If you peel, chop and cook down a great kabocha squash, just a little butter, nutmeg and maple sugar, some water so it doesn't burn. Let it go for an hour or so stirring often until a thick paste. Then roll out dough and make ravioli with that. Cover in a sauce of butter, lemon, egg and capers. As simple as it can get. Just exquisite. I'm told this is one of my signature dishes. I've been doing it…
Every other day I make noodle soup for breakfast. I add slightly different ingredients, use a slightly different technique or something different each time. Every now and then they flop. Usually they're good, sometimes exquisite. And there's no inherent logic to the rate of success either. Handmade noodles, homemade stock, fresh ingredients sometimes yield a superior soup. I keep stock in the…
Another selection from Food, Clay, Wood A grand sycamore stood sentinel by the sidewalk at the front lawn of the colonial revival house where I grew up in central New Jersey. The entire Levitt planned community was planted with this and a handful of other species, and they must have been fairly large in 1967 because I could easily climb them a decade later. I would hang out in one particular…
This week I started writing a new book, and I thought I'd share a brief essay from it. Here goes: Beauty and the Graceful Line It sounds a little silly nowadays to be talking about Beauty with a capital B in universal terms. We are so used to setting everything in historical context, being careful to understand the culture that produced an object without our own blinkered prejudices. We do this…
I realize I haven't posted in months! This is what I've been up to. Carving spoons. It took me a long time to get decent at it. Today I counted, 80 spoons so far since the spring. I intend to get a book out of this, provisionally called FOOD CLAY WOOD. I just started writing. Stay tuned. In the meantime the Gelatin book is in the warehouse and ready to be shipped! And the cookbook now entitled…
My first shot at macaron and a bit lumpy, no smooth top and no "legs" but they taste very good, with raspberry jam everyone ate them happily. But mine I filled with this chopped filet mignon. It has very little flavor when cooked as a steak, only softness. But that makes it ideal for eating raw. The sweet almond flavor of the macaron with meat makes me think of medieval flavor combinations, and if…
I can't imagine I'm the first person to stumble on this wordplay, but the flavor combo is truly delightful. Takoyaki with octopus of course, in a taco with pico de gallo, cheese, mayo and sauce on top.
Recipe: 1 c whole wheat pastry flour, 1 c unrefined sugar, 1 stick butter. Crumbled up. 4 sliced black and green plums on top, baked 350 1 hr. 3/4 c bourbon, 1/4 c campari, 1 tbs gelatin. Dissolve gel in 1/4 liquid, heat the rest, pour over, let cool. Pour over chilled pie. Chill. Dizzyingly luscious. The bottom is like a sugar cookie, crunchy on the outside and chewy inside.
There's a first for everything in life: Leftover Lobster. It called to me from the fridge all night. So I gave in, made some fresh egg noodles, tossed with butter, parm and a little lobster stock. OH my goodness!
This is a kind of Japanese custard which people think requires some remarkably complex technique. It’s actually easier to make than a poached egg. Its appeal lies primarily in the soft creamy texture, especially when contrasted with crunchy or chewy garnishes. In flavor it can be as delicate or as intense as you like in the morning, and is entirely dependent on the strength of the stock you use.…
Amaranth Sushi 1/15/2021 Some grains simply don’t stick together well enough to hold together in a rolled sushi, but amaranth is an exception. The nutty flavor also goes so nicely with the fish that it doesn’t need any further embellishment. ¾ c water 1/8 tsp salt ½ c amaranth 1 smoked trout filet 1 tbs mayonnaise 2 sheets of nori Bring the water to the boil in a small pot with the salt. Add the…
Among the most ingenious ways to transform chickpea flour is to extrude it through a brass device used in India to make sev – a kind of fried noodle that goes into a variety of dishes. There are various other machines that will work just as well, a small hand-held noodle extruder, a ricer and even a cookie press with a perforated die. Here I have obviously desecrated a revered snack food, but it…
“My grandma was the best cook ever!” says anyone who has ever been interested in cooking and eating. I say the same thing myself. For years I have been trying to replicate her recipes from memory. She died when I was 13, so it’s mostly guesswork. One of these is boyos – a kind of round roll with spinach and feta filling. There were also other fillings, like onion and egg, ground beef too. I recall…
How to do Recipe Testing First get on your sturdy hiking shoes and a good hat and a little blue backpack from Disney Word with Oswald the Lucky Rabbit on it. Set out early, but not too much before stores open. Head north. Don’t forget your earbuds. Prepare to spend about 4 hours listening to Trout Fishing in America , which will lull your brain into a state of hypnosis. This will help you focus on…
Were I to tell you that this recipe is highly reminiscent of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, you probably wouldn’t believe me, but it’s true. Idli, from Southern India, are soft cakey rounds that are oddly like white bread but pleasantly sour and made entirely from fermented rice and beans. Almond butter is more nuanced than peanut but either would work well, and the chutney is infinitely more…
I am fairly committed to writing a book about breakfast now. This very simple, quick and easy dish I made this morning has me excited to send out a proposal and get the ball rolling. I'm up to 16 recipes in the past few weeks, pretty much one a day. Well, here's a sample: The Thanksgiving Wrap 1 flat bread, home made or store-bought flour tortilla 2 tbs chevre 1 tbs umeboshi plum paste, found in a…
Makes one dozen fritters 1 lb box of bacal ã o (salt cod) 2 tbs olive oil ¼ c heavy cream ½ c dry fino sherry 1 c okonomiyaki flour or regular pancake mix, plus more if necessary for a very thick batter 1 tbs lard or butter 2 large red peppers ½ cup toasted almonds, crushed 2 cloves garlic ¼ c olive oil 1 tsp salt 1 head of escarole 2 tbs olive oil Salt to taste Dabs of mayonnaise 1 thinly sliced…
When the heat lingers for weeks on end, these Southeast Asian inspired jello drinks are seriously refreshing. The dark one is grass jelly cubes in white vermouth and sweetened condensed milk. The green is a pandan mung bean noodle in ice cold sake, also with sweetened condensed milk. I'm not sure why jello is so cooling in this form, but it sure is.
This was a fun little trick. Very pure gelatin, sugar and a little phosphate for the acid. Made into gelatin cubes, plopped into a vodka and tonic. And instead of the hard ice hitting your teeth, it's a squishy chewy gel cube. Delicious and refreshing too.
Have you ever considered how many cultures roll things up in starch or a bread-based wrapper? Burritos and spring rolls presumably have no real connection, but the flavors inside and the way they’re eaten are so similar. A good example of convergent evolution, two distinct species move toward the same solution, though unrelated. Like humming birds and bees sipping nectar from flowers. I decided to…
The bullshot is a classic mid-century cocktail but gained a certain popularity in the 1980s. For some reason I picture Tom Cruise ordering it in a bar. As a cocktail it’s pleasantly savory but strange enough that you won’t want to sip too much. As a jello it replicates the smooth creaminess of roasted marrow without being quite as unctuous. Scooped onto the shortbread with a dab of the lemon, it’s…
The world is a different place since I last posted. I have been making jello nonetheless. This is a mung bean noodle laced with purple butterfly pea flower. A ratio of 1 tsp to a cup of starch. Boiling water was added to make a dough, then that was extruded into a pot of boiling water to make noodles. Those were set in a combination or rum, lime juice and gelatin, turned out and then garnished…
The pictures describe this experiment well. I took a pound jar of local unpasteurized honey, added two times the amount of water and pitched in about 1/2 tsp of yeast (intended for beer). Waited two weeks and it became pleasantly effervescent. Filtered that. Nice and clear and only a hint of residual sweetness. Then browned some rabbit pieces in butter, added mushrooms and whole shallots, and…