Finest Stew

Presently, preoccupations abound, and for the past week the kitchen has been used sparely. I think I saw some dust gathering the other day.

It might have been pepper.

Autumn arrived yesterday night. As I got to sleep a wind blew through the trees and shook them and whistled against the house. This was a serious wind, one to remind a person there is an outside beyond his walls, and in it there are foreign things that pop out there in the night, in the dark.

Similarly, as days cool and the sun sets sooner, we're reminded of meats and sauces, the substantial foods that burn in our bellies all night to keep us warm under the covers...or so it seems. Appropriately, two nights ago I had the pleasure of enjoying a hefty portion Juila Child's recipe for Boeuff Bourguignon, which had been prepared in a dutch oven purchased expressly for this meal--on this and future occasions, I hope.

Photo Credit: Sylvia

The recipe is a traditional one using a wine from the French region of Burgundy, whose dialect and cuisine are Burgundian, or bourguignon in French. I have never made it, but a quick look at the recipe's length mirrors the time consuming duration of its preparation. As I understand it, this excellent stew established itself as de rigeur at American dinner parties, for which, expectedly, popular cookbooks cultivated more convenient methods. In some cases it became simply "Beef Burgundy," which called for marinating the meat in wine overnight and then browning it, simmering it and serving it with canned vegetables. In her book Can She Bake a Cherry Pie?, Mary Drake McFeely reports that

Worse was in store. Another recipe turned up in community cookbooks of the seventies and eighties, a heresy with only five ingredients: beef, a can of cream of mushroom soup, a miserly half cup of red wine, an envelope of Lipton Onion Soup, and a four-ounce can of mushrooms! "Mix soup, onion soup mix, mushrooms and wine and stir well," advised one good neighbor in Dover, New Hampshire. "Add to meat and coat all pieces well. Put in covered casserole and bake in 300 degree oven for 3 hours. DO NOT PEEK!" Presumably it's not best to look until this gummy-sounding mixture has coagulated beyond recognition.

Thankfully, those who prepared Boeuf Bourguignon for us favored authenticity over convenience. After hours of heat between the stove and oven, thick chunks of stweing beef broke easily under the fork -- the grains of the soft meat swollen with juice -- and layers of little onion globes slid apart. Served over pasta and with bread to soak up the wine-rich juices, it was delicious. When I have four hours to spare, which is apparently how long this stuff takes, I intend to make it for myself. (And for others.) Perhaps complemented with steamed asparagus, too.

Yum.

A Different Kind of Cocktail

"Light & Perfect" describes much more than the last post's summer-fashioned pasta dish, and I've decided to make it a trend around this tiny nook of the internet if only to demonstrate that lighter, healthier meals aren't necessarily less appealing than, say, the piece of chocolate cake in the fridge you tell yourself will either be eaten or go bad, and what good is food-gone-bad while the world's full of malnourished people? (As illogical as that persuasion may be, you'd better just eat the cake, anyway.) Or try something new. Behold:

Although shrimp consumption was temporarily devastated when researchers discovered they contain high levels of cholesterol -- one serving of shrimp will provide about two-thirds the amount of cholesterol a person should consume in an entire day -- a 1996 study by Rockefeller University and the Harvard School of Public health found that the shellfish did not detrimentally affect the cholesterol levels of humans, citing that although "a diet containing more than a half pound of steamed shrimp" per day raised participants' levels of LDL (or "bad") cholesterol, it also seemed to raise the levels of HDL, "good" cholesterol thought to help prevent the build-up of arterial plaque. Combine that with the fact that shrimp contain very little fat and, say doctors, you have a healthier alternative to the fattier meats you might instead consume.

Growing up I developed an aversion to shrimp, or, more accurately, an aversion to the only sort of shrimp I knew: boiled and served with cocktail sauce. Due to my dad's old and spirited affinity -- "These are perfect! They don't make 'em this good in a restaurant!" I'd always hear -- for shrimp, this dish was ubiquitous at family gatherings. During the holidays, tradition demanded we make what seemed like a holy pilgrimage to a seafood distributor other than our local supermarket, even though, as I suspected, the shrimp at any location were, probably, of a similar quality. Once obtained, the shrimp would be brought home and refrigerated under the false assumption that simply because they were not frozen upon purchase they had never been frozen at any point during their long, truck-bound journey from the sea to this greatly inland destination. (Granted, I couldn't tell the difference at the time, but I'm glad I can now make this retrograde criticism.) Then, they were boiled for several minutes in water polluted with Crab Boil, an overly clove-stricken concentration whose unpleasantly powerful aroma clung to the kitchen walls for days.


Eaten far outside the pungent, airborne spread of the Crab Boil, the shrimp were not bad; my dad's shrimp are actually quite good, but they're always the same. Each time, every year. Boiled shrimp, cocktail sauce. I really shouldn't complain since it took me twenty-one years to finally prepare something else. (It also took me twenty-one years to develop a culinary sense.)

Now, personally, I find that until shrimp are cooked the little bug-like swimmers are absolutely detestable. They're translucent, slimy, and some, judging by their plump, black vein (read: digestive tract) appear to have been netted immediately following a corpulent Thanksgiving meal. They're quite pleasant once deveined, shelled and cooked, and provide an interesting shape for presentation on the plate. Sensing this, I happened upon the idea of citrus-marinated shrimp served a martini glass:

Photo credit: ambientqueenie

Several months ago I threw this together in a last-minute attempt to diversify our usually shrimp cocktail-oriented New Years' gatherings. It's a very simple recipe, really, obtained from Epicurious and originally seen in Bon Appétit. And since it's close to a seviche -- a cold dish in which an acid (usually lime juice) acts to "cook" the traditional fish or scallops -- when I make it again I might add one half-cup of lemon juice, marinate the shrimp overnight, before cooking, boil them only until they turn pink, then immediately soak them again in the citrus marinade for serving.

Citrus Marinated Shrimp Cocktail

Ingredients:

1 cup orange juice
1 cup fresh lemon juice
3/4 cup ketchup
1/3 cup vodka
1/4 teaspoon hot pepper sauce
1/4 cup olive oil
1 1/2 pounds cooked peeled large shrimp
1 small red onion, thinly sliced (about 1 3/4 cups)
1 cup finely chopped fresh cilantro

Method:

Combine juices, ketchup, vodka and hot pepper sauce in large bowl. Whisk in oil. Add shrimp, onion and cilantro and mix well. Cover and refrigerate at least 3 hours and up to 6 hours. Drain before serving.

Light. Perfect.

Summer is nearing its end, but, thanks to the global food trade, we don't have to stop eating like it's summer. A cursory glance at Wikipeda provides a reliable description of California Cuisine, a summery fashion of food in regard to which the title adjectives are usually fitting. Perhaps my favorite example of it is what I've come to know as The Perfect Summer Pasta.


A few months ago I had my first appropriate experience with The Perfect Summer Pasta, prepared near sunset in a kitchen with open windows on a cool, western evening. Pleasantly aromatic meals are the perfect compliment to such an environment, where a sun-warmed breeze through the kitchen washes over you the scent of fresh basil, at which point you no longer feel that life is of air conditioning and the internet, but rather of bright oceans and mountains the sun dips behind at evening. That's the way basil makes me feel, anyway.

The present recipe contains two (easily removable) editions to the original: mozzarella and roasted tomatoes, the former to provide an occasional burst of saltiness and the latter to coat the thin strands of pasta in sweet tomato and provide a bit of texture.

The Perfect Summer Pasta

Ingredients:

1 pound vermicelli
2 1/2 pounds well-ripened roma tomatoes
4oz fresh mozzerella, crumbled
2 cloves garlic, finely minced
4 tightly packed tablespoons fresh basil, chiffonade
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black peppercorns

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 230 degrees. Core and halve 2lbs of the tomatoes, roast for 4 hours or until reduced in size by half. Core, seed and dice the remaining 1/2lb of tomatoes and set aside.
2. Add mozerella, garlic, basil and salt to diced tomatoes.
3. Carefully slice roasted tomatoes, saving any juice that escapes. Add slices and juice to a bowl, then break apart further using the back of a fork.
4. Bring a large pot of heavily salted water to a rolling boil, cook vermicelli until tender, about seven minutes. Drain, set in large serving bowl and coat with olive oil.
5. Fold in roasted tomatoes and juices.
6. Fold in mozzerella, garlic, basil and diced tomatoes.
7. Sprinkle with pepper and serve while pasta is warm.

Dinner, & Duckhorn Decoy 2006

Despite its status as the little sister label to Duckhorn Vineyards, don't let the name fool you; as the Rampant Oenophile reminds us, this Decoy is the Real Thing.

Photo credit: Hooeyspewer

Granted, my modest level of viticultural erudition prohibits me from speaking with authority, but the stuff was smooth, perfect for rinsing the tongue of a rich, meaty sauce.

You see, Saturday evening I had the pleasure of eating quietly forty floors above the bustling nightlife of the city at Kemoll's, an Italian restaurant that's a regional favorite. After phoning them to say we'd arrive fifteen minutes later than the time of our reservation, we rode the arrantly art-deco elevators upward and walked in at 5:45 pm. We found our table in its own quiet room against what seemed a wall of glass facing north onto the city.

Our waiter sauntered through as we investigated the antipasti and informed us "the best ones on the menu" were the steamed mussels alla crema, mussels served beneath the generous bath of a sherry, cream and garlic sauce. Being easily enticed because of our eager palates, we quickly agreed to order a plate of these.

The mussels arrived hot and made their way around the table. When they came to me, I stealthily emptied several additional spoonfuls of the milky cream over the one I took, and grabbed two slices of the lightly toasted baguette that accompanied the little fellows. The texture was perfect and the flavor immediate; I didn't want my entree anymore, I wanted a plate of these. I soaked up the rest of the creamy sauce with the toasted bread, and, if the now empty plate on which the mussels had been served hadn't been at the opposite end of the table, I wouldn't have hesitated to mop up the leftover sauce there, too. Luckily, my manners restrained me.

After this, the rest of the meal -- a salad well appointed with cheeses and artichokes, a buttery steak of salmon and a thick slice of the densest chocolate cake imaginable -- whirred by in a flurry of conversation and laughter. In retrospect, the rest of the meal seemed this way by comparison to the silence clouded around us during our fiery, personal affairs with those creamy mussels.

The ear can wait if the mouth is content, you see.

Eggs 101-2: Omelettes

Omelettes interest me, and they have for years. How is an omelette supposed to be cooked? What goes into it? Does it go into the egg mixture before it's poured into the pan, or as a stuffing? How much stuffing? Should I cook it to a uniform fluffiness? Should I fold it closed in the pan, or when it's transferred to the plate? Should it be folded in half, or somehow rolled? And what the hell is a frittata?


The dish to which the term "omelette" refers varies internationally in name and form, but they're all essentially the same thing: beaten eggs cooked flat in a skillet. The eggs may be cooked thickly and sliced like cake, producing the tradtional Spanish tortilla, or cooked thinly, producing a lemelle, an Old French term from which the word "omelette" comes. In order to investigate the omelette, I first turned to Wolfgang Puck, who instructs us to make omelettes that come out of the pan lightly browned on the outside, smooth and still moist on the inside with a bit of tomatoes and thyme rolled in. To the best of my knowledge, this fold-over form is the classic French method of preparation, and agrees with the description provided by Julia Child in Mastering the Art of French Cooking, where she tells us "A good French omelette is a smooth, gently swelling, golden oval that is tender and creamy inside. And as it takes less than half a minute to make, it is ideal for a quick meal."

Thirty seconds to crack eggs, prepare a filling and cook it all in a pan? That might be a liberal estimation, Julia. I've made more omelettes than any other food, probably, and I've adapted my approach the matter.

I like to prepare the interior ingredients of my omelettes first, and I find that diced tomatoes and browned minced shallots -- both sauteed lightly -- crumbled goat cheese and a pinch of tiny fresh thyme leaves is a good place to begin. Next, start on the eggs. Although the usual eggs from a grocer are unlikely to contain any pathogens inside -- the surface of their shells is another far dirtier story, allegedly -- I prefer to use pastuerized eggs, which allows me to unhesitatingly fork my way into the slightly runny middle of the omelette.

Because we're dealing with eggs in a pan, the cooking technique for an omelette is a variation of scrambling, which, in my experience, is not allowing the stirring utensil to contact the bottom of the pan in which you're preparing the omelette. The egg that sticks to the bottom of the pan forms the omelette's lightly browned, almost crisp exterior. Once the eggs are in the pan, be sure to scrape them away from the bottom, and instead scramble only the surface of the eggs. If you stir in the filling ingredients and cook it all by scraping away the cooked egg from the pan's bottom and allowing uncooked egg to fill its place, you'd have a frittata, the omelette's Italian cousin.

That being said, you're not going to get away with leaving the pan-stuck egg in place for longer than two minutes. After that -- even after merely ninety seconds, if your burner runs hot -- you're nearing Burn Territory, and that is territory on which we don't want to tread. Consequently, if you're going to cook these eggs in under two minutes, you'll need to spread them shallowly over the bottom of a pan that is Not Too Deep. For a three-egg omelette, which is a hearty breakfast portion, an eight-inch non-stick skillet is ideal; for two eggs, use a six-inch skillet.

Once you've beaten the eggs -- perhaps mixing in a half teaspoon of a few fresh herbs, too -- and prepared the filling, set your omelette pan over medium heat. When it's hot, throw in one tablespoon of butter and coat the surface of the pan. When the pan is coated, pour in the egg mixture and turn the heat to just above medium-high. Don't touch the pan or stir the eggs until the edges of the egg begin the furl, about thirty seconds, at which point you should begin stirring the surface of the egg mixture -- not too deeply! -- and tilting the pan around in a circular motion to move some of the uncooked egg up around the yet exposed surface of the pan. Continue creating movement on the surface of the the eggs for one minute, or until only a bit of uncooked egg remains. Now, sprinkle the filling across the half of the omelette nearest to the pan handle. Then, using a spatula, fold the omelette by folding the bare half over and onto the filled half.

If it develops a tear along the fold, don't sweat it. You can hide the tear by serving it with the folded side facing away from the eater and additionally distracting him from inspection with intriguing conversation and eye contact. Furthermore, if your fold turns out an ill-formed, lop-sided thing and you're really concerned about presentation, try laying a clean kitchen towel over the omelette once it's on a plate, which provides a stable and sanitary means to re-form it using your hands.

Top it with a few leaves of fresh parsley and serve it alongside buttered sourdough for breakfast, or a small salad for lunch.

Deep Fried Butter

NPR has a story on an interesting new food being seen in Texas:



Deep-fried butter. Just writing those words gives us a warm feeling in our stomach and more viscous blood in our arteries.

Crazy as it sounds, the stuff's for real. If you're brave enough, you can can sample some in a couple of weeks at the State Fair of Texas. The Dallas fair lays claim to being the birthplace of the corn dog and is also known as the "Fried Food Capital of Texas."