Food and Drink Writing
from Rochester, NY

Sunday, April 03, 2005

 
Skatewing
over Fennel Confit with Avacado Salsa

I've really been enjoying a copy of Thomas Keller's Bouchon cookbook that a friend loaned me, which I really need to return.  I have to admit, when I first leafed through it I was a bit underwhelmed.  I think mainly this is because the wow-factor of the French Laundry cookbook was a hard act to follow and this one's not as photo centric.  I still haven't read through it very thoroughly, but so far everything I've tried has been stellar.  He has a great knack for packing tons of little tricks into the recipes that really help elevate your food from good to memorable. 

Case in point is this skate recipe.  Firstly, I'm becoming completely addicted to skatewing.  For the uninitiated, it's a large ray-like fish with meat that has the flavor and texture of a combination of scallop and crab (to me).  If that's not enough to sell it, it's also about the cheapest thing you'll find in your fishmonger's case.  Most recipes for sauteeing a skatewing would basicly say just that:  "sautee the skatewing for x minutes on each side".  Not much guidance beyond that.  And that's fine.  Keller, however, doesn't leave as much to chance.  He has you hold down the skate with another pan to prevent curling.  He has you add a little more butter after each flip.  He has you tilt the pan and spoon the browning butter over the fish a couple times during the process, leaving little bits of browned butter spread across the perfectly browned fish.  The techniques are subtle, but yield spectacular results.

The fennel confit that the skate sits on is something I probably never would have thought of.  Basically very slow cooked fennel, onions, and herbs (2 hours).  The flavor is complex, but unobtrusive, the texture, soft but not mushy.  The avacado salsa was my own touch, bringing a little acid component to the dish.  It was seasoned with the fennel seed spice rub from last week's ham.  Lime juice, red onions, garlic, and ginger accompanied the avacacado.  It all worked for me.  Keller tops the dish with an olive tapenade (I think that's redundant).  I suppose that would work too. 

Wednesday, March 30, 2005

 
Easter 2005

I've been experiencing Easter dinner for three days straight now through a slowly diminishing pyramid of leftovers, and I'm still really enjoying everything.  That's a fairly significant pat on my own back since I have a real tendancy to not want to have anything to do with my meals in leftover form no matter how good the first time around.  I think this was probably my most successful effort to date in terms of organizating a large meal.  Generally with these things I have a flash of realization several hours after dinner that, oh my god, I completely forgot the celeriac gratin!  (or some variation on that theme)  I decided to be a little more systematic with my approach this time and everything in my plan ended up on the table, hot, just at the end of my announced target range.  Lots of stuff done ahead of time (and the warming drawer in our new range) helped this along. 

Sorry about the pic quality.  I've found large groups slightly less tolerant than L and I to messing around with the tripod, lighting, and composition while fully prepared foods taunt them.  Here's the menu, without any further blathering.

Appetizers:

• Assortment of smoked sausages (Swan Market), Cheeses, Breads, Olives, and Baba Ganouj
• Jelly Belly's
• Plenty of Beer and Wine

Monday, March 21, 2005

 
Still Cooking...

I'm still cooking something new every night, and even taking pictures with all intentions of blogging now and then.  I came across this one while doing the post (see below) on mussels.  Obviously some type of stuffed pork loin and tomato salad.  Damned if I can remember any details beyond that. 

Cooking my first Easter dinner (for 10) on Sunday.  Anyone want to place bets on whether that gets blogged?  Hey, Vermont knocked SU out of the NCAA, so more unlikely things have happened.

 

Mussels With Saffron Mustard Broth
I've made some respectable strides in the last few years in eliminating all food phobias.  "I will train myself to like everything" has been my mantra, and olives, bleu cheeses, and sushi have not only become tolerated, but craved.  I hope Jeffrey Steingarten will be proud.  But, lurking behind the food phobia category has been another self-documented flaw I'll refer to as "faults of underappreciation".  These would be foods that hold a justifiably esteemed position in the pantheon of world cuisine, but for any of a number of possible reasons has occupied a less than admired position in my consciousness.  Mussels have been firmly in this category for a long time. 
I can't say I've ever had a dislike for mussels, but I have had a firm ambivalance to the bivalves.  The overwhelming impression I've held towards mussels for as long as I remember is "these things are a pain in the ass to eat".  And, lets be honest, they are.  But, this brings us to one of life's great conondrums; the fine line between a pain-in-the-ass and a hell-of-a-lot-of-fun.  These things are messy, slow, and somewhat frustrating to eat, but that's a large part of their appeal, the tactical sensations of a meal of mussels.  Thomas Keller illuminated this point to me while I was reading through the Bouchon cookbook.

...Just seeing a bowl of steamed mussels is exciting. They're beautiful to look at, the individual dark shining shells shaped like nothing else. You see the steam rising off the bowl; the aroma surrounds you. Already the dish is unique. Then the eating--it's an interactive food. You pick each one up with your fingers, you eat each one individually, you dip bread in the abundant, buttery broth, you poke throught the shells hunting for the last ones, the shells clickety-clacking. And when you're done, you have the delicious broth at the bottom of the bowl: mussel soup.

This particular recipe has the mussels steamed in a broth of butter, shallots, garlic, thyme, dry white wine , dijon mustard, and saffron.  That prepartion might have just a wee bit to do with my newfound love for these cheap shellfish.  But I'm going to keep believing that it's a consequence of the maturation of my senses rather than a consequence of drenching something in butter and wine.

Thursday, October 28, 2004

Expensive Rustic Country Loaf

To my great relief, I got laid off from my job a few days ago. Ok, perhaps not my great relief, but I was expecting our project to be cancelled for a long time, and as nice as the paycheck was, sometimes you're just ready to move on. So, really no condolences are necessary, I've got some severance to work with, and really quite content to have some real time on my hands.

So now that my time resources have increased, and my monetary resources have decreased, I figured it would be a great time to save some money by baking my own bread. I walked down to the local library and checked out a couple books on baking Williams-Sonoma: Bread and Baking Illustrated. So far doing very well with the resource utilization ratio, using newly freed time and zero financial resources.

I then selected a suitably frugal sounding recipe. "Rustic Country Loaf".

3 1/2 cups (540 g) unbleached bread flour
3/4 cup (125 g) gluten flour
1 tablespoon salt
1 package quick-rise yeast
2 cups water
cornmeal for pan

Now, let's see just how much money we saved! 540g of flour from a 2.27 kg bag is about .24 of the bag at $2.39 per bag that comes to $.57. Here's where it gets tricky. The only gluten flour I could find was $2.59 for a 283g box.

Bread Flour	.57
Gluten Flour	1.14
Quick Rise Yeast	.57
Water, Salt, Cornmeal	.01
	2.29

This doesn't even take into account the fact I had to have the dough rising on top of an oven set to warm since the rest of the house was too cool for a good rise. 2.29 that's probably just a bit higher than the average I pay for a fresh baked loaf of bread at Wegmans. Their breads are, frankly, damned good, better than mine, and I'm not saving a cent for my trouble.

I guess my point is, my intuition told me that the luxury of having someone bake your bread for you must be costing huge markups. A home made loaf of bread must cost just a small fraction of what some supermarket charges! Au contraire!

Now, of course I could search high and low finding suppliers where I could get these ingredients cheaper. And, of course, there are the joys of the alchemy aspects of bread making and the beautiful smells. But every time I have an experience like this, it somehow leaves me a little disillusioned about the joys of do-it-yourself. Anyone out there had similar experiences?

Sunday, October 24, 2004

Corpse Reviver No. 2
(Yes, I do requests)

Thursday, October 21, 2004

 
Salmon With Lemongrass-Yogurt Sauce

This sauce was a bit of an experiment in the sense that I looked in the fridge and said "hmm lemon grass...hmm yogurt...what the hell." That much down, getting the flavor of the lemon grass into the yogurt became the trick.

Tuesday, October 12, 2004

Braised Short Ribs

Thursday, October 07, 2004

 
Overwhelmed

It has been nearly a year since my last post to this neglected food blog. That's nearly a year, not a full year. I consider that a small victory against sloth.

Tuesday, November 11, 2003

Butternut Squash Soup

Favorites In My Kitchen

Sitram  3.3-Quart StainlessSaute

Le Creuset 5 1/2 Quart Dutch Oven

Emsa Perfect Beaker Measuring Beaker