Balls and Walnuts
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Category Archives: Food
A Taste of L.A.
Remember the nuclear devastation of Los Angeles in Terminator 2? Karen and I saw that movie in L.A., and we were the only two people who chortled over Linda Hamilton’s dream of mushroom clouds. That’s how much we liked L.A.
Of course, that was before we lived in Texas, and that was also before we lived in the land of “Oh, God, please let that be a new restaurant, because our town really doesn’t need a seventh auto parts store!”
Without further ado, here are eight things I miss from Los Angeles, all food. (Sorry, Beth & all those other vegetarians out there, but I like meat.)
Mr. Creosote
1. Baci D’Alassio from Il Fornaio restaurant in South Pasadena. Think of Baci as two chocolate-hazelnut macaroons fused base-to-base with a dollop of semisweet chocolate. Here’s the recipe, and here’s a picture.
2. Fried smelt at Cafe Santorini in South Pasadena. Oh how I love my little fishies. I really, really don’t want to look up the mercury content of smelt on Fanatic Cook’s mercury chart. (Hah! They’re not on the chart. They must be mercury-free.)
Imagine a huge dish piled high with lightly battered smelt, fried to a golden crisp, sprinkled with finely chopped Italian parsley, and served with no shortage of lemon wedges. You eat these bad boys whole — head, tail, fins, bones, everything. The crunch is part of the experience. Oh, lordy lordy lordy lordy.
3. Creme brulee at Cafe Santorini. Perfect creme brulee should have a warm, flawlessly crisped top, and a smooth, cold center. No damned bubbles. If there’s bubbles in the puddin’, the cook don’t know WTF about creme brulee. Here’s the Cook’s Illustrated recipe — I haven’t tried it out yet, but I will very soon. My beloved has a yen.
Karen, a creme brulee purist, hates to discover funky flavors on the first bite (Funky = anything other than vanilla). But I like a surprise. My favorite-ever creme brulee at Cafe Santorini featured a strong hint of bay leaf.
4. Basturma at Sahag’s Deli on Sunset. Basturma is the king of cold cuts, the ur-pastrami. Food critic Jonathon Gold called it “less a foodstuff than a force of nature.” It has the beefy intensity of bresaola, but the spice rub (hot paprika, fenugreek, and garlic) packs a wallop. Eat some basturma and give your unsuspecting Dearest a deep, deep kiss for a food sex memory that will last a lifetime. Here’s Sahag’s address.
5. Peking Duck at Quan Jude in Rosemead. World famous for their Peking Duck, Quan Jude sports photos of Henry Kissinger and Richard Nixon dining at their Beijing restaurant. You can eat any part of the duck here — they even have duck tongue aspic on the menu (trust me — stick to the Peking Duck). Here’s the address.
If you’ve never had Peking Duck, this needs to be on your list of Things I Must Eat Before I Die. The whole point of Peking Duck is to render the duck skin of its fat and elevate it to crispy snips of heaven. The skin is served with a bit of meat, a bit of green scallion, and a dollop of plum sauce (or is it hoisin?) all wrapped in a thin, rather tasteless pancake. The pancake ain’t the point.
6. Pommes frites at Benita’s Frites on the Santa Monica Boardwalk. Pommes frites are the basturma of French fries. ‘Nuff said. What’s so great about Benita’s Frites? Not only do they get the frites just right, but they also have the greatest dipping sauces. My favorite was the sundried tomato aioli. Here’s a write-up and a recipe, but I can’t believe it’s that easy.
7. Vietnamese iced coffee . . . anywhere. This stuff is ubiquitous. You can’t walk into a Vietnamese restaurant and not get perfect iced coffee. Here’s the idea: aqua regia-strong espresso combined with sweetened condensed milk, served over ice. Take a look at this pictorial essay.
True fact: my evil wife once got my office staff addicted on this stuff to increase productivity. Who needs coca leaves?
8. Banh mi at any Vietnamese restaurant. I can think of many fine sandwiches: beef tongue on rye; hot pastrami on rye; Philly cheese steak sandwich. They all have their place in the Great Order of Sandwich Being, but even the best Jewish deli pastrami can’t compete with an average banh mi. They’re that good.
Banh mi come in a variety of styles, but they all consist of a French or Italian roll slathered in mayo and/or liver pate, layered with cold cuts (thinly sliced roast pork is my favorite) and produce. It’s the produce that makes the banh mi: cilantro, thinly julienned carrots and cucumbers (lightly pickled in nuoc cham), and a few julienned strips of hot green peppers. Assemble the sandwich and heat it up so that the crust gets crusty. Like great creme brulee, a perfect banh mi will be warm to hot on the outside, cool on the inside.
Read more about banh mi at this link.
You know what all of these things have in common? I can’t eat any of them. (Well, I could eat the basturma without any bread, but where’s the fun in that? And Peking Duck without the pancakes . . . the Chinese already think we’re barbarians.)
While living in L.A., I got up to my all-time max weight, 178 lbs. Take home message to me: be happy you’re not living in L.A., or else you’d have ended up like poor Mr. Creosote.
D.
Rugelach
I was hoping to give this rugelach recipe from Ruby Glen an unqualified thumbs-up, but I can’t. It tweaks me when I discover that the baking time is 2 to 3 times what the recipe claims it is, and I hate having to figure out how to roll out the damned dough without it sticking to the rolling pin.
Fortunately for you, I’m here to perfect the recipe.
Those of you who boggle at bagels may not be familiar with rugelach. They are a horn-shaped pastry made from a cream cheese, butter, and flour dough. You can fill them with fruit, nuts, chocolate, you name it. They’re delicious and easy to make (or rather, they should be easy to make).
There are two important bits missing from the Ruby Glen recipe:
1. I had to bake mine 45 minutes to an hour before they were golden brown. The recipe calls for 16 to 19 minutes. Grrr.
2. Even a well chilled dough is sticky beyond belief. I sprayed two large squares of parchment paper with non-stick cooking oil spray, and I rolled out my dough between the squares. I did this on a marble pastry board, so the dough stayed cold and remained pliant.
I rolled out another ball of dough between ungreased layers of parchment, but this flopped miserably. The dough stuck to the paper. Only by freezing the paper/dough sandwich could I peel off the paper, and then my dough was too hard to roll. I made it work, but oh, what a mess.
My filling: I followed Ruby Glen’s recipe (using pecans), and I added a quarter cup of milk chocolate chips before grinding the whole thing in a blender.
Rugelach: yum.
D.
Del.icio.us Fo.cacc.ia
Technological sophomore that I am, Del.icio.us remains a mystery to me even after I checked it out. Yahoo bought Del.icio.us today. I gather they are some sort of Web 2.0 search engine. But is it a search engine, or a “social bookmarking service”? (Which is what, pray tell?)
Content drives web traffic, so my ignorance puts me in a bind. Still . . . while I may not know much about Del.icio.us, I do know plenty about Del.icio.us food. Del.icio.us Fo.cacc.ia, to be exact.
While the ingredients are simple enough, there are a few toys which make this recipe sing: a good mixer, a rubber spatula for scraping down the sides of the mixer, an open-ended cookie sheet, a pizza stone, and parchment paper. Of these, the last three are indispensable.
2 cups all purpose flour
1 cup room temperature water
1/2 to 1 packet of yeast
1 tsp salt
1 tablespoon olive oil
More olive oil to brush the focaccia
A variety of goodies to sprinkle on your focaccia (details below)
Sprinkle the yeast on the water; stir to dissolve.
Combine flour, salt, and olive oil. With the mixer on the lowest speed, add water/yeast mixture in a stream. Use the spatula to scrape down the sides. Keep stirring until the dry and wet ingredients are combined, and the gluten has begun to develop (about five minutes max).
Coat a bowl or 1 Quart measuring cup with olive oil. Turn the dough out into the cup and cover with plastic wrap. At room temperature, the dough will take 1 to 2 hours to rise*. At least 30 minutes prior to the end of this rise, turn your oven on as hot as it will go (450 to 500).
You’ll have a VERY wet dough, so don’t even think of kneading this baby. Using the spatula, scoop the dough out onto a big square of parchment paper (about 14 inches by 14 inches). The parchment paper needs to be on the open-ended cookie sheet (or use a pizza peel, if you’re a real pro).
Using your fingers, spread the dough out as thinly as you can. It doesn’t need to look pretty — focaccia is supposed to be rustic, okay? I shoot for 13 inches by 13 inches.
Paint the top with olive oil. Now it’s time to add goodies. I like to top my focaccia with freshly ground black pepper, coarse salt (the stuff you would use on a pretzel or salt bagel), and onion. To keep the onion from burning, I chop it finely and mix it with some olive oil.
Fresh herbs are great on focaccia. Rosemary, thyme, garlic are all great additions. Once again, mix these additions with a bit of olive oil to discourage burning.
Using your cookie sheet (or pizza peel), slide the focaccia onto the hot stone. Bake for about 15 to 20 minutes, but keep a close eye on it. It should turn a nice golden brown.
If you cut the cooking time short by about 5 minutes, you can use this as a killer base for a pizza.
Easy!
D.
*Depends on how much yeast you use, how warm your kitchen is, how active your yeast is, etc. The original recipe called for only 1 teaspoon of yeast, but that sometimes ended in disaster (cold day or old yeast = flabby dough). That’s why I increased the yeast to a full packet. If your dough goes crazy and is ready before you are, no problem. Punch it down with an oiled spoon and let it rise again.
Before the weather goes completely to hell
The sea was gorgeous this morning. The photo doesn’t do it justice.
All before noon, I have
- Washed, dried, and folded a load of laundry.
- Fixed some killer French toast — oops! — liberty toast for Karen. Recipe below.
- Fixed ham and eggs for my son.
- Macerated four cups of dried fruit in dark rum to make Alton Brown’s fruitcake recipe. I’ll let you know if it’s worth the effort.
- Done my grocery shopping for the weekend.
- Mailed off the mortgage check.
- Brined a few pork chops.
- Marinated chicken in onions, yogurt, salt, black pepper, cayenne, cumin, turmeric, and fenugreek.
- While she was showering, I watched my wife in a sweet, yet somehow creepy, stalkerish way.
Why do most restaurants screw up French toast? It’s not that tough. Slice French bread into four slices, each 3/4 inch to one inch thick. Put the slices into a one gallon ziplock bag in one layer.
Beat two to three eggs, 1/4 cup to 1/3 cup milk, a slosh of vanilla, a pinch of salt, and a shake of cinnamon. Pour this into your ziplock bag and roll it around to evenly distribute the liquid. Throw it into the fridge until you are ready to use it. (It will keep overnight. On weekends, I always make two days worth.)
Fry the bread in butter over medium heat. When the toast is crispy on both sides, slosh some maple syrup into the frying pan. The syrup will get very hot, will partially caramelize, and will coat the down-side of the toast. Pour everything out onto a plate.
As my son used to say when he was three, “Wallah!”
Now, if only I can
- Get some editing done.
D.
Kra Dook, anyone?
Tonight’s dinner reminded me how much I love this sauce. Thai food rocks. Inspired by a similar recipe in Pojanee Vatanapan’s Thai Cookbook, here’s my version of Kra Dook Moo Tod:
4 pounds of pork ribs, cut into 1 to 2 inch pieces
2 tablespoons peanut oil
1 large onion, finely chopped
1 tablespoon freshly ground black pepper
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup fish sauce
2 tablespoons soy sauce (black soy sauce preferred)
Simmer the rib meat in mildly salted water for one hour or until tender. Drain thoroughly.
Saute the onion in the oil until light brown. Add the pepper, sugar, fish sauce, and soy sauce. Stirring constantly, cook the sauce over medium heat until sticky, about 6 to 8 minutes. Add the rib meat and toss to coat. Serve over steamed white rice.
I cannot think of a single meat (or vegetable, for that matter) which would not strut its stuff under this sauce. Poultry, fish, you name it. I’m betting even okra would taste good with a thick layer of salty-sweet-peppery-oniony goodness all over it.
Emphasis on salty. The white rice is essential (although, Atkins junkie that I am, I skipped the white rice and I’m alive to write about it). For those of you not wise in the way of fish sauce, that’s the source of the salt in this recipe. Oh . . . don’t be put off by the smell.
By the way: in the original recipe, the author recommends deep-frying spare ribs. Yes, this is superior (the crispiness makes the dish that much more . . . omigod I almost channeled Martha Stewart and wrote delectable . . . delicious — ack! Yummy? Tasty? God in heaven, what words hasn’t Martha ruined?) But my version is healthier and far less messy to prepare.
Now: if someone can tell me where I can buy Szechuan peppercorns, my life will be complete.
D.
The Joy of Duck
Guess what we had for dinner tonight.
Will someone please tell me what they’ve done to this bird? I’m imagining CIA interrogators at one of our Eastern European prisons (one of the ones that doesn’t exist) :
Tell us al Qaeda’s next target.
Quack!
Dimitri — use the nipple electrodes.
Quaaaack!
Yes, I know ducks don’t have nipples. (more…)
Help me feed my family
Q: What is the earliest example of pornographic dialog in a television show?
A: “Ward, don’t you think you were a little rough on the Beaver last night?”
That one tickles me every time.
I grew up in the 60s and 70s, in a superficially traditional Leave it to Beaver-oid nuclear family. Our neighborhood brimmed with other Beaveroid households. Our dads worked traditional jobs, and our moms were housewives who fixed Coca Cola ham on Sundays and proto-Hamburger Helper dishes on weekdays. Tuna casserole wasn’t the punch line of a bad joke; it was dinner. (more…)
Local ubermarket caves to International Jewish Conspiracy
The bitch, the absolute, incontrovertible, undeniably heinous bitch of the Atkins Diet is that I can’t eat any of my Yid comfort food. Although Atkins is dead and his company has filed for bankruptcy, I continue to follow a low carb diet because that (and exercise) is the only thing preventing my jelly roll from ruling the world or, barring that, forcing me back into my fat clothes.
Make no mistake about it: Jewish comfort food is not low carb. Here’s a short list of all the things I dearly miss. (more…)
The Steenking Rose
“Guess what,” said the husband. “We have to eat it raw. It’s the only way we can taste it nowadays.”
Garlic has modest antiplatelet and lipid-lowering effects. There’s even some weak evidence that a diet rich in garlic lowers the risk of colon and stomach cancers. You know what? I don’t give a damn. I like garlic because it tastes good and it gets me high.
Yeah, you heard me. I get a buzz off garlic.
I’ve tried to find a web reference to back me up on this, but all I can find is this quote from Tantrik Vegetarianism:
By now the reader might ask: “Why are onion, garlic and mushrooms bad?” As a matter of fact, onion and garlic are good for the body. They are bad for the mind. All three irritate and heat lower chakras (psychospiritual centers) and, thus, tend to make a person more irritable, distracted and sexually indiscriminant.
It’s true, too. After eating a head of raw garlic, I’ll shag anything that moves. More:
Garlic is a good medicine: its antibacterial and blood purifying qualities have been known for centuries. Ginger has similar qualities without the negative mental effects (and bad smell) of garlic.
I’m sorry. Ginger cheese bread doesn’t do it for me. Which reminds me:
My apologies for not giving precise measurements. You’ll have to wing it.
Combine softened butter with freshly grated parmesan cheese (Reggiano, puhlease!) and paprika. Mash together. Dried basil is a nice addition, too.
Slice a loaf of good quality French bread lengthwise. Toast it under the broiler until golden.
Take raw, peeled garlic cloves and ‘sand’ them against the toasted French bread. Rub them against the crust as well as the toasted cut surface of the loaf.
Spread the butter/cheese/herb mixture on the loaf’s cut surface and return it to the broiler. Watch it carefully. Once the cheese has melted and browned slightly, you’re done.
Remember: you can get the garlic smell off your fingers by rubbing them on a stainless steel spoon or butter knife held under running water.
That married couple was right. By the time I hit thirty, I couldn’t taste cooked garlic anymore.
Nowadays, if I load a red sauce with a dozen crushed cloves I might detect a hint, but it’s subtle, not satisfying, and it won’t give me that delightful garlic buzz. By the way, this isn’t an [insert your favorite illegal drug’s name here] kind of high, but an “I feel so good about the world and all the creatures in it!” sort of feeling.
Dosage recommendation: you need to consume enough that you ooze the garlic smell from your pores and your breath withers cacti.
Here’s another fine recipe for saturating yourself in garlic:
This simple sauce can be used on vegetables (cooked or raw), bread, fish, you name it. Be sure you soak your anchovies in milk first to de-salt them a bit.
One stick of butter
One can of anchovies (2 ounces)
Bunches and bunches of garlic cloves, crushed (start with 6 and add more to taste)
Melt the butter over low heat. Add crushed garlic and anchovies. The garlic should sizzle very little or not at all. Press the anchovies with a spoon; as the melted butter heats up, the anchovies will fall apart and seem to melt. Heat thoroughly. The more you heat this, the milder the garlic flavor will become.
If you’re feeling health conscious, substitute a mixture of canola oil and olive oil for the butter. Heathen.
Jake has decided to read To Kill A Mockingbird first. My fingers are crossed.
D.
Jump for joy
After the Game, by Kenney Mencher
You know what I love best about this one? The expression on the cheerleader’s face. What is she thinking?
I fell in love with this painting and almost bought it. Instead, we bought one we could hang in our office without fear of giving elderly men angina.
It’s fun following the comment thread to PBW’s latest writing exercise. Check it out. In brief, the idea is to summarize your current writing project in 25 words or less.
Several writers are working on multiple projects. This blows me away. I feel daunted by my ONE project, and here are folks with three, four, or more pans in the fire. Meanwhile, I’m thinking editing doesn’t feel like the best word for this activity. Crawling is a better word. Crawling through molasses studded with fire ants.
Why? Because no one freaks out over mad buffalo disease. Here’s the recipe:
1 lb ground buffalo
1 package Lipton’s onion soup mix
1 egg
Several turns of freshly ground black pepper
Combine thoroughly. Let the mixture sit in the refrigerator at least one hour. Cook ’em over coals. No, not under the oven broiler, you heathen. Some people.
D.