Blueberries and oysters? Chocolate and cauliflower? Blue cheese and rhubarb and pineapple?

If taste buds could cringe, then mine were recoiled into a wincing mess when I first learned about these flavor pairings. For those of you who have been eating at El Bulli or The Fat Duck or Alinea, this is all old news. For me, though, it was definitely an invitation to walk on the wild side.

To help wake up my outdated taste buds, my friend, Frankie, linked me up with Food for Design, where chemists and chefs and some overachieving web designers are putting together a provocative, highly entertaining website. With just a few minutes of clicking, creative and courageous cooks can find some very unusual food pairings.

Bernard Lahousse and Lieven De Couvreur in Belgium are the masterminds behind Food for Design. Based on the simple premise that "food combines with each other when they have major flavour components in common," their postings attempt to pair foods according to their physicochemical properties. If two ingredients share common sequences or similar molecules, the thinking goes, then their overlapping flavor compounds will echo each other.

Even the simplest flavors that we perceive depend on hundreds if not thousands of molecules interacting. Heat, time, acid, oil, sun, salt--any number of things can change the bonds and the resulting shapes of these flavor compounds. Structural shifts lead to flavor changes. (Too much information, you say? Just ask any culinary student to summarize the Maillard Reaction to hear more than you ever wanted to know about the science of bread crust.)



Back to the fun stuff: My favorite pages are those with elegant tree diagrams tracing molecular groupings of common ingredients and the links between them that lead to not-so-common pairings. They're perfect illustrations of form and flavor, the culinary equivalent of graphic designers' never-ending debates about form and function. Keep exploring their pages to find such gems as: "Most people and even many engineers would guess that the shape of a raindrop is the familiar teardrop shape. However, the teardrop shape appears only in cartoons and the real shape is closer to the flattened hamburger bun." Hence, the macaroon.

Later this week, I'm going to try making a cauliflower souffle with dark chocolate shavings, serve it to my guests, and see how long it takes them to figure out that they're not eating white chocolate. If all goes well, I may have a recipe for you next week. Or not.

In the meantime, you can try a much simpler dish created by organometallic research chemist-slash-gourmand Martin Lersch: Caramelized Cauliflower and Chocolate Jelly.

Please do share your tasting notes!

Labels: chemistry, pairing, recipe, thy tran

We can't ever have too many chocolate recipes, can we? Since the quality of chocolate available in the supermarket has dramatically improved over the past twenty years or so, it's great to have a few more cookbooks that focus on using the most widely available products including chocolate bars, cocoa powder and chocolate chips. Here are three recent titles.

First up is a book that falls into the "I can't believe I didn't think of that!" category. The Essential Chocolate Chip Cookbook. Veteran baking expert and pastry chef Elinor Klivans who has written books on cupcakes, cookies and cakes has created a book devoted to chocolate chips and surprisingly there are only 6 cookie recipes in it. The book contains 45 recipes and is divided into chapters starting with Chocolate Chip Cookies and Candies, Chocolate Chip Brownies, Bars, Muffins and a Tea Loaf, Chocolate Chip Pies, tarts and Puddings, Chocolate Chip Cakes without Frosting, Chocolate Chip Cakes with Frosting and/or Filling and finally Chocolate Chip Ice Cream Desserts. There are recommendations for brands of chocolate chips to use, and happily most of the recipes come together very quickly.


One of Klivan's top picks for chocolate chips is Ghirardelli, especially in the bittersweet category. Ghirardelli has their own cookbook, The Ghirardelli Chocolate Book. A hardback book, it has 16 recipes for cookies, though not all of them are chocolate chip cookies. The book contains 80 recipes in all. The chapters are fairly similar to the chapters in the chocolate chip book, but also include Chocolate Breads and Breakfast and Anything-but-Boring Chocolate Drinks. Despite the ice cream parlor at Ghirardelli Square, there are only two ice cream desserts. The book has many classics like chocolate souffles, flourless chocolate torte, and chocolate fudge sauce plus some new ideas such as butter breakfast scones with chocolate chunks and chocolate dipped lemon cookies.


The slimmest volume of the three books is Viva Chocolate! but it is the most diverse and includes 50 savory as well as sweet recipes. Smokin' Hot Chili and Turkey Mole both caught my eye as did a recipe for champurrado, a Mexican chocolate drink with masa I've been wanting to try for ages. During citrus season, the Chocolate Tangerine Pound Cake with or without the Tangerine Whipped Cream is a great pick as well.


While each of these books are smaller format "gift" types, they are also solid choices for the chocoholic looking for easy recipes to whip up at home.


Double Chocolate-Hazelnut Biscotti

Makes 48 cookies

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup granulated white sugar
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 cup Ghirardelli Sweet Ground Chocolate and Cocoa
4 ounces Ghirardelli Semi-Sweet Chocolate baking bar, finely chopped
3 large eggs
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 cup hazelnuts, coarsely chopped

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Lightly grease two cookie sheets.

In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, baking soda, ground chocolate and semisweet chocolate.

In a separate bowl, combine the eggs and vanilla, and stir until well-blended. Pour the egg mixture into the dry ingredients. Beat with an electric mixer on medium speed until a dough forms (it should adhere to the beaters), 2 to 3 minutes. Fold in the nuts.

Divide the dough into 4 equal parts. On the prepared cookie sheets, using lightly floured hands, shape each portion into 1 1/4-inch-by-10-inch logs. Place the logs at least 4 inches apart.

Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, until the logs are firm to the touch. Let cool on the cookie sheets for 15 minutes or until cool enough to handle. Lower the oven temperature to 350 degrees.

Transfer 1 log to a cutting board and with a serrated knife, cut into twelve 1-inch-wide cookies. Repeat with the remaining 3 logs. Remove 1 oven rack and place the 48 cookies directly on it. Return the rack to the uppermost position in the oven and bake for 20 to 25 minutes, until crisp. To test for doneness, remove one cookie, let it cool, then check for crispness.

Transfer the cookies from the oven rack to a wire cooling rack and let cool completely. Store at room temperature in a tightly covered container.

Reprinted with permission from The Ghirardelli Chocolate Cookbook Copyright © 2007 by the Ghirardelli Chocolate Company published in 2007 by Ten Speed Press.

Labels: amy sherman, biscotti, chocolate, cookbooks, recipe

Oh, it's Spring. What joy.

In honor of this turning of the seasons, I bring you a light little piece of fluff-- the Pavlova.

When I was cooking at a little restaurant in the Mission called the Moa Room, my favorite Kiwi and boss, Chef Jan Gardner often let me run off and do my own thing with our desserts, which was rather brave of her. But not so when she felt the call to make her Pavlova-- the most famous dessert to ever come out of New Zealand. I would stand back to watch her work, asking her to say things like "milk" and "bottle" so that I might be better able to imitate her accent as well as her dessert-making technique. She was a very patient woman who only occasionally would ask a co-worker if he or she wouldn't mind punching me in the neck.

This pleasant breath of fresh air is rarely seen on San Francisco dessert menus, which I think is a pity. It is as light and airy as the dancing of its namesake, the most famous of all ballerinas, Anna Pavlova.



There is some argument as to the origin of this dessert. Australians claim it was birthed by Herbert Sachse of the Hotel Esplanade, Perth, Australia, citing in 1935 that the dish was "as light as Pavlova." She stayed at the hotel while on tour in 1929. It just took him six years to come up with something clever to say about it.

New Zealand has an earlier, similar claim coming out of Wellington in 1926, when a hotel chef created a dish inspired by the shape of the touring dancer's white tutu with green cabbage roses and frothy netting. I'm no social archaeologist, but I'll just bet the farm he was gay.

Well, I love Australians, but I am siding with my friends from New Zealand on this one.

Pavlova

Jan Gardner shied away from kiwifruit, most likely because they are not echt New Zealand. To her, a kiwi is the smaller, non-extinct cousin of the moa. The Chinese Gooseberry arrived in the land of the dead moa from, unsurprisingly, China in 1904. The name "kiwifruit" was originally a marketing ploy. One that has worked all too well. Though this meringue happily supports a wide variety of fruit, I have used the kiwi because the original dish, as far as I can tell, contained them. Remember those green cabbage roses.



This is not Jan's recipe. I never got it. I could just punch myself in the neck for not asking for
it. The recipe listed below is a culling of several.

For a great run down on how to approach a meringue, read Shuna's take on the Pavlova.

Ingredients:

For the Pavlova:

4 large egg whites, room temperature
1 cup of superfine sugar (you can make this out of table sugar by whizzing it in your Cuisinart.)
1 teaspoon white vinegar
1 tablespoon corn starch
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract. Tradition does not call for this, I just like it in my meringue.

For the Topping:

3/4 cup heavy whipping cream
1/4 cup buttermilk. Again, this is not traditional. I just prefer a bit of tang to compliment the
über-sweetness of the meringue.
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Fresh fruit. Tart is good. Things like kiwifruit, strawberries, raspberries, beri beri. I don't care.
Passion fruit is really amazing with it, too.

Procedure:

1. Pre-heat oven to 300 F.

2. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Create and cut out a separate circle of parchment paper about 7 inches in diameter. Cut out a matching circle of cardboard. Attach the parchment circle to cardboard with a smear of corn syrup or whatever you've got handy to adhere. I'll bet even Elmer's glue would work, though I would not recommend it. (Note: this cut out circle business isn't absolutely necessary, but I find it helps me get a cleaner edge on the meringue.)

3. In the bowl of a stand mixer, whisk egg whites at slow speed (Thanks for the tip, Shuna), gradually increasing the speed as the volume of the whites increase. When the whites begin to hold a soft peak, add the sugar a little at a time to dissolve. Increase the speed and whip until the mixture is silken and holds stiff peaks.

4. Having made a slurry of your vinegar and cornstarch, stir to discourage any lumps. Sprinkle the slurry over the meringue and fold in.

5. Gently heap meringue onto your parchment disk, making certain to leave a shallow bowl in the center for eventual cream-and fruit-filling. Smooth the edges of the meringue for a clean look or make any sort of design you wish. Please email me if you've come up with anything interesting or vaguely obscene.

6. Place your meringue-topped cardboard parchment onto the lined baking sheet and place in oven. Bake for 15 minutes, turn off the heat and walk away. Baking should take about one hour, but it is best to peek in every once in a while to see how your creation is doing. The Pavlova should not brown, but take on a slight cream color. Leaving it in the oven to dry out a bit is a good thing.

The now-baked Pavlova will keep for up to a week when stored in non-humid conditions in an air-tight container.

7. For the topping, whip cream and buttermilk until soft peaks form. Gradually add sugar and vanilla, then whip a little more. You make chose to remove half the cream at this stage for spreading, whipping up the remainder for piping those tutu-like frills around the edge that I somehow failed to achieve.

8. Spread the whipped cream over the meringue. Top with the fruit of your choice, and serve immediately in the fifth position, thereby impressing your friends and family with your limberness of both lower body and culinary expertise.

Eat immediately.

Serves 6

Labels: anna pavlova. pavlova, dessert, jan gardner, michael procopio, recipe

For those who love both poetry and pork, the recitation and the recipe, Dongpo Rou's silken layers hold a potent blend of both. This famous dish of Hangzhou, a city tucked near where the Qiantang River spills into the Yangtze Delta of eastern China, is named for its creator, the celebrated Chinese poet, Su Shi. Also known as Su Dongpo, he gave his name to the much-loved dish.

Stories are still told of how he forgot his simmering pork while playing chess or of the misunderstanding among his servants when he called for pork with wine. He was thinking a nice cup of spirits; they were thinking boozy stew. I like to think that while the pork belly simmered gently in wine and soy sauce and spices, the poet composed and ink-brushed and recited an afternoon's worth of verse.

Nicole Mones has written a lovely essay about the lingering ties between the poetry and the pork. Since this is Bay Area Bites and not Bay Area Chapbook, I will let other sites cover Chinese poetry. The recipe, however, is most definitely within our domain.



While teaching a writing class several years ago, I had the pleasure of having two students who were in the middle of their own dongpo rou studies. Class discussions about literary metaphors and run-on sentences quickly gave way to debates about judging slabs of pork belly and the precise ratio of wine to soy sauce and which spices should absolutely not be omitted. A friend's father generously walked me through his own recipe a year later. And then this year, after listening to Martin Yan, Olivia Wu, Albert Cheng, Nicole Mones, and Alex Ong rhapsodize about the dish during a panel discussion at the Chinese Culture Center, I realized it was time to embark on my own journey.



Many a Chinese food lover will name dongpo rou among the finest, most difficult, most sublime and most purely enjoyable of classic dishes. I know cooks who have dedicated years to perfecting it in their own kitchens and still bemoan the challenge of coaxing that alchemical melting of the pork's layers of fat and lean, meat and skin. My own explorations have just begun, but like any still-fresh convert, I can't stop talking about my newfound joy. It's like eating pork custard that melts on your tongue. It's like swallowing savory silk. It's what pork will taste like in heaven. (And now you know why I'm not a poet.)

I can't claim native expertise, nor can I say I have settled on my own final, best recipe. But, damn, this stuff is good!



DONGPO ROU

Ingredients
• 2 to 3 pounds of finest quality pork belly
• Half a stick of Chinese golden sugar, or 2 tablespoons brown sugar
• 4 scallions, white part only
• 3 thick slices ginger
• 6 whole star anise
• 1 cinnamon stick
• 1 teaspoon fennel seeds
• 2 to 3 cups chinese wine (I use Shaoxing rice wine aged 8 years)
• 1/2 to 1 cup stock or water
• 3 to 4 tablespoons light soy sauce, plus more if needed

Preparation
1. Check the skin of the pork belly to be sure all hairs are removed. Tweezers are good for this. Cut cubes that are 2-1/2 by 2-1/2 inches and tie with fresh straw or kitchen string. Blanch in boiling water for 2 minutes; drain.

2. In a heavy pot big enough to hold the pork in a single layer, skin-side up, combine the pork packets, sugar, fresh aromatics and dried spices. Pour in enough rice wine to come up two-thirds on the sides of the pork, then add enough stock or water to just cover the skin. Drizzle in soy sauce.

3. Bring to a gentle simmer, reduce heat until the liquid ripples with a bare shiver, cover tightly and then leave the kitchen for a few hours. Stay close, though, to check that the liquid never boils. Taste one or twice to adjust sweet and salty flavors, but otherwise, it's a matter of trusting the magical effects of time and moisture on the pork and its flavorings. I like to float a round of parchment paper on the surface of the liquid to help cover the meat and fat evenly. If you're in a hurry, you can stop the cooking at 1 1/2 hours, but it won't be as good as when you have waited for 4 hours.

4. Remove the pan from the heat and let the pork cool in its liquid. For the best results, I like to refrigerate overnight to remove excess fat that floats to the top. If done well, though, you'll be surprised by how little fat comes off into the sauce.

5. Set up a steamer over your wok, or place a shallow dish in a large pot. Arrange the pork in a bowl or deep platter with its liquid, which after refrigerating has become a deeply colored, sparkling pork aspic. Steam for one hour. If desired, reduce the sauce by boiling it separately.

6. Serve the pork cubes in small, individual bowls with the sauce spooned over and accompanied with lots of white rice.

Labels: chinese, nicole mones, pork, recipe, thy tran

At some point in his motivational speaking career, Dale Carnegie uttered the famous, if misguided words:

"When fate hands you a lemon, make lemonade."

The fault is not so much in the sentiment-- making lemonade out of lemons is, naturally, a rather positive, productive activity. What bothers me is the underlying belief that there is something inherently unpleasant about this citrus fruit. Carnegie was not alone in his thinking. Used car salesmen have given the lemon a bad name over the years, associating them as they do with automobiles that are slick and shiny on the outside, but of dubious dependability under the hood, which is all rather pot vs. kettle when one stops long enough to think about it.

All I know is this-- Carnegie's family certainly didn't hail from a sunny, Mediterranean clime, or he would never have said it. He might instead have related his comment to the Germans or the idea of an eight-hour work day. When fate hands you a German... you can fill in the rest.

Of course, Carnegie was telling his audience that, when fate hands you something unpleasant, make the best of it. When fate hands me that kind of lemon, I would more than likely stare at it for a moment and say something like, "I don't think that lemon is mine," and walk away.

When fate or, more often than not, the supermarket checker hands me an actual lemon, I am more likely to own it. When fate hands me Meyer lemons, I get happy.

I am not about to delve into the history and genetics of the Meyer lemon today. Others have done it well enough that I do not have to. I suggest you let our own Amy Sherman tell you about them. Read her blog post on Meyer lemons.

If you want a few ideas as to what you can do with Meyer lemons, read another Amy's (Scattergood) fun list "100 things to do with a Meyer lemon" from the Los Angeles Times online to get some great ideas. Some are oddly practical, like playing fetch with them in order to freshen canine breath. If you can come up with other uses, please let me know. No one has mentioned the Meyer lemon as an elbow-softener. Perhaps there are few people who still care for supple joints as I do.

And if you really, really want to know everything you could possibly want to know about the lemon, its history, and its uses, by all means go out and buy yourself a copy of Much Depends on Dinner by Margaret Visser. It's quite a fascinating read.

Look, I just like lemons. Perhaps it's my Sicilian heritage and the fact that my ancestors actually earned their bread and marmellata exporting the little yellow fruits. Which leads me to wonder that, had Dale Carnegie been born, say, Dale Carneghi, he might have said, "When fate hands you a lemon, make limoncello." But he wasn't and he didn't, so I am stuck with making lemonade for the purposes of today's post.

It strikes me as a cruel twist of fate that a fruit which makes such a great summer thirst-quencher should reach its peak in the dead of winter, but that isn't going to stop me from making it. One still needs to stave off scurvy, even in the chilly months. What better way to pretend that winter isn't happening than to wear gingham, put some zinc oxide on your nose and pour yourself a tall glass of lemonade? It is denial perfected. After all, I believe it was Mr. Carnegie who also said, "Happiness doesn't depend on any external conditions, it is governed by our mental attitude." I am not going to argue with him about that. With that as my new credo, I shall chose to pretend it isn't raining outside, my complexion isn't pasty, and I haven't gained 10 pounds. Instead, you'll find me inhabiting my inner world, where it's perpetually sunny, and I am always tan and thin. Thanks for the motivation, Dale.


Meyer Lemonade



Meyer lemons are ideal for making lemonade. Lacking confidence in their own identity (half lemon, half mandarin), they share space well with others. Three flavors that blend well (in lemonade) with the fruit are mint, cucumber, and coriander. Yes, coriander. Don't ask me how I know. I have chosen mint today because it is pretty.

Ingredients:

1 cup freshly squeezed Meyer lemon juice-- about 5 to 6 lemons, depending upon size and juiciness. You can actually squeeze them the night before-- the juice won't separate like orange juice does.

1 cup simple syrup. Mint is added to mine here. I'm not telling you how to make simple syrup.

3 to 4 cups cold, clean water.

Mint sprigs and (very) thinly sliced Meyer lemons for garnish.

Ice cubes, if you're into them. I find they keep the garnish from floating to the top.

Preparation:

1. Take all the ingredients and dump them into a big enough pitcher. Stir and serve.

Or, if you want to be very French about it and serve it comme un vrai citron pressé...

1. Place lemon juice and syrup in the antique apothecary beakers you found for next to nothing at the marché aux puces in Dijon last autumn. Place on a tray with chilled, bottled Volvic, one pastis glass and spoon per person, and a pack of Gauloises Blondes. Let your guests prepare their own concoctions, according to personal taste.

Note: If you opt for cucumber lemonade, slice up a cucumber thinly, add to the water and refrigerate for 24 hours. For coriander? I haven't quite figured that one out. I'll let you know when I do.

Serves 4 to 6.

Labels: dale carnegie, lemonade, meyer lemons, michael procopio, recipe

Lucky me, the flu came visiting last week. Even after three days of sleeping in bed and swallowing nothing more than bananas and Advil, I could tell my uninvited guest had no intention of leaving. Time to get serious.

Cooking was out of the question -- I could barely stand up straight with the long, invisible spikes piercing both sides of my brain -- so I smiled as sweetly as possible at my husband and said three words: Pho ga. Please.

He'd never made the soup before nor did he have a mother who cooked it once a week, so I scribbled down some notes on a scrap of paper. I fell back asleep before he left for the grocery store, and by the time I woke up again, blessed me, I could smell the lovely scent of star anise and cinnamon and ginger all the way into the bedroom.

Now, lest you think that I'm married to a kitchen wizard, let me just say that during the five years he lived alone, the only meat he ever bought was bacon and he never, ever, not once, turned on his oven. Fortunately, the best foods for the soul are always the simplest.

Pho ga is an excellent way to prepare meals ahead of time. My mom used to simmer the chicken on Sunday, boil a big batch of noodles, wash all the herbs, and then refrigerate the components separately. It only takes about 10 minutes to reheat the stock and noodles for a comforting bowl of soup anytime during the week.

Eating my way through my husband's very first pot of pho ga brought me back to the land of the living. Here, verbatim, is the recipe:

Half-Conscious Notes on Making Pho Ga

Preparation
1. Cut chicken in half & pull off fatty chunks @ tail

2. Cover with cold water. Add onion (halved), some carrot logs, lots of star anise (8-10) a few cloves, teaspoon of peppercorns, and cinnamon stick. And Bay Leaf for the French. Add giblets, etc. & fennel seeds.

3. Bring just [double underlined] to a boil, then lower heat, cover partially & simmer gently 1 1/2 hour.

4. Remove chicken. remove big chunks of meat & return carcass. continue simmer 2-3 hrs.



Shopping List and Additional Notes

Ingredients
One 4-5 pound chicken
1 package wide rice noodles
A small hand of ginger
1 large onion
1 small carrot
Spices: star anise, cinnamon stick (preferably Vietnamese cassia), peppercorns, cloves, fennel seed
Fish sauce
Fried shallots

Fresh herbs: scallions, cilantro, Thai basil, saw-leaf herb, Bay leaf (optional)
Mung bean sprouts
Lime wedges
Fresh Thai chiles

This is the dream list for a homemade bowl of pho ga. Decent shortcuts include using good-quality, prepared stock and the meat of a rotisserie chicken. If you keep a box of premixed spice packets in your pantry (they look like big teabags), you can infuse plain chicken stock with Vietnamese flavors in 20 minutes. I've been known to enjoy a bowl of pho with only scallions for garnish, but each additional herb really does make a huge difference.

When buying rice noodles for this soup, look for the words banh pho ga on the label. If you're lucky enough to find fresh ones, you'll just need to immerse them for 10 or 15 seconds in very hot water. Dried noodles require 2 to 3 minutes of boiling.

I have a wide, extremely sharp cleaver that eases right through chicken bones. Halving chickens is also super simple if you have good kitchen shears. If you don't have a pair...get some. One of the must useful tools ever. Look for the heavy-duty ones with a round indentation at the base of the blades; that's what allows you to snip through the ribs and along the backbone. For those who think this all too much, just go ahead and buy chicken parts (bone-in!), but be sure to simmer the meat for only 30 or 40 minutes before stripping it off the bones. Having exposed bone marrow extracts more flavor. Besides, anyone who's tried to remove a whole chicken from a pot of simmering water can vouch for the wisdom of chicken halves or parts.

If you can, throw in a few extra chicken wings or, best of all, a couple of feet.

My family never bothered to strain the soup. All the aromatics and bones sink to the bottom of the pot, and we'd just ladle the soup from the top. If you prefer, though, you can strain the stock and reheat.

Vinegared onions are a favorite topping that's rarely available in restaurants. To make your own:
1. Slice an onion very thinly.
2. Drizzle generously with white vinegar.
3. Stir in lots of coarsely ground black pepper.
4. Let stand for 10 minutes and then serve alongside the herb platter.

Arrange sprigs of the fresh herbs, lime wedges, bean sprouts and chiles on large platters for finishing the soup at the table. Set a big bottle of fish sauce right on the table, too, because this is a Vietnamese meal, after all.

I like to pour boiling water (from cooking the noodles) over the bean sprouts to blanch them so they aren't hard and cold in the soup. (Shhhh, don't tell my Saigon-born mom. That's a Northern trick that I adopted after leaving home.)

For each diner, place a small nest of noodles in a large, preheated bowl. Cover with very hot stock and add a handful of shredded chicken. Sprinkle with chopped scallions, chopped cilantro and fried shallots. Let guests fine-tune their bowls with herbs and other flavorings as desired.

Labels: chicken, recipe, soup, thy tran, vietnamese

I love Valentine’s Day. In addition to it being the day my normally unsentimental husband proposed to me, I see Valentine’s Day as a “free” day for eating chocolate. From morning to late in the evening, all chocolate is fair game.

To celebrate Valentine’s Day this year, I thought it would be fun to make three different kinds of chocolate fondue. Although I’ve trained my kids to love semi-sweet chocolate, we plan on eating the fondue after dinner tonight, which is about an hour and a half before bedtime for my kids. I’m concerned the semi-sweet chocolate will have enough caffeine to wire them just enough to keep them up, so am opting to make a nice white chocolate fondue as well as a creamy milk chocolate one. I also think it will be delicious to have a varied palette of chocolate to choose from.

I must admit that until yesterday, I had never made chocolate fondue. After making a batch last night, however, I am a convert. In addition to it being a remarkably luscious dessert, it is also probably easier than almost any other dessert I’ve ever made.

Before I get into how to make the actual fondue, however, we need to talk about chocolate. When I decided to make fondue, I had a lot of questions. What sort of chocolate should I choose? How much should I use? Should I make it with heavy whipping cream or sweetened and condensed milk? The only thing I knew for sure was that I wanted to buy the chocolate at Bittersweet, the lovely little chocolate café in the Rockridge district of Oakland, not far from my house. So, with a list of questions in tow, I headed over to Bittersweet.



Bittersweet is a fantastic little café and chocolate shop. In addition to carrying a wide array of fair trade chocolates, they also have a bar where you can order a variety of chocolate drinks: from a classic creamy cocoa or a hot and spicy chocolate, to a white chocolate drink infused with cardamom and spices (which I had and loved).

Becky Vandragt was nice enough to show me around. She listened to my chocolate needs (making fondue for adults and kids) and helped me pick out the best chocolates for my requirements. She started by showing me the white chocolates, of which there were only two. She thought the El Rey Icoa from Venezuela was the best choice. It turns out that most chocolatiers deodorize their cocoa butter so they can sell it to other manufacturers (who make things like lip balm and lotion). The deodorizing process takes out all of those wonderful and natural cocoa smells. El Rey, however, doesn’t sell their cocoa butter. They use it all in-house. This means that their white chocolate retains the natural perfume of the cocoa beans, which gives the white chocolate a more nuanced flavor.

Becky then showed me the milk chocolates. She felt that the E. Guittard and the Michel Cluizel Mangaro Lait were both great choices. I ended up buying the Michel Cluizel simply because it came in a 7 oz. package, while the E. Guittard was 3 oz. package. We then moved over to the other end of the wall of chocolate to find a nice semi-sweet. I told Becky that I planned on flavoring this one fondue with either amaretto or Grand Marnier. I was surprised when she said that I should figure out which one I wanted to use before I settled on a chocolate. I didn’t think it would matter much, but Becky explained that many chocolates have undercurrents of citrus or vanilla and that I should take that into consideration when buying my chocolate. I settled on using Grand Marnier. She then chose a Grenada Organic Dark Chocolate 71%.

After settling on my chocolates, Marienne Warehine, the store manager, gave me a quick rundown on how to make fondue. She felt that heavy cream was the best liquid, as sweetened and condensed milk could make the fondue too sweet and could detract from the complexity of the chocolate. She also felt that you should use a one-to-one ratio when using dark or milk chocolate, but that you should use a two-to-one ratio when using white chocolate. According to Marienne, white chocolate needs more cream to become smooth. Her other bit of very helpful advice was to add any liqueur (to white, milk, or dark chocolate) after everything has melted and fused together because adding it too soon could make the chocolate seize up. I wasn’t quite sure what seized chocolate would look or taste like, but it seemed like something I should definitely avoid.

Last night, I put some of this great advice to the test and made the semi-sweet fondue. We didn’t have any sterno gel for our fondue pot, so I ended up putting the fondue in a glass bowl set in another glass bowl that contained warm water. The fondue stayed silky for about 10 minutes and adhered nicely to the fruit and pound cake I had made earlier that day. I used a one-to-one ratio of heavy cream and the Grenada Organic Dark Chocolate. I then added the Grand Marnier.



White we were admiring how nicely the chocolate tasted with fruit and pound cake, I noted that this was really one of the easiest desserts I had ever made. It literally took me less than five minutes to throw everything together, which included cutting up the bananas and peeling the tangerines. I can’t wait to do it all again tonight.

Recipe for Semi-Sweet Chocolate Fondue with Grand Marnier

Ingredients
7 ounces heavy whipping cream
7 ounces semi-sweet chocolate
2 teaspoons Grand Marnier or other liqueur

Preparation
1. Chop chocolate into small pieces.
2. Heat whipping cream on medium heat until it starts to simmer.
3. Turn off heat and add chocolate.
4. Stir until chocolate is melted.
5. Add to fondue pot or heated bowl and stir in liqueur.
6. Serve with slices of fruit, pound cake, angel food cake, or macaroons.



Note from 2/15/2008 -- I made some white chocolate fondue last night, using a 2-to-1 cream-to-chocolate ratio. The result was a bit drippy and runny. Next time I will use a one-to-one ration (as I did with the semi-sweet and milk chocolate fondues) and then add more heated cream by the teaspoon as necessary to create the right consistency.

Labels: chocolate, denise lincoln, fondue, recipe, Valentine's Day

The title says it all. There is a world of joy in Jell-O-making.



I picked up this treasure written in 1963 at a garage sale years ago. I had always meant to prepare the recipes from it but, invariably, I'd just dust it off every once in a while to giggle over the saturated color photos.

Flights of 1960's culinary fancy fill the pages. Dishes such as Hawaiian Eyeful, Fruited Perfection, and Under-the-Sea Salad Keep me reading. Fantasies, Medleys and no fewer than five Surprises populate the book. The most surprising being the fact that someone discovered what pleasure combining stewed tomatoes, vinegar and strawberry Jell-o can produce.

I was fascinated by Jell-O's versatility-- a Twentieth Century aspic--especially, according to the company, how well it goes with seafood. The Sea Dream, in which a cucumber and vinegar-spiked lime Jell-O serves as the perfect pedestal for bay shrimp, was intriguing, as was the playfully named Ring-Around-the-Tuna (a "beautiful jewel-like entree salad for your luncheon or buffet table"). Luncheon. I wish more people said that word.





At some point during my latest perusal of this book, I realized that no one I know seems to make Jell-O anymore. Except my friend Karen. Granted, it still seems to be a mainstay of the Mid-western Junior League and the state of Utah, but the product isn't a part of my life as it was when I was a kid. And before you ask, I have never ever wrestled in a pool of it, no matter what anyone tells you.

In my household, there was never any ceremony to its preparation. No sophisticated layering, the special molds collected dust behind my giant playchest of Hot Wheels. One just added the boiling water, poured it into custard cups and shoved them into the refrigerator. At my grandmother's house, it may have been prepared solely and grudgingly for the purpose of entertaining grandchildren. A woman who made pastas, soups, sauces, and desserts entirely from scratch must have held this product in contempt, judging by the cracks and semi-petrified state which developed from lack of interest and/or consumption at the back of her ice box. I never asked her about it, I'd simply take one and eat it anyway--letting the super-hardened bits melt on my tongue. Texture is important to children.

I've gone a very long time without eating Jell-O. What makes this product so immensely popular outside my circle? Is it the watching of its wiggle? The witnessing of its jiggle? Perhaps there are more people with throat infections out there than I had previously thought.

This week, I decided to find out how much joy this gelatinous product could give me.

I thought I would tackle one of the more savory, aspic-like dishes such as Vegetable Salad (pictured below, right) with cauliflower and pimiento.



It was much more difficult than I thought. Rather than the looking somewhat like one of Hedda Hopper's spring hats, which is what attracted me to the dish in the first place, mine took on a rather sinister appearance. Growing impatient for the thing to gel, I had great difficulty in getting the vegetables to suspend themselves attractively. Lots of air bubbles ensued and the result looked more like cauliflower drowning in an algal bloom. It even tasted of futile panic.



And it turned my fingernails green.

I sat down on my couch, empty Lime Jell-O box in hand, and took a look at the ingredients. Sugar topped the list, followed by gelatin, adipic acid (for tartness), less than 2% natural and artificial flavor, disodium phosphate and sodium citrate (control acidity), fumaric acid (for tartness), Yellow 5, Blue 1, BHA (Preservative).

Adipic acid? I looked it up. Granted, this is food grade adipic acid, but the realization that it's primary, non-food use is in the production of nylon and Polyurethane made me a little uneasy. At least fumaric acid is found naturally in lichen and Iceland moss. BHA? Butylated hydroxyanisole, which the National Institute of Health considers reasonably anticipated to be a human carcinogen. I threw my little disaster away.

And yet, I still wanted Jell-O. I opted for something Jell-O-esque instead. Like real gelatin. I grabbed a box of unflavored gelatin from the store shelf and read the ingredient list: gelatin. That's it. I decided to make my own, with a little suggestive help from a recipe on the side of the box. Why not add real fruit juice for tartness? Why not indeed.

Making your own flavors gives you a lot more freedom to explore an exciting gelatinous world outside your door and inside your refrigerator. It doesn't really take any more time than the other stuff. And it wont give you cancer.

In all, I was more disturbed by Jell-O than over-joyed by it. Don't misunderstand me. I love to be disturbed by food items. I enjoy the idea of Jell-o, and there will always be room for it's cookbooks on my shelves, just not in my refrigerator.

Tart Cherry Gelatin



You can use whatever juice you want in this, provided you avoid pineapple, kiwi, ginger, papaya, fig, or guava juice-- the enzymes in these will not allow the gelatin to set. I just chose a tart cherry juice because that's what my mood dictated.

You may or may not wish to add sugar to the recipe. The sugar level of your juice-of-choice will tell you what you need. Just taste it first.

Ingredients:

1 packet (7 grams) of unflavored gelatin
2 cups tart cherry juice
1/4 cup sugar (or not)

Preparation:

1. In a medium bowl, sprinkle gelatin over 1/2 cup cherry juice, letting stand for one minute.
2. Add 1 1/2 cups of boiling cherry juice, stirring until dissolved. Keep stirring for about five minutes.
3. Pour into vessels of your choice-- a two cup mold, dessert dishes, or wine glasses.
4. Chill for several hours or overnight until firm.
5. Garnish with whatever you feel like. I'm tired of telling you what to do. I chose a slightly sweetened whipped cream and toasted almonds. Judging by the photo, a lot of whipped cream.

Serves two.

Labels: jell-o, michael procopio, recipe

I could have saved $40,000 and 6 months, endless cuts and burns, bad hair days, bruised egos, fashion disasters, gas that could peel the paint off the side of a barn, and having cats follow me home because I smelled like a mackerel! If I'd only waited 5 years...

Y'all have heard me prattle on about cooking school and know that I attended the full time 6-month culinary program at the FCI a few years ago (and yes I experienced all of the above... in abundance!) so when I saw this book come out, I had to buy it. Like James Peterson's Sauces, this book too could ballast a boat - all 500 pages! - but it is also a veritable treasure chest, a culinary Fort Knox if you will, of all things cooking. If Techniques is the only cookbook you ever purchase, you'd be set.

Techniques is almost verbatim our first quarter (6 week) curriculum. Really! Word for word, gram for gram, ingredient for ingredient. I even pulled out my notebook and compared the Sauces section. Exactly the same. Our first quarter was spent learning these 250 techniques. I had to learn all 250 since before I went to cooking school I burned water! I still do, just less often... But I digress... We then spent the next 3 quarters refining and practicing and expanding on all these techniques. So if you don't want to sacrifice 6 months and $40,000 and the above mentioned humiliations to attend cooking school, then buy this book and cook every recipe over and over and you will become an excellent cook. If you master all the skills and techniques in the book, you can walk into any kitchen (even in France!) and hold your own as this is the foundation of classic cooking and the language of the kitchen.

Hints and tips from the Deans and Chef Instructors pepper the book in every technique with tidbits such as "...cook beans at a constant low temperature and cool them in their cooking liquid. ~Dean Alain Sailhac" or "Do not cover a chicken after roasting or it will steam and make the meat taste reheated." ~Dean Jacques Pepin". It's like getting a personal cooking lesson from some of the world's the greatest chefs. A few that I'm not sure made it into the book that will I will never for include, "If you have time to lean, you have time to clean ~Chef Henri Viain" and "What you put in the pot, you get out of the pot. ~Chef Pascal Beric" and God love them both for their dedication to their students.

Techniques teaches the 250 classic foundation techniques including stocks, sauces, soups, salads, eggs, potatoes, poultry, game, beef, veal, lamb, pork, fish, shellfish, marinades, stuffings, organ meats (my least favorite day in cooking school!), pastry dough, creams & custards, crepes, brioche, frozen desserts, meringues, mousses, and soufflés (my favorite day in cooking school! :) As I flipped the pages, 6 months of my life flashed before my eyes, intermittently cringing while remembering slicing off the tip of my thumb on the mandoline or burning my wrist on the convection oven and laughing out loud picturing the over-whipped genoise, splattered pommes anna, and over-salted Poulet Rôti Grand-mère.

Many if not all of the recipes in my humble little blog, such as a Christmas Menu and Magret de Canard aux Figues de Vendée, are based on the foundation and techniques I learned in cooking school. Techniques also explains in great detail terms in a kitchen, names of equipment and pots and pans (and the difference between stainless steel and aluminum, cast iron, non-stick and the benefits and pit falls of each), food safety, knifes and knife skills, and professional kitchen management.

If you want to become an great home chef or are considering or about to attend cooking school, I implore you to devour (pun intended) this book. If you learn all the techniques, or at least become familiar with them, then you will be leaps and bounds ahead of the game. Bon courage et bon appetit!


Michael, Beverly, Michele, and me proudly displaying our Poulet Rôti Grand-mère

Poulet Rôti Grand-mère -- Grandmother's Roast Chicken
Serves 4
Estimated time: 1-1/2 hours

Ingredients
For the chicken:
• 3-1/2 lb (1.5 kg) roasting chicken (including neck, gizzards, heart)
• coarse salt, fresh ground pepper
• 2 tablespoons (30 gr) unsalted butter
• 2 tablespoons (30 ml) vegetable oil
• 3-1/2 ounces (100 gr) carrots, mirepoix (rough chopped)
• 3-1/2 ounces (100 gr) onions, mirepoix (rough chopped)

For the garnish:
• 14 ounces (400 gr) russet potatoes, peeled
• 3-1/2 ounces (100 gr) slab bacon
• 4-1/2 ounces (125 gr) button mushrooms, cleaned
• coarse salt, fresh ground pepper
• 2-1/2 ounces (70 gr) pearl onions
• 3 tablespoons (40 gr) unsalted butter
• 1 teaspoon (7 gr) sugar
• 2 tablespoons (30 ml) vegetable oil
• 2 tablespoons (10 gr) flat leaf parsley, finely chopped

For the gravy:
• 3-1/2 tablespoons (50 ml) dry white wine
• 2 cups + 2 tablespoons (500 ml) brown veal stock
• coarse salt, fresh ground pepper to taste (optional)

Equipment:
• Chef's Knife
• Trussing twine
• Trussing needle (optional)
• Heavy-bottomed roasting pan or poêle
• Instant read thermometer (if necessary)
• Paring knife
• Large shallow saucepan
• Strainer
• Small, sharp knife
• Sauté pan
• Slotted spoon
• Paper towels
• Stainless steel bowl
• Sautoir or russe
• Parchment paper
• Ovenproof poêle
• Heatproof bowl
• Wire rack
• Baking pan
• Wooden spoon
• Boning knife
• Large metal spoon
• 4 warm dinner plates (I will never ever ever forget Chef Henri admonishing us with "Hot food, hot plate. Cold food, cold plate!")

Preparation
1. Prepare your mise en place.

2. Preheat the oven to 450°F (232°C)

3. Remove and reserve the gizzard, neck and heart from the chicken; set the liver aside for another use. Using a chef's knife, carefully trim the chicken of excess fat. Season and truss the chicken.

4. Heat the butter and oil in a heavy-bottomed roasting pan or poêle over medium heat. Add the chicken and sear, turning frequently without pricking the skin, for about 10 minutes or until the thighs and legs are well-browned and the breast is just lightly browned.

5. When all sides have browned, turn the chicken on its back and add the gizzard, neck and heart to the pan. Place the pan in the oven and roast for 10 minutes.

6. Add the mirepoix vegetables and toss to coat with a bit of fat.

7. Continue to roast, basting frequently, for about 40 minutes or until the skin is golden brown and the juices run clear from a hole poked in the thigh or when the internal temperature measured between the breast and thigh registers 60°C to 66°C (140°F to 150°F).

8. While the chicken is roasting, prepare the garnish.

9. Using a paring knife, turn the potatoes into 5-centimeter (2-inch) cocottes (small football shapes with 7 sides). Place the potatoes in a single layer in a large shallow sauce pan with cold water to just barely cover over high heat. Bring to a simmer. Immediately remove from heat, drain well without refreshing, and set aside to air dry.

10. Cut the bacon into 1/2-inch (1.3-centimeter) thick slices and then into strips about 1/2-inch (1.3-centimeter) wide to form lardons.

11. Place the bacon in a sauté pan over medium-high heat and sauté for about 5 minutes or until the bacon has rendered its; fat but has not browned. sing a slotted spoon, transfer the lardons to paper towels to drain, leaving the rendered fat in the sauté pan.

12. If the mushrooms are small, leave them whole; if large, cut them into quarters. Add the mushrooms to the rendered bacon fat. Place the pan over medium heat, season the mushrooms with salt and pepper to taste, and sauté for about 5 minutes or until just lightly browned on the edges. Set aside.

13. Place the onions in a stainless steel bowl with hot water to cover. Soak for about 3 minutes or until the skins have loosened. Drain well and, using your fingertips, push off the skins.

14. Place onions in a single layer in a sautoir or russe just large enough to accommodate them over medium heat. Add 1 tablespoon (15 gr) of the butter, the sugar, and just enough water to barely cover the bottom of the pan. Salt to taste. Cover with a piece of parchment cut to the exact size of the pan opening to make a loose lid and glacer à brun (cook until a golden brown). (Take care not to use too much water, as the onions will steam and overcook rather than brown. They should begin to brown in the remaining butter after the water has evaporated.) Taste, and if necessary, add seasoning. Set aside and keep warm until ready to serve.

15. About 10 minutes before the chicken is ready to come out of the oven, heat an ovenproof poêle over medium heat. When hot but not smoking, add the oil. Add the potatoes, keeping them in a single layer. Sauté for about 5 minutes or until all of the potatoes are evenly browned. Add the remaining 2 tablespoons (25 gr) of butter and season with salt and pepper to taste. Please the potatoes in the oven and roast for 10 to 12 minutes or until golden brown and tender when pierced with the point of a small, sharp knife.

16. When all the garnish items have been cooked, combine them in a heatproof bowl. Toss to blend, then sprinkle with parsley. Set aside and keep warm for service.

17. When the chicken is done, remove it from the oven, drain off and reserve the fat, and transfer the bird to a wire rack placed over a baking pan to rest. While the chicken is resting, make the gravy (jus de rôti)

18. If the pan drippings have not caramelized during roasting, place the pan on the stovetop over high heat and bring to a boil. Boil just until the drippings caramelize; take care that they do not burn. Carefully drain off the fat. Lower the heat and add the white wine to the pan, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon to lift up the sucs and deglaze the pan. Add the stock and stir to combine. Bring to a boil, then lower the heat and cook at a bare simmer, stirring frequently, for about 10 minutes or until the mixture is slightly reduced and fall-flavored. Taste, and if necessary, season with salt and pepper. Strain. Keep warm until ready for service.

19. Using a boning knife, remove the breasts and the thighs from the chicken. Manchonner the ends of the drumsticks (cut off the big joint at the end of the drumstick) and the wings. Cut each breast half into two pieces on the bias. Cut the legs in half at the joint. Remove the thigh bones and any cartilage. You should now have 8 pieces

20. Assemble one leg piece with one breast piece on each of the four warm dinner plates, taking care that only one of the pieces on each plate has a bone.

21. Garnish each plate with an equal portion of the warm vegetables. Spoon the gravy around the chicken pieces. Serve remaining gravy on the side.

WHEW! All that for a roast chicken!
Bon appetit!

PS: Don't miss Michael Procopio's interview with FCI President, Dorothy Cann Hamilton where they discuss her PBS show "Chef's Story," her tenure as Chairman of the James Beard House and her day job running the FCI.

Labels: cookbook, cucina testa rossa, dorothy cann hamilton, French Culinary Institute, recipe, roast chicken

Always looking for a little extra help with ringing in the New Year correctly, if quietly, I have turned to eating luck-giving food. I would consider 2007 a very good year, since I didn't die as I had supposed I would, on or before my last birthday. I'm not going to attribute my good fortune directly to the eating of Hoppin' John, but I won't entirely discount it either.

So I am continuing my consumption of pork in the New Year, given the fact that pigs are symbolic of good fortune and prosperity. Since most of the ones I've seen end their short lives being consumed by humans, I don't feel that their luck is personal, but rather that it radiates from within their own pot bellies, only to find its way into other pot bellies-- ours. There are, of course, notable exceptions, like Babe, Wilbur, and Arnold Ziffel. If our pig friends are aware of these porcine super-stars, I do not know. I can only imagine that it might lead to unrealistic expectations of salvation and celebrity lifestyle on the part of the pig, but who am I to judge? I still believe I am going to win the lottery and meet a special someone who isn't crazy.

The scientific reasoning behind pork's luckiness stems from the fact that, unlike fish that might swim away with your fortune, or fowl who could very well likely fly away with it (and are thus to be avoided), pigs tend to root out treasure, aiding in your well-deserved prosperity. Not being one to question science, I am upping my pork consumption next week. It seems to be working for my neighbor across the hallway. She looks as though she has spent a lifetime eating nothing but pork several times a day. Judging by the headboard-banging and fascinating vocalizations emanating from the other side of my bedroom wall at this very moment, she seems to be a very lucky woman indeed.

Pork Chops with Apples and Thyme

This is a recipe taken (but is not exactly duplicated) from a cookbook I worked on several years ago called New England by Molly Stevens, which was part of a series called New American Cooking by the folks at Williams-Sonoma. I was the food styling assistant on this book and was initially disappointed that we didn't photograph this recipe. Given the rather monochromatic nature of this dish, I now understand the wisdom of that decision. What this dish lacks in color, it definitely makes up for in flavor. It's seriously good.

Ingredients

4 or 5 fresh sprigs of thyme
2 tablespoons of unsalted butter
2 large tart apples, like Granny Smith, peeled, cored, and sliced
4 center-cut pork loin chops I chose the bone-in variety and, oh, 1 to 2 inches thick
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
salt and ground (fresh) pepper to taste
2 tablespoons of olive oil
3/4 cup apple cider
2 tablespoons white wine vinegar
1 clove of garlic, minced
1/4 cup of heavy cream

Preparation:

1. In a frying pan large enough to hold all four chops, melt butter over medium-high heat. Add apples and sauté, shaking often (the pan, though if you've got the DT's this dish might help. Just pour yourself an extra glass of cider.). When apples have some lovely browning to them, remove them from the pan and transfer to an awaiting bowl.

2. Pat the pork chops dry with paper towels. Season liberally with salt and pepper. Put the flour on a shallow plate and place chops in the flour. Coat on both sides of the pork, shaking off any excess flour.

3. Return your pan to medium-high heat and add the oil. When the oil is very hot but not smoking, add the pork chops and brown evenly on both sides, about 1 to 2 minutes per sides, but no more than that, please. Add cider and vinegar, then turn heat to low. Add garlic and thyme. Cover tightly to cook. turning them once half way through the process. Cook until done, of course, which will take you anywhere from 14 to 18 minutes, depending upon the thickness of your chops. A slight rosy pinkness in the center is idea. In the center of the pork chop, that is.

4. Transfer the chops to a plate and keep warm. I suppose that might relate to both you and your chops. Remove thyme from the pan. Raise the heat to high, scraping the bottom of the pan to dissolve any caramelized bits, and add the cream. Boil until the liquid in the pan is reduced by half. Stir in the apples. Taste and adjust your seasonings.

5. Spoon apples and sauce over the pork chops and serve immediately.

Serves 4

Labels: michael procopio, pork, recipe

When the weather turns cold and Christmasy, what do you think about? Chances are you think about roaring fires, snowflake-patterned sweaters, or lacing the chestnut stuffing with arsenic. Me, I think about Scandinavian food. In particular, my mind wanders to gravlax.

Perhaps it's just a reaction against all the frosted sugar cookies and enforced glee, but the desire for something clean and salty that comes from a land prone to waves of alcoholism and depression during the long, dark, and cold winter months is irresistible to me.

Gravlax, gravad lax, gravlaks, graavilohi or graflax. However you spell it, it's salmon cured with salt, sugar, and dill. Traditionally, it is served with a gravlaxsas-- a sauce of dill and mustard, and with dense, dark bread or boiled potatoes, but Christmastime is no time to think of tradition, certainly.

Gravlax is a fisherman's dish, originally of salmon salted and the buried in the sand above the high tide line. If you hadn't made the connection between the Scandinavian grav and our word grave, then you weren't paying attention. It should now come as no surprise that the true meaning of gravlax is "salmon dug into the ground." If you, in turn, could now explain to me the true meaning of Christmas, I'll call us even.

The original dish was somewhat fermented, not unlike the way those clever Vietnamese make that lovely fish sauce I used to put into everything, but times have changed. Today, the only burying done to the salmon is in salt and sugar.

If you are as tired of cookies and fudge as I am, this is a great treat to take to a party or have at your own. It's remarkably easy, taking very little skill, which I appreciate during the Holidays. All that is required is a little forward planning.

Gravlax

There are hundreds of recipes for gravlax. I don't know why, since it's basically the product of very few ingredients. The one I used for the purposes of this blog is a good one, but everyone, especially Norwegians, is bound to argue about the exact ratio of salt to sugar. All I have to say is please, not on Christmas, Dawn, not on Christmas.

Ingredients

1 to 2 pounds salmon fillet, sliced into equal pieces. If you want to get fancy, buy center cuts. I, however, do not care.
1/4 cup kosher salt
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon of cracked black pepper
1 bunch of dill
a splash or two of alcohol-- Akvavit is traditional, but vodka or brandy works well, too.

Preparation

1. Remove pin bones, if any, from salmon with needle nose pliers or tweezers.
2. In a small bowl, combine salt, sugar, and pepper.
3. Rub both sides of salmon fillets with salt and sugar mixture. My salt and sugar, when preparing my mise en place for this blog looked very much like a granulated Maidenform bra when poured.



4. Spread remaining sugar and salt mixture onto the pink, fleshy side of the fillets and sprinkle with your booze of choice, but not too much.

5. Lay dill more or less evenly over one of the fillets. I like to crush it in my hands to release the essential oils. Place the second fillet on top of it to form a sandwich, with the salmon acting as the bread. If this is difficult for you to follow, I don't want to know you.



6. Place your "sandwich in an appropriately-sized freezer bag, removing as much air as possible. Close the bag.

7. Place your package in a shallow baking dish or pan and place a weight evenly over it. There is much disagreement about this step. Some people like 5-to-8 pounds of weight, others, none at all. Weighing down the salmon produces a denser finished (or Finnish, in this case) product. I decided to go for something lightweight in both the literal and literary sense.



8. Refrigerate for 2 to 3 days, turning the salmon every 12 hours or so.

9. After the appropriate amount of time, take salmon out of the bag, scrap off most of the dill and pat dry with paper towels. Once cured, the gravlax should stay "fresh", or at least, good, for a week, if refrigerated and well-wrapped.

To serve, slice at a 45 degree angle, as thinly as possible and leaving the skin behind. Drink a little glasas of Akvavit or vodka to toast your good fortunes. Or drink a bit of champagne, that pairs well, too. Did I mention that this is a great New Year's Eve or New Year's Day breakfast dish? No? Well, it is.

Labels: gravlaks, michael procopio, recipe

When I was in college, in the dark days before email and Facebook, my roommates and I passed our time with more mundane matters. Like food. From Juli, I learned about Japanese-style curry. Rie taught me how to blanche green beans perfectly, while Ed opened my palate to an entire pantheon of slow-simmered soups. Pierrette's trick with tuna and egg salad--grating onion into the mayonnaise--still perks up my sandwiches.

From Maria, though, I learned the most important lessons: cooking with my senses.

While I watched, Maria made tortillas with handfuls of flour and finger-lengths of shortening. Growing up in Texas, she had to wake up early every morning to make the family's tortillas, forty on an average day and maybe a hundred or so for special Sundays. She grabbed an empty wine bottle whenever she needed to roll out dough, and from only two pans she made incredible feasts for our house. None of us would admit to being homesick, but listening to Maria talk about her food and then eating her meals made all of us feel like we actually belonged in that drafty, tumble-down, New England house.

I don't have any of her recipes, because she never wrote them down, but like stories and memories, I can recite them just as she did.


"In San Antonio, where my family lives, you can find bags of masa dough in the markets. My mother doesn't need to make her own anymore. We use Crisco now, but if you want, you can use lard or butter. Even oil. But I would never use oil. Why make tamales with oil? If you don't have chicken stock, some water from the tap is good. Just remember to add salt then."


"Be sure to open the middle of the husks when you soak them and put a plate on top, so they can get wet equally. Save the biggest ones for wrapping. The smaller ones, just tear like this into ribbons for tying."


"Mix together a six handfuls of masa, two handfuls of Crisco, the same amount of stock and some salt. Blend them together really well. We use a mixer at home. You can tell when you have the right combination when a little ball of the dough floats in water."


"You can fill them with anything really. We use pork that my mother cooks, but here at school I put all kinds of things in them. Today, I took some of the sweet potatoes from the cafeteria." [In the photo, you can see a dollop of chipotle sauce that I now like to add to my sweet potato tamales, plus a sprinkling of kosher salt. After sweet potatoes or yams are roasted whole, their peels slip right off; mash with a fork.]


"Spread a little bit of the dough on the corn leaf, enough to cover a third of it. When you put the filling on, be sure to leave a little of the dough peeking around the edges, so that it will close up well." [In this recent version, I topped the sweet potatoes with some grated pepper jack cheese tossed with sliced scallions.]


"Fold the leaf in thirds, like a letter, then bend up the end. Tie it, if you want. Or, if you are making a lot, you can just put them down close together and they will keep each other closed. You need to steam them for a long time, longer than you really want. Open one and try it to see if it's done. They like it if you put a towel over them while they steam. [Chinese bamboo or metal stackable steamers are perfect for steaming tamales in single layers. Small tamales require 40 minutes and larger ones up to 1 1/2 or 2 hours to cook through.]

Labels: family recipes, mexican, recipe, tamales, thy tran

Before I moved to San Francisco, I knew surprisingly little about the City, which suited me fine, since I have never felt the need for too much advanced knowledge about anything. And I had no desire to trade the fantasy I had of Carol Doda and a chorus of flannel-clad gay men singing the Rice-a-roni jingle from a cable car as it crested some hill or other with the reality of some homeless guy defecating in front of me on Capp Street as he ranted incoherently.

Once moved, I had a formulated a shortlist of what I thought were very San Francisco-y things I needed to experience. One: Visit Alcatraz, no matter how touristy. That I finally accomplished this year. Two: Read Tales of the City by Armistad Maupin. Still haven't gotten around to it, much to my friend Bill's irritation. Three: oh, there were lots of things on that list, but way down near the bottom of my to-dos was eating a dish called Hangtown Fry. Why? I think I read about it in a cookbook somewhere at some point and I got it into my head that it was more ur-San Francisco that sourdough bread. So I was wrong. But not by much. The Hangtown Fry is a very old school San Francisco dish-- take a look at the Tadich Grill menu if you don't believe me, but the hangtown in question was not, as I had hoped, our City-by-the-currently oil- streaked-Bay. That particular honor goes to Placerville, a charming little town in the Sierra Foothills formerly fraught with multiple crises of identity.

Originally called Dry Diggins by the miners who carted their dry soil from there to the river to wash out the gold, Placerville's second sobriquet was collected in a pique of impromptu vigilante justice. Tired of being robbed of their hard-earned gold at knife point, some merchants and miners of the area suggested making human swings out of three men accused of the crime. Since this was the first such recorded hanging in the Mother Lode area, the camp was rechristened "Hangtown", leaving its old name to blow away like so much dust. As the town grew up and struggled to become respectable, the best of their marketing minds came up with the more child and virgin-friendly "Placerville." I suppose they could have done worse.

It was at some point in the early life of Dry Diggins/Hangtown/Placerville that, as legend has it, a newly rich gold miner walked into the restaurant of the El Dorado Hotel and demanded the most expensive meal that could be had there, mumbling something about being tired of eating nothing but canned beans. What he was given was a scramble of eggs, oysters, and bacon. Perhaps the chef misunderstood him and made the richest meal he could think of rather than the most expensive. Whatever the case, he was charged a princely sum since, it was explained, "Canned oysters had to be shipped in from Boston, eggs were as scarce as pig feathers, and bacon was just as expensive." Of course, as read at Gold Rush Chronicles, "Eggs, bacon, and oysters were the only ingredients the chef could find. Chickens were portable so the camp had eggs early on, oysters were prolific in San Francisco Bay at the time, and bacon would keep without refrigeration." I somehow doubt this miner held onto his money for very long. At least he got a good meal.

Hangtown Fry



Many of the recipes I found called for the use of a non-stick pan. Since I strongly suspect the humoring chef at the El Dorado Hotel had no acquaintance with Teflon, I asked my trusty cast iron skillet to take on the job instead, to keep in the spirit of all things 49'er. Of course, it is also doubtful that he utilized a gas stove, overhead electric lighting, or an ipod. My spirit carries me only so far.

This particular recipe is an artery clogger, near as rich as anything one might care to put in one's mouth. I decided to go for broke, otherwise, what's the point, really? There are lighter versions of this dish, certainly, but the spirit of the thing is it's richness. This was made at the request of a man who stumbled upon a gold strike after months of eating nothing but beans, after all. Life expectancy rates were lower then and no one knew the meaning of cholesterol. Shave a few months off your own life and try it.

Ingredients:

3 whole hen's eggs (if using Plover's eggs, 4)
1/4 cup heavy cream
1/4 teaspoon of salt
1/8 teaspoon of nutmeg
a turn or two of your pepper grinder
6 small oysters, alive and in their shells...



enough flour for dredging the shelled oysters as they lay dying
1 tablespoon of cow's butter
1 tablespoon chopped parsley (I use the curly kind because I have finally rejected my previous rejection of it)
3 strips of thickly sliced bacon

Preparation:

1. Into a pan heated to medium intensity, place your bacon and fry until crispy. Remove to a paper or cotton tea towel to drain and cool. Reserve the bacon drippings.

2. Combine cream, salt, pepper, nutmeg and oysters in a bowl and beat until egg yolks are just incorporated.

3. Drop shelled (you may have to do that yourself if your mother is not available to help you) oysters into flour to coat lightly and suffocate. Tap off any excess flour.



4. With the bacon grease still hot in the skillet on mediumish heat, introduce the oysters to the fat and brown on each side. About 45 seconds to one minute per hemisphere. Do not overcook, since a certain degree of juicy sweetness is desired of them. Remove from heat onto paper or other materialed towel.

5. If the bacon grease is hissing and spitting at you, I find the best way to deal with such rudeness is to ignore it. Return to it once it has cooled down sufficiently to introduce it to it's new fat friend, butter.

6. Add egg mixture to the butter/grease melange and treat suitably, as one might treat an omelet, say. When half way cooked through, crumble in some of the bacon, add the oysters, and cook the other half of the way.

7. Remove your newly developed Hangtown Fry to some sort of plate and have at it while it is still warm.

Labels: hangtown fry, michael procopio, recipe