Have some respect

The waiter hugged each of us goodbye while the hostess looked on and a man entering the restaurant wondered aloud if everyone got such good treatment. I guess we were lucky to get a waiter who looked like a black Jack Black (he concurred) and shared with us his dreams of acting and tales of his troublesome younger brother. In between the gossip, he recommended our dinner choices (free range Amish roast chicken or roast duck with a side of duck confit rather than the short ribs) and wine selection. He told us about his employee discount - no free meals but at least he never took the food for granted. It seems that when you get it for free you don't have respect for it. The food, that is.

I don't usually write about restaurants but sometimes the food I eat in restaurants inspires my cooking. I can make cheese grits, one of the delicious sides we had (just keep adding butter and cheese and top with olive oil). I can make white chocolate panna cotta, one of the free desserts we had (did I mention that the waiter loved us?). I can make a risotto cake, one of the appetizers we had.

Okay, I'll admit that the risotto cake in the restaurant was fat and moist on the inside, not flat and a tad dry like mine. It was topped with a salad with a noticeable but light dressing and some plump grilled shrimp. I topped mine with shredded leftover Amish chicken.

Let's not forget that making risotto cakes is a two step process. See, you first have to make the risotto. Get a little Arborio rice, some shallots and garlic together in a pan, and fry up about five or six slices of pancetta in there too. Remove the pancetta and let it drain on paper towels. Once the rice has rolled around in the fat and flavoring for a bit, add a splash of wine. Cooking wine works just fine, but I usually have a bottle of something that was never finished sitting around. Now you're ready to start adding the hot broth. Sometimes I get this far before I realize I don't have any broth, much less hot broth. But this time I was prepared and had already dissolved a hearty bouillon cube in water in a pan on the burner next to my risotto pan. Now start scooping quarter cups of broth into the pan and let the rice absorb them. Do this slowly. It could take 20-25 minutes. Keep stirring. Drink some of the wine. Unless it's cooking wine, then don't drink it for god's sake. When the rice is creamy and cooked through - I always taste a few pieces and find them undercooked when I'm out of broth but just add some water at this point - then you can stir in the peas and the crumbled pancetta. Add some grated parmesan, salt and pepper.

Now here's the really important step: Don't eat all of the risotto. You may think this is obvious, but I'm telling you, you will want to eat it all and then what is left for risotto cakes? Nothing. You'll have to start over.

Save some of that risotto for tomorrow because you don't want to make the risotto cakes now, you're too busy eating risotto. When you're ready to make them, just mix in some beaten egg and cornmeal. I had a little trouble getting my risotto to stick together but I just flattened it down into the frying pan and once it started frying, it stuck together just fine. If you can make a pancake you can make a risotto cake.


I think they turned out cute and tasty, but I would never take a risotto cake for granted. Because when you make it yourself, you have even more respect for the food.

Irresistible

Over the weekend my friend Monika and I made an excursion to an Indian grocery store near her house. Supposedly it was the "larger" store in the area. This means when you walk down one of the two aisles in the store, you don't knock bottles of chutney off the shelf.

Have you been in an Indian grocery store? Here's what you'll find. Frozen flatbreads. Frozen dinners of spinach and cheese or lentil stew. Huge bags of ground and whole spices for about $3 each. Bottled ginger paste, bottle garlic paste, and my favorite - bottled ginger/garlic blend. Different kinds of pickle made with lemon or mango. Flour and beans of every variety. Refrigerated mix for making dosa (Indian version of a crepe). Fresh vegetables like ginger, cilantro, onions, garlic, okra, eggplant, potatoes and tomatoes. Goldenrod and tangerine colored sweet blocks made from flour and sugar, nuts and cheese.

I'm a kid in a candy store in there. Not because I like to stock up on the frozen samosas and naan (though I do). It's the aisle of spice mixes that gets me going. Because here's a secret: I never really learned any Indian recipes from my mom. She doesn't use recipes. This is how she makes goat curry. Get my dad to cut up the goat meat. Coat it in ginger, garlic, turmeric, red pepper, salt, and other mystery spices. Marinate overnight. Cook in a big pot with some water on a low heat for a long time, until it's tender. It's magically delicious. I might be leaving out some steps since I never really watched her make it, I just turned up when it started smelling good.

So I need those spice mixes. I need them to cook with and I need them to inspire me. I went in there to buy a chicken biryani mix and picked up one for kofta curry (also known as meatballs and gravy). But there were many options for curries, kebabs, veggies, tandoori, and desserts. Those boxes of spice mix last a long time so as much as I wanted to buy a shelf full, I restrained myself. I used my biryani mix to marinate my chicken overnight, mixing it with yogurt, tomato paste, slow cooked chopped onions, cilantro, garlic, ginger, and salt. I cooked the chicken and soaked the rice with whole spices - cinnamon, cardomom, and cumin seeds. Then everything went into a pot with some fried potatoes and saffron infused milk and cooked for nearly an hour. Don't you dare say I made my biryani from a mix.

Shan Food has a list of all their products. I especially like the category labled "Irresistible Pickle" and plan to name my off-the-beaten-path pub that some day.

Celebrate with food

I'm bummed. It turns out that I forgot to celebrate Pi Day. I have never celebrated it before but now that I've been made aware, I'll never forget again.
If you haven't caught on yet, Pi Day is March 14th. 3.14. If you're really geeky you can celebrate it at 1:59. I'll choose to be semi-geeky and celebrate it by making pies. Pizza pies, fruit pies, pot pies, shepherd's pie. Next year will be the year!
I like to celebrate with food. Yesterday was St. Patty's day and I was wrapping up my food challenge week by making bacon wrapped shrimp skewers on a bed of couscous with a salad.



I was certainly being "green". But I wanted to make something Irish to celebrate the holiday, like corned beef or boxty. (Every time I go into an Irish pub I look for but rarely find boxty, the Irish potato pancake, best found here). I settled on Irish soda bread, for which I had all the ingredients. It is not made with a can of pop (though that could produce an interesting bread product). It's made with baking soda so it rises despite a lack of yeast. Thus it's a "quick" bread - just mix up the ingredients and put the dough in the oven. You'll be shocked at how much it rises, so don't put it on a lower rack with the upper rack right above it or you'll end up with grill marks on your loaf. Not that I've ever done this.
I used this recipe. I'm not saying it's the best one. But it's easy, it tasted good and I managed to have a slice with every meal today. And the same tomorrow...did I mention the loaf gets pretty big?

EDF: Days 4 - 7

Day 4: Russell Peters!
Instead of staying home and cooking I went out to see a fantastic stand-up comedian, Russell Peters, at the Chicago Improv and ate some food while I was there.

Days 5&6: New York City!
Had some good food in New York but nothing I couldn't have made myself, if in fact I were to buy octopus and braise it. Ironically, I studied a cute octopus model at the Natural History Museum that very afternoon.

Day 7: I arrived home from my weekend trip and studied the contents of the fridge. Now I'll admit that some things in there have not survived the week (or two or three) that they've been patiently awaiting my culinary inspiration. Disturbingly soft jicama and withered mint leaves were promptly discarded. The teaspoon of whipping cream which remained after I made cream braised brussel sprouts did not need to be saved any longer. And the first wheel of brie from the buy 1 get 1 free sale was ready to be finished with some crackers while I made dinner.

Feeling good about my progress, I focused on the most perishable items remaining in the fridge: an open can of coconut milk, scallions, and a bag of sugar snap peas. I thought I could combine these items with tofu from the pantry to make some kind of coconut curry.

I went with the first recipe I found online. I had all the spices, could substitute sugar snap peas and carrots for the recommended bell peppers and mushrooms, and the reviewers raved about it. Picking a recipe is an art, nearly as challenging as making one up myself. The last few weeks I've had some misses, when recipes turned out less delicious than I thought they would. But those were recipes from cookbooks and magazines, not online, and there were no reviews. I love reading reviews. I may not agree with every reviewer but on average, when the reviews are great I like the recipe.

So I drained my tofu, soaked some glass noodles in boiling water to use them up instead of rice, and cooked up some vegetarian coconut curry. Not bad for a Sunday night.

Coming up...let the challenge continue because I have no time to go to the store anyway.

EDF: Days 2 and 3

Day 2: Pasta with meat sauce
Tuesday night's dinner was classic out of the freezer into the frying pan food. Ground beef and leftover tomato sauce were combined with olive oil, a fresh tomato, chopped onion and garlic, a bay leaf, oregano, salt, pepper, a scoop of beef demiglace (Williams Sonoma indulgence that I keep in my fridge) and a splash of white wine in my brand new Calphalon saucepan. I had noticed that the cheap non-stick pans I bought six years ago were peeling. For at least the last two years. Don't tell my mom how long. When I mentioned the peeling issue to her, she suggested that I might be ingesting carcinogens. Since I don't have a wedding registry coming up, I'll have to acquire new cookware slowly, but I bought two new stainless steel saucepans and a new stockpot over the weekend.
I don't know if I can credit the pan, but the meat sauce turned out really delicious over some linguini fini. Too bad I ended up with so much that I had to put some of it back into the freezer. Am I making any progress here at all? Maybe if I had made a salad or vegetable...but I was too tired so I just ate a banana and called it a day.

Day 3: Zucchini soup with rosemary biscuits and brie
I have always loved biscuits. They're bready and soft and savory. Sometimes they're fluffy like cupcakes and sometimes they are dense as scones. They taste delicious with honey butter. Seasoned with herbs or cheese or flavored with pumpkin, biscuits are a satisfying food. And they're easier to make than yeast breads. A child could make them.
As a kid, I spent long summer days alone at home before I was old enough to be employed and I generally kept out of trouble (phone bill incident notwithstanding). But I was intrigued by the kitchen. I poured through my mom's cookbooks looking for something easy to make that would leave no trace behind. I'm not sure why it had to be a secret. Maybe I thought my parents would disapprove. More likely they would think I was a weirdo for randomly making biscuits. In any case, the drop biscuits were the easiest recipe I could find. Flour, salt, baking powder, butter, and milk or buttermilk. No rolling the dough, just scoop out the biscuits and drop them on the baking pan or into a soup or stew. (I also really like eating raw dough, but that's not for everyone.) They bake up in 10 minutes or so and even though there is butter in the recipe, I really can't resist a little more melted butter on top.


Zucchini soup This is an easy healthy soup. I skip the bread and herbs and just make the soup. Add a squeeze of lemon, a dollop of plain non-fat yogurt, or a swirl of buttermilk to elevate the flavor.
Rosemary biscuits (topping for this root vegetable pie, which is a great vegetarian entree)

Eating Down the Fridge - Day 1

Today is the first day of Eating Down the Fridge. EDF is a week long challenge to not go food shopping but instead, eat what you have in your pantry and fridge and freezer. That stuff frozen in a tupperware? Defrost it. The can of butter beans that you bought even though you don't know if you like butter beans? Open it. The fish sauce and curry paste leftover from your one attempt at making Thai food? Use it.
Obviously I went grocery shopping over the weekend, right before the challenge began. I went with the plan to buy ingredients which I could combine with food I already had in the house and for the next 7 days I can't go pick up anything I forgot. (I think it's also part of the challenge to not go out to eat every night.) I'll be out of town for the last few days of the challenge so to be fair, I'll extend it through next Tuesday. I know you can't wait to see what I come up with on those last few days. Probably something made from frozen peas and tofu.
This challenge is about being creative, being frugal and green, not wasteful. It's also about getting my name and blog listed here and having to live up to the deal.
If you want to join me, please leave a comment!

Day 1: Parmesan-thyme biscuits topped with ham and brie, salad with pears, bleu cheese, walnuts, and Craisins, fruit crumble with ice cream

Biscuits w/ Ham and Brie:
Parmesan - fridge
Butter - fridge
Thyme - freezer
Flour, baking powder - pantry
Ham - fresh
Brie - fresh, buy one get one free (this means I have a lot of brie to deal with in the next few weeks)


Salad
Lettuce - fridge
Pears - fresh
Bleu cheese - fridge, leftover from pasty making
Walnuts - fridge
Craisins - pantry
Oil and vinegar - pantry

Fruit crumble:
Apples - fresh
Blueberries - fridge
Brown sugar - pantry
Almonds - fridge
Flour - pantry
Butter - fridge
Ice cream - freezer

Looks Can Be Deceiving

I now keep my camera in the kitchen and rush to take pictures of anything I make that looks promising. But lately it's been a matter of "looking promising" and not delivering. Isn't that the worst?
I mean, doesn't this look appealing (for meat lovers)?


Meatballs are getting cozy with ham in my Dutch oven. I added the rest of the sauce ingredients and let them stew for 30 minutes. Soon after, I'm settled with a plate in front of the TV for Lost.

I had high hopes for this recipe and it looks sensational. So what's the problem? Sometimes looks can be deceiving.
I usually pride myself on being a good recipe picker. Smoky Meatballs in Serrano Ham Tomato Sauce had all the indications of a good recipe. Basic ingredients with a twist (smoked paprika in the meatballs for a smoky flavor, ham in the tomato sauce), the make ahead aspect of the meatballs, and the addition of chunks of red bell pepper allowing the recipe to stand as a one-dish dinner. But overall the recipe was lacking something, namely salt. Only 1/2 teaspoon of kosher salt was allocated to a full pound of ground beef, and no salt was added to the rest of the recipe. As any Top Chef judge would say, the dish was underseasoned.
Not that one cannot add salt after tasting the dish. But as I mentioned, I was already well settled into the couch with my plate watching a gripping episode of Lost and never got around to finding the salt shaker. I was only aware enough to know I was disappointed in the recipe.
(Note that when I was warming up the leftovers at work, a woman standing next to me nearly drooled into my tupperware as she asked me what I was eating. At least that made me feel good.)

I tried another promising recipe the next week. Malaysian Chicken Curry with Sweet and Spicy Peppers:


Again with the red peppers. I'm sensing a theme. Do red bell peppers suck all the taste out of things? I'm not sure where this recipe went wrong. The chicken was seasoned well, browned in the pan and then simmered in coconut milk with curry powder, red peppers, and jalapeños. I forgot to start the rice so I turned to my favorite rice substitute, couscous, which is always ready in five minutes and does a good job of soaking up the coconut curry. And yet. The recipe didn't wow. And there is too much good food out there to settle for a lackluster performance.

So did I make anything good recently? I've been making this trout for a few years now, and it always satisfies yet doesn't look exciting:

I need a supply of these unassuming recipes which are delicious and memorable enough that I can keep coming back to them to recover from bad recipes.

Indian Grilled Trout (adapted from "step-by-step Indian")

4 trout fillets
2 tablespoons butter
1 garlic clove, crushed
1/2 fresh green chile, deseeded and chopped
1/2 tsp chopped ginger root or ginger paste
3/4 tsp cumin seeds
1/2 tsp garam masala
1/2 tsp ground cumin
Grated zest from half a lemon
Juice from one lemon
salt

Season the trout and place in broiler pan. Heat the butter in a saucepan over low heat. Add the crushed garlic, chile, chopped ginger, and spices and cook very gently for 30 seconds, stirring. Remove the pan from heat and stir in lemon zest and juice. Spoon half the mixture over the trout pieces and cook under the broiler for five minutes. Turn the fish over, spoon the remaining mixture over the fish and broil for a further five minutes. Garnish with cilantro and lemon wedges.

Spring

It happens every March. A stranger strikes up a conversation with me by asking whether I'm on spring break. I'm not in New Orleans collecting beads and I'm not on a beach in Mexico with 20 of my BFFs, but apparently I still look like I eat dorm food and have an undecided major. Because today for no apparent reason, as I was minding my own business on the elliptical machine, a woman asked me if I was on spring break. I wish.
I'm not 19 anymore no matter what I look like, and I don't get a spring break. But it is March 1st. And even though it snowed today, with temperatures in the teens and windchills in single digits, I'm thinking about spring. Spring rolls to be specific.
Isn't this a wonderful image of spring? Slices of carrot, cucumber, and jicama are marinated in rice vinegar and nested in a rice paper wrapper, along with softened glass noodles, fresh mint, and cilantro. Damp lettuce leaves are arranged on top to keep the rolls from drying out, and for a darling presentation.
I first made these spring rolls for my housewarming party when I was looking for a vegetarian appetizer that didn't involve cheese. (You can of course add cold cooked shrimp or pork to the spring rolls as found in many Vietnamese restaurants.) The spring rolls by themselves are like a salad without dressing. So the key is a good peanut sauce. I used San-J brand bottled sauce (yes I know I didn't make it myself but I got it from someone who left the country and I've had it sitting in my pantry for a long time). I did buy some peanuts, crush them up and mix them into the sauce.
If you eat the peanut sauce by itself, it will be concentrated and intense, salty and sweet and sour flavors overstimulating your tongue. If you eat that spring roll by itself, it will taste as dry as a college statistics class (wink). But something funny happens when you slice the spring roll in half and spoon peanut sauce into one half. Take a bite of the combo and the sauce mellows out while the crunchy veggies in a chewy wrapper come to life like a barren tree in the spring. Which is coming any day now.

Note: I found spring roll wrappers at Whole Foods in the Asian food section. They are dried and need a quick soak in hot water to soften them so they can be rolled up, and then are completely edible. They are not the same as egg roll wrappers which are usually found in the produce section near the bean sprouts and cannot be eaten unless cooked. Fillings are up to you. Place the filling on the spring roll wrapper, about 1/3 of the way from the left side, then fold the left side over the filling. Fold down the top and fold up the bottom, then continue to roll up from the left side.