter behind in a non-stick pan.
When the rice was done, it was time to get to the scallops. I had dried them, and salted them. The butter was already hot, and I just heated it a bit more, so I could do a very quick sear. When the scallops browned nicely on one side, I flipped them and they were done in five minutes. After I had plated them, I took the last of that wine, poured it into the pan and had a quick pan sauce. The pancetta went over the spinach, and dinner was done. Fast and good, not cheap, and augmented with some tasty bits of things. Green salad followed. VOILA.
Now, there are options you have here. For example, I could have put the fried pancetta into the salad. I also could have used the onions on the scallops. Spring onions are mild, so they wouldn't have overpowered the fish. And instead of water in the rice, I could have used chicken stock, and used more of it to finish the sauce for the scallops if I didn't want the wine in it.
See what I mean? Ultimately, Good, and fast, without worrying very much about cost, is not that hard to do. Bringing your food to a new level with tasty bits like the onion and pancetta is the fun part. Play with things . Make connections. And HAVE FUN. If you're not having fun, get out of the way and let me mess up your kitchen for you
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