i8tonite

Month: September 2014

  • Pantry Preferences: Plainly Preferred

    As a home cook, I choose my recipes very carefully. I want them to be simple. I don’t need to have toasted fennel seeds, combined with homemade harissa, needing to stir the pot every 30 minutes to make sure the reduction is only reduced by a quarter. I’m sure most of us look at recipes that are easy to make without being unhealthy.

    Therefore, on a weekday night, after my Sunday farmers market grocery sprees when I get my herbs (rosemary, thyme, oregano, basil), garlic and lemons, lettuces, I start thinking about my menus. Planning the proteins, the vegetables, and preparations. I hate wasting food so I try…. it doesn’t always work…. but I try to plan around my work and social calendar. Often, I eat out at least 3 times a week. For me, that’s a lot. If I eat out more than that, I start to not feel so well. Too much rich food and not enough control over my diet. However, food is like medicine for me. I eat more vegetables, simply prepared, feeling great the next day. If I overindulge in sugar, alcohol or fats throughout the week, I start to feel less than stellar. But that’s I me. I’m approaching the mid-century mark….and like a 1950’s well oiled car, my body needs love and care. (Trust me, I danced in-and-on NYC dive bars after imbibing on my share of alcohol for decades…I need love and care! LOL.) I’m getting off topic but I do feel that it’s important to cook at home.  We have complete control over what we eat when we make it ourselves.No one can get it wrong if you do it yourself.

    For me, I need to have this following pantry items at all times to make anything taste yummy and for ease throughout my week.

    1. Salt and pepper (Gizmodo.com writes a brilliant essay on the pairing and noted use.) Kosher salt is the best for cooking and flavoring.

    2. Extra virgin olive oil.

    3. Lemons (and sometimes limes, oranges or grapefruit are good to have)….lemons though are at the always in my house.

    4. Garlic

    5. Fresh herbs

    Optional

    1. Hard italian cheeses (Parmesan, Reggiano or Asiago)

    2. Flour

    3. Onions

    Clearly, this is based on a Mediterranean diet and I just find it simple. As long as I have the first 5 ingredients, I can make beef, poultry, seafood and vegetables taste amazing. And for me, I’m trying to keep it simple.

    Let’s Make Something:

    Salad Dressing: Two parts olive oil, 1 part lemon. Twist of Salt, twist of pepper. Boom!

    Roasted Fish: Take one lemon and slice into several rounds. Take the fish  (salmon,cod, halibut) and place on bed of the citrus rounds.Take your chosen herbs, rough chop. Stir with some olive oil and garlic, making a think paste. Coat the fish and roast at 350 degrees for about 20 to 25 minutes Boom! Pretty too!

    Chicken: Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Put slivers of garlic under chicken skin (breasts, thighs, legs), Heat up a pan that can go directly into oven. With the garlic stuffed chicken, place skin down and sautee until brown. Turn over and do the same. While chicken is browning, create herb paste, like above. Once chicken is browned, place face up squeeze juice of one lemon, and herb mixture onto onto poultry. Season with salt and pepper, and take lemon rind and place in skillet. Depending on the amount of chicken, cook for 30 to 45 minutes. Boom!

  • Lettuce Eat Lettuce, Then Lettuce Talk About Sex (Kidding about the second part!)

    Lettuce is one of those funny foods that I don’t think anyone really thinks about. There was a time when it was just diet food, especially the much maligned iceberg. Iceberg is not the most nutritious,but it’s so edible and fun. You can use it in place of taco shells, make cole slaw, use it in place of chips for dips. It’s sturdy just like it’s sister lettuces, romaine and red and green leaf. Funny to think that this vegetable, formerly thought of as a weed by Egyptians, is sturdy and durable….the Tonka truck of the food world.

    Personally, I love lettuce and yes, even iceberg. It’s all about the texture. Crunchy. Watery. Green. It’s then about the toppings, the dressings, the vinaigrettes, the lovely sauces that cover and cling.

    Let’s think about some of the lettuces: Bibb (probably the Queen…expensive); the red and green (Fraternal Twins); Romaine (the Glamourous one….in the Caesar, dressed up in bleu cheese too) and then the Iceberg (the Stalwart). We also have raw spinach, lamb’s leaf (my favorite….tossed with a little olive oil and really good salt! Dreams are made from this…), arugula. There are also Endive (the European…it’s curly, fancy…has an accent). However, lettuce stick to the well-known lettuces on this little episode.

    Fun Facts about Lettuce:

    1. It’s the number two vegetable behind potatoes of most consumed in the United States.

    2. 75 %  of all lettuce is grown in California. (Since, the state is currently in the middle of one of the worst droughts in history, it will be very costly soon.)

    3. You can’t preserve it. It is impervious to canning, pickling, bottling or freezing.

    4. Lettuce was introduced to the New World in the mid-15th Century.

    Just a little fun trivia…to lighten your day.

     

    Grilled Romaine

    You Will Need:

     

    Grilled Romaine Caesar Salad

    1 head of Romaine lettuce (Outer leaves peeled off)

    Worcestershire sauce

    Salt & pepper

    Olive oil

    Lemon

    Dijon Mustard

    Garlic

    Parmesan cheese

    Let’s Make This Puppy:

    1. Heat a gas grill. (If using a charcoal, cook all the meat and let them embers cool. We want grill marks and a slight wilt….not blackened vegetables.)

    2.  Cut the lettuce into fourths. If it’s a small head, maybe only in half…you be the judge. (You have the knife in your hand….I’m not going to tell you what to do.)

    3. Brush the cut side with olive oil. Not a lot just enough to glisten and place cut side down on hot grill. DO NOT COVER. This is really just to give a slight taste of char, that BBQ outdoor flavor. It’s like parboiling a potato, we don’t want to cook it, we want to add a little character to it’s existing personality. Remember the first time your parents scolded you in public….and left a scar in your psyche, it’s like that; a little character development.

    Leave the lettuce on the grill, creating the lovely grill marks. The rest of it might have a little bit of brown around the edges….again, a little character development or taste enhancement.

    Remove and place on a plate.

    4. Now onto the dressing: Take a wooden bowl that’s been thoroughly chilled in a freezer. (You don’t have to do this step. It’s only if you want to be fancy.) Rub the garlic clove on the inside of the bowl. Pour in about 1/2 cup of olive oil….couple of dashes of Worcestershire, a dollop of Dijon mustard, squeeze a little lemon…about 1 tablespoon….and add freshly grated Parmesan. Whisk it together in the bowl. (If you want it a creamier consistency…like in a chain restaurant….add some mayo.). Add the salt and pepper to taste.

    5. Arrange the lettuce with the cut side up, Drizzle the dressing over the lettuce. If it’s a little thick, you can whisk in a little more olive oil. Grate some more cheese over it….and voila, Grilled Caesar Salad.

    Note: I don’t like to add croutons to this. There is already a lot of crunch and we are dealing with half a head or a quartered lettuce. You won’t miss the croutons. Trust me.

     

     

     

  • Omelettes or Omelets

    I watched the new Lasse Hallstrom film “100 Hundred Foot Journey” with Helen Mirren…and it made me want to make an omelette. The movie is about a young Indian man who has a way with food. He’s creating sumptuous meals from his traditional Indian background but wants to expand into European haute food. And one of his tests, to truncate some of the film, is to make an omelet. According to the movie and to restaurant folklore, if you make a perfect omelet, you are a chef. (Is that from “Ratatouille”?). I don’t know if it’s true or not.

    I do know that it’s not easy to make an omelette. I have tried for many years to do so and I think, by sheer chance, after using Nick’s saute/fry/ omelet pan, I’ve done it.

     

    Before I go into that, let’s discuss the omelet. It’s really not a complicated meal but when made, it’s so satisfying. From a corner New York diner, to a luxury hotel, to an upscale restaurant, an omelet is one of those breakfast items that can also become dinner. In NYC’s, now legendary Noho Star, only by longevity, I would dine on an omelette called “Gold-n-Green”. Made with Wisconsin “golden” cheddar cheese and spinach (green), the eggy fold-over was a diners’ delight in low meets high brow experiences. (If memory serves me correctly, it’s cost was $12 over 20 years ago.)

    Of course now, in LA, Petis Trois, the new Ludo Lefebvre French bistro, serves a $19 dollar experience and Napa’s The Grill at Meadowood, which also has the best hash, in my humble opinion, on the Pacific Coast clocks in at the same. Clearly, an omelet is an expensive experience as King Cole’s Bar & Salon in New York City’s St. Regis Hotel is $25 but the same dish is only $10 at the well-known Empire Diner on Eighth Avenue. For $9.95 in Los Angeles at Jan’s, which is kind of a holdover from a bygone era, you can get consume a four egg omelette with ham and cheese!!!!

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    Anyhow, the point of all this is, I finally made an omelette and all it took was Nick….who had the right pan. It’s made by Spring Switzerland, a company that I didn’t know. It was one of those strange yet pleasant discoveries that after I had whipped up two eggs and put into the well-oiled pan, I went looking for the S & P; ready to stir what I thought would be scrambled eggs, I noticed they had started to set and essentially finished an omelette….and I made them with the bi-fold, meaning that I folded the eggs over about a third, then gently slipped the eggs out of the pan. As the open side hit the plate, I folded that over and then, it became, folded twice. Instead of the one big flip in the middle. The bi-fold is just a little fancier and more pretentious, which if you know me well-enough, I can be.

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    I’m not really going to give you a recipe because we all know how to make one. The omelettes that I have pictured were made in this Spring Switzerland pan…and I can’t find a website for cookware. 🙁  Regardless, my suggestion is if you want to make an omelette/omelet invest in a good pan. That’s how you make an omelette; use a good pan. They aren’t cheap. If you want to make a true French omelette without the browning, use clarified butter and not oil or straight butter. The fat in both will brown the eggs.

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    And just in case you were wondering about the spelling of omelettes/omelets….

  • Cooking Cauliflower: A Culinary Chef d’Ouevre

    In my mind, cauliflower never ranked on the culinary wheel. There were more interesting vegetables to eat and cook. It wasn’t until I was on one of my frequent Napa Valley trips and dined at Ubuntu that I discovered how delicious cauliflower could be. At that time, Chef Jeremy Fox created a dish that put the white veggie back on the map called “Cauliflower in a Cast Iron Pot“.  It was an amazing, comfort food concoction that was fairly complicated. Fox actually won “Food & Wine Magazine’s Best New Chef” for some of his outstanding and unusual vegetable recipes but the cauliflower was his signature dish. 

    Then a couple of years ago, I started roasting the vegetable along with zucchini, broccoli, and onions but I always picked out the cauliflower first and put it on a separate plate. Sprinkling pink salt and cracked pepper on top of it,  I devoured the entire head of cauliflower by myself. There is a sweet, nuttiness that roasted cauliflower imparts and combine that with maybe some dried fruit or turmeric. It’s a yummy invention. 

    I wish there was something more profound to be said about roasting cauliflower other than it’s simple, delicious eating. Supposedly, it will be a trend in New York City restaurants as reported by New York Times food columnist Ligaya Mishan with far more complicated cooking techniques. 

    On one of my recipe reading binges, I journeyed across an amazing recipe developed by the late Marcella Hazan in a cookbook called “Great Food Without Fuss“, edited by Frances McCullough and Barbara Witt. By blanching the cauliflower and pairing it up with pine nuts, raisins and an Italian hard cheese, it because a meal unto itself and is incredibly simple.  I reworked the recipe with roasting the cauliflower. 

    I said to Nick, “Who knew cauliflower was this delicious?”

    Nick replied, “I didn’t but I do now.” 

    For me, as always, simple is best. 

    What you will need: 

    1 cauliflower head, trimmed of leaves and sliced like steaks. Don’t throw away the ends, just break them apart. You could also cut them into florets, whichever you prefer. I like the steak….it’s prettier. 😉

    1/ 4 olive oil.

     

    Handful of raisins…depending on your taste. (Soak these for about 20 minutes).

     

    Handful of walnuts or pine nuts.

    About 2 tbsp of chopped parsley. (It’s a garnish…completely optional.)

    Hard Italian Cheese. Reggiano, Parmesan. Asiago. Your preference.

    Salt and pepper. 

     

    Let’s make this puppy:   

    1. In a large bowl, place cauliflower, nuts and olive oil. Mix until coated well. 

    2. Throw onto a baking sheet and spread it out. Place into a preheated oven at 375 degrees. 

    3. Roast for about 20 minutes and taste a tiny bit. It should be tender. If not, give it another 5 to 10 minutes. 

    4. Once vegetable is lightly brown with nuts toasted, put onto a bowl or on a plate. Shave cheese to your liking and toss with parsley. Trust me as you may only eat this for the rest of your life. 

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