The Spread

Thanksgiving's at my flat this year!

Legionnaire Salad

(I've modified a classic Ruzich salad from the famous volume Stuff We Eat (ed. A. Ruzich)...but it is as-yet untested...we'll see how it goes over this evening at the potluck.)

1 head Boston Lettuce
1 Fennel Bulb
3 Clementines, peeled and in segments (or canned clementines if you have an aversion to peeling oranges, chewing pips, and that funny white stringy stuff...)
½ cup Candied Almond Slivers (to make these, combine 2 cups almonds, ½ cup sugar, and 1 beaten egg white; spread on wax paper and cook in oven at 300 degrees for about 30 minutes, tossing occasionally)

Halve the fennel bulb, reserving top fronds.  Cut half into wedges, place on a baking sheet covered in foil, drizzle with olive oil and roast for 20-30 minutes at 400 degrees or until caramelized, flipping once.  Take the other half, add leafy fronds to lettuce bed, thinly slice remaining half-bulb, and sprinkle with almonds and orange segments. 

Dressing:
¼ cup Olive Oil
1 tbsp Sugar
2 tbsp Red Wine Vinegar
¼ tsp Salt
¼ tsp Almond Extract

Combine and serve.

Carciofi alla Giudia

6 small Artichokes
1 Lemon, juiced
Cold Water
Sea Salt
Fresh ground Pepper
Vegetable oil for frying


Add lemon juice to bowl of cold water. Cut and clean artichokes (halve, scoop out choke, remove tough outer leaves, trim stem). Place artichokes immediately into water. When all artichokes have been prepared, sprinkle with salt and pepper. In a large saucepan, heat 1-2 inches of oil over medium heat. Add artichokes cut side down to oil and fry for 10 minutes, then turn and brown tops 5-10 minutes more. Drain on paper towels. Re-season as necessary. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Yummm...

Carnivore Day Two

To all the abstainers out there, I'm sooo sorry.

Actually, this one might actually make me want to abstain myself. I'm feeling peckish for a bit of leafy green.

Anyhow. Here you go: The horror! The horror!

...The acute angina pectoris!  This seems like something my mother's family would enjoy.  Possibly my father's father as well, although his wife - my lovely grandmother - would have something to say about it.

For the Carnivores...

Just so you don't blow steak day...

And if you were curious, filet mignon is also known as a tenderloin or a medallion.

Torte!

Happy Birthday, mine sister Bess!

We had an epic cake for dessert - and look! we can order it online! and have it shipped! to anywhere in the world!  It is so so delicious - almonds and cream and light, fluffy cake and I can't say any more about it just now because I have to go get another slice.  And maybe some tea.

The Tragic Life and Times of Ginger Beer

I just found out (from Wikipedia) that one of my favorite soft drinks (ginger beer) is the rightful heir to a throne long usurped (uslurped?  no?  moving on...) by ginger ale.  Bah!

At the turn of the previous century, there were two gingery brothers - golden ginger ale, aka ginger beer, and dry ginger ale.  (These two, by the way, appeared to have crazy alcoholic cousins, but that's another story.)  Golden ginger ale was dark, strong, and spicy; Mr. Dry, on the other hand, was rather sweeter - although never let it be said that Golden was horribly bitter - mild-mannered, and, well, generally quite bland.  The former (the golden child, if you will) was destined for greatness, while the latter took a backseat as a mixer for cocktails and alcoholic beverages.

Then Prohibition came and went.  Oh, the horror!  After a decade of distorted drinking, dry ginger ale rapidly gained ground that never should have been trodden by this bland - bland! - and boring carbonated beverage, and the place that was rightfully destined for golden ginger ale was snatched from those fizzy ginger fingers.  (Wow, I know.  Never attempt this again.)  And the balance has never been restored.

Now, when one enters a supermarket, the soda aisles are lined with pale ale pretenders, while golden ginger ale, my (non-alcoholic) beer of choice, has been relegated to regional distributors and specialty shops.  To add insult to injury, dry ginger ale isn't even made with cane sugar anymore.  It's high fructose corn syrup and the barest gingery ghost, and we're just supposed to swallow it down.  It's a shame, a real shame.

Cookery

Never again will you be tortured by culinary vocab confusion.

Bake: Cooking with dry heat (usually in an oven).

Roast: Cooking with dry heat. Actually, technically baking and roasting are identical, although back in the days, roasting meant over a spit.

Grill: Cooking on a grill, usually directly over hot coals, an open fire, or some other heat source.

Broil: Cooking directly under a heat source, usually in a gas or electric oven. Broiling may also mean cooking on a grill, where the heat is under rather than over the food item.

The Sauciest

Cooking...It's a science, it's an art, it's a skill and a talent necessary for life.  Or at least, it's necessary for the lifestyle and continued happiness of a foodie like me.  And if you're a foodie like me, you'll understand that it's sauce that makes the culinary world go around.  I know I'm not alone in my thinking - in fact, back in the 18whenevers, some French guy classified all of the known sauces into four categories, known as the Grandes Sauces, or mother sauces (hey, I never claimed that cooking was a history).  These days, the list has grown just a bit...however, if you're a chef worth your salt, you ought to know how to execute these; believe me, with minor modifications, they'll get you a long way.  And if you botch the technique, you'll end up with a mess on your hands that no amount of fancy ingredients will be able to fix.  So enough of that 'hunger is the best sauce' nonsense...without further ado, I give you...

The Mother Sauces

• Bechamel: this white sauce, arguably the king of the great sauces, with a little sleight of hand, can be eaten in anything from lasagna to moussaka to All-American macaroni and cheese.  The traditional ingredients include milk, onion, salt, and other spices such as nutmeg, bay, or clove, but the backbone of this first sauce is the roux.  A roux is just a fancy term that refers to a mixture of equal parts butter and flour.  Depending on the length of time the roux is cooked, the color and flavor range in intensity from white to blond to brown.  Now, the trick to a bechamel is simply: patience.  Careful whisking,  slow and moderated addition of ingredients, and low heat if necessary are what make the difference between burnt, greasy, gloopy sludge and creamy deliciousness.
• Velloute: the word velloute essentially means 'velvety', and to accomplish this simple sauce a white or blond roux that, instead of milk, contains chicken or fish stock.  In the essential recipe, no spices are called for, but the wide variety of secondary sauces can be created by adding wine, mushrooms, shallots, or the reduced glazes from meat, among other things.
• Allemande: this sauce, while separated out by the original sauce-namer, is something of a modified velloute.  It is distinguished, however, by a liason, an egg yolk-and-cream mixture which further thickens and increases richness of the aforementioned velloute.  Lemon juice is also often added to round off this sauce.  Now that we can accomplish a lump-free roux, the trick to the allemande is adding the emulsifying egg mixture back into a hot broth without scrambling.  This is done by what's known as tempering: a very small amount of hot veloute is added to the liason mixture and worked in so that the temperatures of the two liquids can be reconciled.  This is repeated until about a third of the veloute is added before the sauce is mixed together.
  
• Espagnole: a multitude of hearty recipes can be derived from this stock-based mother sauce; certainly don't let the name fool you into thinking this is reserved for Spanish dishes.  Here, another roux lies at the heart of the matter...only this time, a brown roux is in order.  What this means is that the butter-flour mixture is left on the heat for a more extended period so a brown color and nutty flavor are created.  Keep in mind: low heat and constant maintenance are your friends!  Once this has come together, broth or stock is added.  Traditionally this means veal, but chicken is a modern substitution; more meat, marrow, vegetables (particularly tomato), and seasoning can be added to finish this espagnole sauce.

While the classic categorization is a landmark one, there are, of course, sauces that don't quite fit into the above categories.  And so, it's only fair to briefly touch on three other (no less fussy) sauces I couldn't live without.

Honorable Mentions:

• Tomato: now I may be wrong, but this may perhaps be the most prevalent and flexible sauce of the modern world.  Tomato sauces, as is obvious, start out with tomatoes - roasted, dried, crushed, pureed, as paste, or fresh off the vine - and are thickened with anything from a reduction to a puree to, classically, a creamy roux.  They can be flavored with garlic, salt, spices, wine, or meat.  They can be served over pasta, fish, meat, vegetables, or bread.  Indeed, the list goes on...it's easy to see why I can't end this entry without making a note of the old 'pomme d'amour'. 
• Hollandaise: this one shines brightest atop eggs benedict, but I know for a fact that my mother enjoys it over steak, and from it are derived all kinds of emulsions, including the ever-useful but often-overlooked mayonnaise.  Along with roux and liason, the emulsion is a tricky beast to tame along the way to saucier status (a saucier, by the way, is a master sauce-maker).  Besides, particularly in the case of mayo, there's something about eating raw eggs that just gives people an uneasy feeling.  However, salmonella is quite unusual these days, and can be ousted from this uncooked sauce with the addition of a low-pH environment - helpfully provided by the vinegar or lemon juice added to these recipes and their derivatives.  And if you're still feeling uneasy, look for pasteurized, in-shell eggs at the grocery.  Now, back to emulsions.  To make a basic hollandaise, a fat-soluble liquid - butter - is added to a water-soluble liquid - lemon juice - so that the two miraculously do not separate.  For hollandaise, this is accomplished with egg yolks and vigorous whisking over a double boiler (to prevent scrambled eggs).  The trick is to first beat the egg into one or the other liquids and then to slowly - slowly! - drizzle in the other ingredient, incorporating it as you pour.  If, despite your best efforts, separation does occur, don't despair: simply grab another egg yolk and whisk in small portions of your now-oily mess until your emulsion has re-formed.
• Vinaigrette: after all of the finickiness of French sauce-making, it seems that perhaps adding vinaigrette to the list is a bit of an insult.  However, a simple blend of oil and vinegar (typically in a 2-or-3:1 ratio) can be used not only for dousing on salads and drizzling over bread, but also for marinating vegetables and meats and also for adding a last-minute dose of flavor to almost any food, cooked or uncooked. 

Pickle Brine

Upon request!  My hilarious suitemate actually texted this idea to my sister while in DC.  That is how crucial this information is to the American people.

Did you know...that by changing the flavor of brine, you can actually get a different pickle?

It is true.

Without further ado...here are three different brine recipies:

water
coarse Kosher salt
fresh flowering dill
whole peeled garlic
bay leaves
allspice berries
mustard seeds
coriander seeds
celery seeds
peppercorns
hot red pepper

white vinegar
apple cider vinegar
coarse Kosher salt
sugar
onions
allspice berries
mustard seeds
celery seeds
red pepper flakes
cinnamon stick
cloves
turmeric

water
sea salt
fresh flowering dill
whole peeled garlic
cherry leaves
horseradish leaves
peppercorns

Yep...pick one, add cucumbers, and wait, I guess?

Some Mild Festivities

As today is my birthday...

Gin and Tonic

4ish Ice Cubes (made with tonic water if you like to think ahead)
1 mini can Tonic Water
2 jiggers Gin (Bombay Sapphire, ooh la la)
1 Lime 

In a highball glass, combine gin and tonic water over ice.  Garnish with slice of lime.  Add lime juice if you are feeling especially limey.  

Really, this is not precisely rocket science.

Bonus: malaria prevention!

Now If Only They Would Unlock The Kitchen...

Chilled Cucumber Soup

3 Cucumbers, peeled, seeded, and grated
3 Cucumbers, peeled, seeded, and chopped
3 cloves Garlic
½ cup packed Parsley Leaves
½ cup Lemon Juice
½ cup Sour Cream
1½ quarts Buttermilk
1 tbsp Sea Salt
1 tsp grated Lemon Peel
1 tsp Pepper
2 cups Water

In a food processor, puree the chopped cucumbers with garlic, parsley, lemon juice, and sour cream. Combine the grated cucumbers with the rest of the ingredients and adjust seasonings as needed. Serve with more cucumbers, scallions, and mint. From Louisa's in Cape May, with some slight revisions...like more garlic and lemon, of course.

Hm. This would be excellent for my scratchy hayfever throat...

When life hands you lemons...

Choose lemons that are even in color and shape, blemish-free, and heavy for their size.

Three Salad Dressings

Clothe your lettuces in something snazzy.

For the somewhat frumpy iceberg at your local salad bar, something structured and embellished.  Combine it with some cheese, olives, or deli meats for the perfect antipasto.

Garlic Dressing: In a bowl, whisk
½ cup Olive Oil
¼ cup Lemon Juice
¼ cup Rosé or White Wine
2 cloves Garlic, finely chopped
½ tsp dried Basil
½ tsp dried Oregano
Pinch of Salt
Pepper to taste

A summer salad of crisp leaves is complemented nicely with creamy feta, tomatoes, cucumbers, and this recipe to top it all off.

Greek Dressing: combine
½ cup Olive Oil
¼ cup Lemon Juice
¼ cup White Wine Vinegar
½ tsp Salt
¼ tsp Pepper
1 tsp Sugar
Pinch of Mint

Simple and elegant baby greens of any variety don't need quite as much effort to get them up to scratch.

French Dressing: mix together
¼ cup Dijon Mustard
¼ cup White Wine Vinegar
½ cup Olive Oil

Happy lettuce (and probably healthier than that radioactive thousand island nonsense as well).

...and other Frozen Wonders

I was talking with my lab partner the other day and she mentioned how she had just found a great little place with her boyfriend that was perfect for date icecream. It shows just how long it has been since I've been in a relationship (or even just on the social scene) that I thought she was talking about a rare type of fruity gelato.

Which puts me in mind...of delicious places to get icecream. I tend to steer away from sherbets and sorbets, instead gravitating toward chocolate, coffee, and things with nuts, but a good pamplemousse glace is perfect on a hot summer day. Being a food snob, I am well aware that 99% of the American shops proudly proclaiming GELATO have anything but, although I can comfortably recommend Marcella's Cafe & Gelateria in Wildwood. Otherwise, Europe's the place. For whatever reason, when I think of good Italian icecream, I think Florence. The most famous place to go would probably be Vivoli or any of a number of shops with miles of cold, gleaming counters around the Palazzo Vecchio; however, I have a special fondness for the gelateria just across the Arno, on the Ponte a Santa Trinita, perhaps because of the views of the Ponte Vecchio have combined nicely with some creamy goodness in my mind.

Anyway, outside of Italy, there are a host of lovely French glaceries...several in Collioure that make me taste blackberry and hazelnut just thinking about them...and I would be remiss if I didn't mention Berthillon in Paris (now thattt is date icecream), but I suppose I should stop all this pretentious reminiscing, and get down to some solid (stone-cold?) facts.

So, icecream is an art (as I believe the above establishes), and one I have not been initiated into, which means I have no particular tips about percentages of milkfat or optimum temperatures or hardness and thickness and creaminess and so on. Bad news indeed. I did, however, find a pretty recipe for another unique (and trendy) flavor that I'm itching to try out, and since I haven't got sufficient freezer space, I will reblog it so that someone can act as my virtual sous-chef, whip this up, and tell me how it went. And I shall live vicariously.

So without further ado...

Green Tea Icecream (for 4)

2 tablespoons green tea powder (matcha)...[yes, so do we actually have to go to an Asian grocery, or can we finely grind tea leaves here?]
2/3 cup granulated sugar
3 egg yolks
3/4 cup milk
3/4 cup heavy cream

1. In a small bow, mix the green tea powder with 2 tablespoons granulated sugar.

2. In a separate bowl, mix together the egg yolks and remaining sugar.

3. Pour the milk into a small pan and gently heat taking care not to let it boil (ideally the temperature of the milk should be 176 degrees F). [...wow...are you sure? Not 179.65?] Remove the from the heat and mix a few spoonfuls of the warm milk with the green tea powder and sugar in a small bowl. When you have a smooth paste, add it to the remaining milk in the pan, then gradually combine with the egg yolk mixture.

4. Return mixture to the stove and heat slowly over low heat (taking care to not let the mixture boil), until the mixture coats the back of a spoon. Remove from the heat, strain through a fine sieve, and allow to cool completely.

5. Lightly whip the cream and then add it to the cold green tea-milk mixture.

6. Transfer the mixture to a large container, chill for an hour or two in the refrigerator, and then put it in the freezer. As ice crystals start to form, remove, and mix well with a spoon (use a wooden spoon and stir very vigorously) to break them up and return the mixture to the freezer. Repeat this a few times as it freezes to ensure that the ice cream is smooth. [There are other ways to make icecream, too...double-lined plastic bags filled with ice, several coffee cans, hamster balls...those would probably work too?]

And there you have it. Happy eating!

PS: RIP Alexander McQueen...I shall miss your elevated tartan.

Cheese!

Oh the wonderful wonders of cheese...Mark Kurlansky writes histories of Salt and Cod, but I think a perfect book would be one all about my fantastic friend: fromage.

Here's an intriguing factoid con queso: hard, aged cheeses like Gruyere, Pecorino, Manchego, and most Cheddars may contain 'cheese crystals'...yes. That's right. Crystals made of cheese. I don't know if the above term is the technical one, but it's the one I am going to embrace, wholeheartedly.

Anyhow, as far as I can tell, these cheese crystals occur during the aging/ripening processes and are promoted by the bacteria that turn milk into cheese. They can be made up of either calcium lactate or calcium phosphate, or else the amino acid tyrosine. Whoever said diamonds are a girl's best friend wasn't trying hard enough. No okay I'm being facetious, but I could really go for a good cheesy risotto, raclette, or simple sampler plate just about now.

So this is being listed on 'le blog' as a recipe, but there's no recipe involved. Yet...

Here's five excellent cheesy concoctions!

1) Fresh goat cheese, roasted beets, baby greens, toasty walnuts, olive oil (extra virgin why do I bother stating the obvious), red wine vinegar.
2) Gruyere, potatoes, gruyere, garlic, gruyere, cream, butter, gruyere.
3) Cheddar, mustard, ale, over tomatoes, bacon, and toast.
4) Feta and olives. Maybe some almonds. A bit of olive oil and lemon juice. Forever.
5) Mozzarella, sun dried tomato, basil, toasted baguette, olive oil and balsamic vinegar reduction.

You'll notice I haven't got any fondue recipe on here. There is a reason for this: I haven't yet mastered the art D: Hints, suggestions, and step-by-step instructions will be welcomed!

Pasta Time

It is my last supper here in Sewickley (boo) and, keeping to tradition, I'm going to try to make it a risky meal. Pear pasta anyone?

I had this dish in Florence at Trattoria 4 Leoni (Alyssa you may consider this your second shout-out), and I recently discovered the recipe online. In Italian. Wish me luck. Drea will be coming over later to make it with me...cottage pie leftovers are on standby.

THE RECIPE
Shells:
Ok so go ahead and make your own pasta if you want, but I found these pre-made wonton papers that I am going to try.

Otherwise, it's
400g semola
100g flour
3 eggs
a pinch of salt
and a "spoon" of extra virgin oil

Beat the eggs, add the flour, oil and salt "formed in a fountain"...??? (You see why I am using wontons). Let the dough rest, then draw it out, and cut discs about 10cm wide. Or something.

Filling:
200g ricotta
100g mascarpone
1 pear
A mysterious amount of parmigiano reggiano
salt and pepper

Peel the pear and cut it into small cubes to add to the cheeses, salt, and pepper. Place a teaspoon of filling into the middle of each disc/wonton/whatever and "close the flake as if it were a caramel" - this translation is insane, oh noes. We did it kind of like an envelope.

Sauce:
200g asparagus tips
100g cream
50g grated parmigiano
30g butter
1tbsp of flour
salt
"di foglioline di maggiorana" o "aneto" to add in the end. No idea what that means. Dill?

For the sauce, melt the butter in a frying pan and add the flour and cream. As soon as it starts to simmer, add the cheese (okay so at this point they also mention that they're using taleggio, a type of cheese not mentioned until now, which I have just omitted...) and salt, etc. Take the chopped asparagus tips, boil them for about 3 minutes, and add them to the mix.

Cook the pasta in plenty of salted water until they float to the top. Combine with the prepared sauce. And hopefully this is worth the effort.

This will serve "four peoples".

---

THE VERDICT
Yay! I think everyone liked it? A lot? And the wontons worked great! We ended up doubling the recipe and feeding my parents and their friends. I did find a kitchen scale in the end to do the measurements, but next time I make it, I'll convert to a definitive volumetric scale rather than weights for all you Americans.

Also, Mom says to make it saucier.