Hello Friends!

And now we enter that most confusing field of cuisine – the humble salad.

Those of you in big cities know – there is no humble salad anymore.  The salad has gone upscale and accordingly expensive.  A seemingly modest mix of greens, vegetables and dressing has gone insane.  Here is a sample of salads from Bay Area restaurant menus (none of this is made up – and, yes, they just list the ingredients these days):

• Bernard Ranch Reed Avocado, crispy katafi, huile d’Argan, harissa
• Chicories, niitaka pear, aged gouda, almond, sesame anchovy vinaigrette, thai basil pesto
• Savoy cabbage, seaweed butter, smoked mussels, celtuce, nasturtium, cured egg yolk
• Celeriac, hazelnut, tomme de savoie, perigord truffle

I can’t even.  I’m not sure what half those ingredients are.  There’s some inventiveness in here – seaweed butter actually sounds pretty interesting, and thai basil pesto could be amazing – but I have no idea what most of these would actually taste like.

In the hopeful attempt to get some sort of feel for what chefs may be doing here, I have recently purchased the book “Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat” by Samin Nosrat.  As I learn from this book, I will share what I learn here – filtered, as always, through my cracked yet semi-practical mind.

Today I am going to describe the two salads that I do make often, and they are both what the French call “salades composées” – or composed salads.  Briefly, it is the antithesis of the tossed salad.  In these salads, ingredients are kept separate, which make them wonderful for serving picky eaters since they can load up on what they like and leave what they don’t.

First up is the Niçoise Salad.  This is a delightful salad that isn’t too hard to make.  It does require a few unusual ingredients, particularly in the winter months.  Truthfully, one can substitute like crazy in this salad to whatever you like and whatever is in season.  For instance, traditionally this salad has green beans, but I’ve never been a huge fan and have substituted here.  Traditionally this salad also has canned tuna, which you can use if you like, but frankly I cannot stand the stuff.  I splurge on frozen which tastes better, has better texture, and doesn’t smell so funky.

This is an adaptation from Julia Child’s famous recipe, and Salade Niçoise is one classic recipe that has not really been improved upon since her day (besides the wider availability of quality frozen tuna).  I do favor olive oil over the more traditional neutral vegetable oil (which used to be called salad oil, if you can believe it).  Use a light olive oil if you prefer, but I use my standard extra virgin from Trader Joe’s which apparently has been verified to actually be extra virgin olive oil and not a fraud like most of the foreign stuff.

Salade Niçoise

Ingredients:

• 12 ounces small potatoes (red or Yukon Gold – do NOT use Russet)
• 1 shallot, finely diced (optional)
• 3 tablespoons dry vermouth or dry white wine
• 6 ounces butter lettuce (or other soft lettuce)
• 1 medium tomato diced (or half a canister of grape or cherry tomatoes, halved)
• 8 ounces green beans (optional – could substitute red or yellow peppers, julienned)
• 2 eggs
• 3 tablespoons good quality pitted olives (Niçoise are traditional – chopped Kalamata are fine)
• 2 tablespoons capers
• 4 anchovy filets (optional)
• 8 ounces frozen sear-grade tuna

Dressing:

• ½ cup extra virgin olive oil
• ¼ cup red wine vinegar or champagne vinegar
• 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
• Salt and pepper

Instructions:

1. Make the potato salad:
   1. Scrub or peel the potatoes. Quarter or halve the potatoes and boil for about 10 minutes until you can easily cut them with a table knife (but not so long that they are mushy).
   2. Drain the potatoes and let cool until just cool enough to handle.
   3. Slice them thinly then toss with the vermouth or wine and the shallot if using
2. Hard boil the eggs then submerge into ice water until ready to use (see tips below).
3. Par boil the green beans (if using)
4. Make the dressing in a shaker or with a whisk.
5. When ready to assemble the salad:
   1. Put the tomatoes in a bowl and toss with 2 tablespoons of the dressing.
   2. Toss the beans or peppers in a bowl with a 2-3 tablespoons of the dressing.
   3. Add 3-6 tablespoons of the dressing to the cooled potatoes and toss until completely dressed.
   4. Peel and halve the eggs lengthwise.
   5. Salt and pepper the tuna and sear it to your taste. Then slice very thinly with a sharp knife.
6. Assemble the salad on a platter, keeping each ingredient separate. I like to put the potato salad in the middle, veggies and/or lettuce on the side (be sure to pour remainder dressing on the lettuce or toss that together separately (preferred)), then make little piles of olives and capers on either side.  I also like to put the anchovies on the eggs and the tuna in the middle.  But do whatever you like!  Photos of various Salades Niçoises that I’ve made are on this page.

Tips:

• How to make a perfect hard boiled egg. Cover the eggs with cold water and put over high heat.  Once the water has reached a vigorous boil, cover the pot, turn off the heat, then wait 15 minutes.  Presto, you’re done.
• Submerging the eggs in ice cold water prevents them from getting that nasty green tint and also gives them a cleaner flavor.
• It’s crucial to toss all the veggies with dressing before adding. Then add whatever dressing you have left to the lettuce.
• I usually reuse the hot water from the potatoes to cook the beans. Speeds this dish up to not have to boil three pots of water.
• As with all salads, ingredient quality is crucial. If you can find heirloom tomatoes, get them – you won’t regret it.

Next up: Cobb Salad.  Disclaimer – I can’t stand blue cheese dressing.  This one is made with a delicious balsamic dressing that has a secret flavor enhancer.  And here I present to you the wonder that is baked bacon.

Ingredients:

• 8 ounces romaine (or other crisp) lettuce
• 2 eggs
• 4 ounces crumbled blue cheese or feta cheese
• 1 medium tomato diced (or half a canister of grape or cherry tomatoes, halved)
• 4 slices thick bacon, cooked (preferably baked, see Tips)
• 2 small cucumbers (or one large cucumber), peeled and diced (see Tips)
• 1 avocado, diced
• 1/2 yellow or red pepper, diced
• 1 chicken breast (optional)

Dressing:

• ¼ cup extra virgin olive oil
• 3-4 tablespoons bacon drippings
• ¼ cup balsamic vinegar (the cheap stuff, not the real stuff)
• 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
• Salt and pepper

Instructions:

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.
2. Put the bacon on a piece of tin foil that has been folded at the edges so the drippings to not run out. Bake for 15-20 minutes (15 minutes for chewy, 20 minutes for crispy).
3. Poach or saute the chicken breast until just cooked, usually 20 minutes for poaching and three minutes per side sautéed on medium heat. (I used a sous vide machine – more on that below). Then slice thinly or chop.
4. Remove the bacon and when cooled crumble it with your hands.
5. Pour the bacon drippings into a shaker where you make your dressing.
6. Hard boil the eggs then submerge into ice water until ready to use (see tips above).
7. Make the dressing in the shaker.
8. Assemble the salad on a platter, keeping each major ingredient separate. I like to put the avocado in the middle, bordered by the tomatoes and then the peppers.  I ring the outside with lettuce then cover it with crumbles cheese and bacon.

Tips:

• I wish I could explain how infinitely better baked bacon is than bacon cooked in a skillet. Once you try it, you’ll never go back to the skillet again.   Just look at this:

• Yes, bacon drippings in a dressing is weird. But it adds a richness that mimics the richness of a cheese-based dressing and adds such a pleasant smoky, salty element.  It’s magic.
• I used my Anova sous vide machine – 45 minutes at 146 degrees. I’ll write later about using this machine, but using it for chicken breast is a revelation.  As I’ve written earlier, the chicken breast is a devil to cook right, and sous vide is an interesting way to go if you have time (and a hundred bucks for the machine).

• Why add mustard to a vinaigrette? Well, aside from flavor, it is an emulsifier – it helps the dressing mix and not separate.  This is important, because, in the words of the Foodlab, “Unless you emulsify your vinaigrette, you end up with a pile of leaves dressed in oil, and a pool of vinegar at the bottom of the salad bowl.”  Yuck.  Other good emulsifiers out there include miso, mayonnaise (itself an emulsion), honey, and … the most powerful emulsifier on earth: the egg yolk (famously used in the Caesar salad).

Hello Friends!

Growing up, this was the recipe for pancakes:

• 2 cups Bisquick^TM
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup milk

Oh yeah, they were good!  Well, maybe that’s the pancake syrup talking.  My parents didn’t buy any sugary cereal so this was the one chance to get a sugar rush first thing in the morning.

It should go without saying that American pancakes are not what most of the world considers a pancake.  For most of the world, a “pancake” is, depending on one’s language, a: crêpe, crespo, блин (blin), uttapam, etc.  There are as many styles of pancakes as countries, maybe more.  American pancakes are similar to some other countries’ breakfast disks: Canada basically has the same pancake that we do.  Australia too.  In Scotland, they have something called a “drop scone” – which actually is a pretty accurate name once you realize that a “scone” is basically a sweet version of what Americans call a “biscuit” (a word that in the rest of the world pretty much exclusively means a cookie).

The American pancake is based on one crucial ingredient which, strangely enough, is usually totally absent from American refrigerators: buttermilk.  While there is an acceptable substitute discussed below, real buttermilk is essential to getting your pancakes to be sufficiently fluffy and not flat like, well, a crespo.

What on earth is buttermilk and why does it work wonders?  Buttermilk is basically just a cultured milk, a pre-yogurt if you will.  It has no butter in it whatsoever – its name comes from the old way of making it, which was to save the residue from cultured butter.  Nowadays, they just add bacterial culture to milk and sell you that as buttermilk.  Like yogurt, buttermilk is sour – in other words, it is an acid (while milk is normally basic).  This matters because you use baking soda and baking powder for leavening and… well, remember the kids’ experiment where you add baking soda to vinegar and get a foaming volcano?  The same thing happens (on a smaller, more delicious scale) when you add buttermilk and baking soda to a batter – you get quick leavening supercharged!

Another trick with American pancakes is getting the cook right.  I don’t know if there is a “première crêpe” rule in France, but we definitely have a “first pancake” rule in the U.S. – The first pancake is usually a mess because it’s very hard to get the heat of the griddle right at first.  There is also the dilemma of whether to use oil or butter to cook.  I’m going to blow your mind now – use BOTH.

The final trick with regard to pancakes is – do NOT overmix the batter.  Wheat flour has gluten in it, which is wonderful for bread but the bitter enemy of a soft pancake.  This is why we mix the wet and dry ingredients separately before adding them together and mixing that until it is just combined.  I like it pretty runny like this:

This recipe is adapted from L.V. Anderson’s recipe in Slate’s “You’re Doing It Wrong” series – share and enjoy!

Ingredients: (makes about 12 small pancakes, enough for 2-3 people)

• 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup whole-wheat flour, or ½ cup more all-purpose flour
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 large egg
• 1 cup buttermilk (or substitute, see below)
• 2 tablespoons canola or other neutral oil, plus more for cooking
• Butter and maple syrup (duh)

Instructions:

1. Sift the flour into a medium bowl and add the other dry ingredients (sugar, salt, baking powder and baking soda).
2. In a large bowl, whisk the egg then add the buttermilk and oil and stir well.
3. Add the flour mix into the buttermilk and stir until just combined. Then let it rest a few minutes.
4. Heat your griddle over medium heat. After 5 minutes, add a pat of butter and a tablespoon of the oil.  Tilt griddle so fat is evenly distributed.
5. Add the batter in ¼ cup circles and do not let them touch. Cook for 2 minutes on each side until golden brown.
6. Add more butter and oil in between batches.
7. Serve hot with butter and syrup of your choice.

Tips and tricks:

• For a substitute buttermilk, take one cup regular milk and add one tablespoon white vinegar or lemon juice, and let it sit for ten minutes. It should thicken and curdle slightly.  That’s a good thing!  Here is a full recipe.
• Knowing when to flip is the hard part. I usually look for bubbles and a slight hardening of the edges.
• Adding a little oil to the butter for cooking will retard the butter from burning and turning your pancakes a darker color than may be desirable (see photos below for the difference).

Hello Friends!

Apologies for our extended absence… the holidays have been very time consuming this year!

We’ve been doing a lot of cooking of course.  I made a killer tiramisu as well as a fantastic kale minestrone and passable chicken cacciatore.  Whipped out a chicken with roasted winter vegetables last night.  And tonight I am reprising my famous steak and ale pie, this time replacing the stout with a porter to see how that works.

And to offset all the rich food we’ve been eating this season, I’ve been making a family favorite – sukiyaki.  Sukiyaki is a marvelous, old-fashioned Japanese dish that is healthy, flavorful and very easy to make.  I first taught an ex-girlfriend how to make it, and her family still loves it although they forget the name – they just call it “Japanese noodle thingy.”  It’s a good winter dish as well since it has winter vegetables and has a lovely steaming effect – like a warm, exotic chicken soup.

A few words about ingredients – you can usually substitute pretty much any vegetable you have in your pantry as long as you understand how long it takes to cook.  The version I make (which apparently is Western-style Sukiyaki as opposed to Eastern-style) involves sautéing the ingredients before braising them, so you need to know what order to add the items.  The version I make also eschews the traditional mix of sake, mirin and dashi (a fish- and seaweed-based broth that is wonderful but also difficult to make) in favor of a more simple mix of dry sherry, soy, sugar and beef broth.  Also, do watch the salt on this – try to use low sodium with your soy sauce and broth if using.  Finally, not all sukiyaki recipes include noodles, but the cellophane noodles really do make this dish fun – they soak up the sauce and add a playful element when trying to eat them.

Finally, a note about cooking technique.  Unlike stir fries, the goal with sukiyaki is to keep each ingredient one place in the cooking pot.  In large part, this is to make the pot more attractive, but it also allows you to pick and choose which items to serve yourself.

Ingredients:

• 8 ounces steak (well marbled, ribeye is good), sliced very thinly, marinated in a little sugar and sesame oil
  • Or 8 ounces salmon, cut into ¾ inch strips
• 8 ounces firm tofu, cut into ¾ inch cubes
• 5 ounces button mushrooms, cut into quarters
• 1 small package cellophane (mung bean) noodles
• 4-5 ounces fresh spinach (or frozen spinach – just don’t used the chopped stuff)
• ½ white or red onion, thinly sliced (or 4 green onions, cut into 1 inch pieces)
• 1-2 tablespoons canola or other neutral oil
• A few ounces of other veggies if you like (good ones to try: carrot, radish, bamboo shoots), sliced thinly

Sauce:

• ¼ cup low-sodium light soy sauce
• ¼ cup dry sherry
• 1-2 tablespoons sugar, agave or honey
• ¼ cup low-sodium beef broth (optional – can replace with chicken stock or a little water)

Recipe:

1. Cut all your veggies and make the cooking sauce.
2. Soak the cellophane noodles in hot (tap, not boiling) water.
3. Heat a very large sauté pan or Dutch oven over medium heat. Add your oil and heat until hot.
4. Add onion and sauté a couple minutes until starting to get soft – do not let them brown. Push into one place in the pot.  (If using green onions, add after the meat rather than before)
5. Add beef (or salmon) and sauté, separately from the onion, until pink color just disappears. Push into one place in the pot (next to the onions).
6. Add mushrooms (or other veggies) and sauté separately for 2 minutes, then push into another place in the pot.
7. Add tofu, sauté for 2 minutes, then push into another place in the spot.
8. Add the spinach into the last open space.
9. Add the softened noodles to the top then pour the sauce over the whole dish.
10. Cover and simmer for ten minutes.
11. Serve straight from the pot, with some steamed rice and a salad. And beer or sake if you so choose.

A few tips:

• The thinner you slice the steak, the better. One handy tip is to put the steak in the freezer for an hour then slice it while partially frozen.
• Marinating the meat in a little sugar and either soy or sesame oil for 10-15 minutes adds a nice complexity to the meat.
• I like to be sure that the noodles have absorbed the sauce and completely turned brown, so you may need to stir the noodles into the sauce a bit.
• I like this dish a little sweeter (2 tablespoons sugar) but your taste may differ. You can add sugar or honey at the end and stir if you like.
• You can substitute chicken broth for the beef broth.
• When using salmon, be sure to keep it cooking with the skin side down. And do avoid overcooking – it really just needs a nice sear on the bottom and then it will finish cooking by steaming.

Hello Friends.

Last week we were ensconced in the fair city of Oakland, California and thought it would be a good idea to check out the restaurant scene there.  Oakland has been a popular place in recent years for enterprising restauranteurs to set up shop in a less costly real estate market than outrageous San Francisco.  Many San Francisco restaurants have set up Oakland outposts (e.g., District, Ozumo, and one our favorites, A16, where we actually prefer the spacious and bright Oakland outpost to its cramped SF Marina flagship).  Not all of these have succeeded – Ozumo closed after a short stint in Oakland’s uptown – but by and large Oakland has a dynamic, varied restaurant scene, and we were excited to try out some old favorites as well as some newer entries.

First up, an oldie – A Coté.  A Coté is on College Avenue in Rockridge. It’s sometimes classified as a Mediterranean restaurant, but it’s not – it’s pure French bistro, adapted for a small plates approach.  As you’ll see on the menu:

We opted for the following dishes:

• Baby Red Oak Salad
• Crispy Calamari and Chickpeas
• Antipasto
• Pancetta Wrapped Coho Salmon

I also had a “Queen of Thorns” cocktail.  Someone there is obviously a Game of Thrones fan.

A Coté is a lovely restaurant with a delightful covered back patio.  We recommend eating out there.

The salad was simple but very refreshing.  I do enjoy the French way of handling salad dressings – merely a slippery coat on the lettuce leaves, rather than an overpowering, omnipresent glop.  The antipasto was a true delight – flavorful teleme cheese served room temperature (thank you) and soft, sweet roasted balsamic figs.  We ate half the plate before remembering to take a picture (oops).

The second courses were not quite as successful.  The calamari was over-breaded and a bit overcooked.  The pancetta wrapped salmon was, quite frankly, an abomination.  The bacon was undercooked, almost raw, and the salmon overcooked.  Moreover, it was plated on top of a very sweet root vegetable hash. I suppose the attempt here was to have the salty pancetta play off the sweet hash, but in no way does salmon belong with something sweet like this.  I suppose there is a reason why we don’t see bacon wrapped salmon on many menus – it must be difficult to cook them together.

Next up, a brand new entry to College Avenue: Duchess.

Duchess attempts to bring Japanese food into a kind of fancy bar-menu approach, and I do quite like the concept.  Japanese flavors and techniques really play well in a variety of concepts. Here is the menu:

We tried a variety of dishes this evening:

• Fried Chicken
• Ocean Trout
• Duck Confit
• Short Rib

The fried chicken and short rib were revelations – the former was crunchy with playful contrasts of sweet and sour, and the latter short rib was succulent, tender and rich.  The duck confit was a misstep – as you’ll see, there was very little on the plate (can you even find the duck???), and the confit had been radically overcooked until it became almost a duck-based millionaire’s bacon.  Now, I love millionaire’s bacon, and I love duck. But this was chewy, dry and awful – and, as the old joke goes, such a small portion!  The ocean trout seemed like it had been replaced with salmon – although, to be fair, the products are quite similar, and the salmon / trout was much better than A Coté’s.

For dessert, we opted for a panna cotta, served with something described as “strawberry tartar” which, aside from the obvious question “isn’t strawberry normally served raw?”, here appeared to resemble two raspberries.  There was also a lovely chocolate mousse under a chocolate shell.

Next up – Camino.  Camino is the Grand Lake district and aims for California cuisine and a California approach.  It’s one of the “no tipping” restaurants, which is an interesting concept I’ll write more about later.  The restaurant is very attractive inside:

And here is the menu:

We opted for several dishes that we shared:

• Cucumber and herb salad
• Fire-roasted pepper, eggplant and kohlrabi salads
• Oven-baked ling cod
• Grilled artichokes and chickpeas
• Grilled pan di zucchero with tomato confit

You’ll see we avoided the “main courses” which were pretty expensive. I also had a calvados cocktail.

The salads were quite simple and small.  The pepper and eggplant salad was served with a flatbread that we thought was actually stale.  The roasted pepper was simply presented, and the cucumber was, well, honestly anyone could prepare this dish.  Cut up some cucumber and parsley, and serve with greek yogurt.

The second dishes were a little more interesting.  The ling cod was salty and soft, with a nice piece of soft, non-stale flatbread with it.  The pan di zucchero (like a bitter chicory leaf) with tomato confit was well presented – although I have to say the tomato confit was not confit-like at all – more like a gently stewed tomato.  Apparently, the folks in Oakland do not know what confit actually means.  Here is a helpful link, y’all.

All in all, Camino seemed like an amateurish effort – almost like everyone was in culinary school and just learning the basics.  I would skip this place – for the price, you can get much more interesting and delicious food at other places nearby.

Finally, for weekend brunch, we went to an old standby – Rockridge Café.  Wow, how I love this place.  It is as unpretentious as can be, with a diverse menu for brunch with reasonable prices (for Oakland, anyway).

We got the  Eggs Hemingway and the Citrus Zest Ricotta Special.  The Eggs Hemingway had the spiciest hollandaise I’ve ever had.  Phenomenal.  And the ricotta pancakes – well, you must order these if you come here.  Somehow by adding ricotta cheese to pancake batter they come out lighter and fluffier than any pancakes you’ve ever had.  And served with a bright citrus sauce is the perfect way to have them – although they are also quite good with the standard maple syrup.

So, to recap – Duchess and Rockridge Café are definite wins for dinner and brunch respectively, while A Coté is a borderline call and Camino is, sadly, a no.  Hopefully I’ve saved you a bad meal if you live in the Oakland area or find yourself exiled, as we did, while painters mucked about our apartment for a week.

Finally, we were in Oakland during the worst of the Napa/Sonoma fires and we are just heartbroken about the damage and loss in an area we just love to visit.  Such wonderful people up there deserve better than this tragedy.  Hopefully we’ll make a visit up there soon to check out how things are rebuilding.  Stay tuned, and happy eating!

Hello Friends!

As word of our food blog spreads, we’ve started to get requests.  This week we were asked for simple family dishes made with chicken breasts.

Ah, the lowly boneless, skinless chicken breast.  Ever the conundrum.  Flavorless, rubbery, dry, tough.  Just boring.  I’ve already revealed my secrets for an amazing Kung Pao Chicken.  Now let’s try something more simple – just pan sautéed chicken breast with a pan sauce.

Pan sauces are super easy – but there are ways to mess them up.  There are a couple keys – first, is to be sure to properly season your meat and make sure it is thin.  Second is develop a nice fond and properly deglaze.  And finally one needs to know how to thicken a sauce without it breaking.  I’ll take you through these steps with one of the simplest pan sauces – marsala.

Chicken marsala is not in the least bit Italian, sorry.  It was probably invented by the English, who just love sweet wines like marsala (from Sicily), sherry and port.  The ingredients are simplicity itself:

Chicken Marsala

Ingredients:

• 1 ½ pounds boneless, skinless chicken breast
• All-purpose flour
• 1 cup sweet marsala wine
• ½ cup chicken stock
• 5 ounces sliced mushrooms (white or cremini are fine)
• 2-3 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 1-2 teaspoons cornstarch
• Salt and pepper
• 1 tablespoon chopped parsley

Instructions:

1. First, butterfly the chicken breasts (see photos below). Then put plastic wrap under and over each piece and gently POUND the chicken breasts until they are even size.
2. Mix about ½ cup of flour with a tablespoon salt and 1/2 tablespoon black pepper. Gently coat each chicken breast piece in the seasoned flour and set aside (or use the plastic bag technique – see below).
3. Heat the oil in a skillet over medium-high heat. Sauté pieces of the chicken – about 2 minutes each side, until slightly golden brown.  Don’t overcrowd – will probably need two batches.  Remove to a plate when done.
4. Add a little more oil and sauté the mushrooms for a 3-4 minutes until slightly softened. Remove to a bowl.
5. To the hot pan, add the marsala wine and gently scrape the pan to loosen the fond. Once the alcohol has burned off, add the chicken stock and cook for 3-4 minutes.
6. Mix the cornstarch with a little chicken stock into a slurry. Add about ½ of it to the pan and cook for a couple minutes to see if the sauce has thickened to a consistency you like.  Feel free to add more slurry to get it just right.  Season with salt and pepper to taste.
7. Add the chicken and coat with the sauce. Then add the mushrooms and cook 2-3 minutes.
8. Serve with polenta, potatoes or pasta. Sprinkle with parsley.

Tips and tricks:

• As with all simple recipes, technique is key. The secret to juicy chicken breast is to get in even, thin pieces and don’t cook them too long.  They won’t be undercooked if sliced and/or pounded thin – I promise.  I usually butterfly the breast first – simply put your knife on the side where the breast is thickest, hold the breast with your other hand, and then slice through until almost (but not completely through):

• Easy way to flour meat – just put flour and your seasonings in a plastic bag, add your meat, tie it off then SHAKE, BABY, SHAKE. Coats them perfectly. Then just toss the bag when you’re done.

• Most recipes don’t use nearly enough marsala. Go nuts – you probably won’t use it for anything else anyway.  And it’s great at deglazing:

• Cornstarch slurry is the secret way to thicken pan sauces. A lot of recipes add butter at the end.  DON’T do it.  Butter takes time to emulsify in a hot, stock based sauce – and adding butter at the end risks the sauce breaking if you heat it too much.  Save the butter for your polenta or potatoes.

• I usually check to see when I can run my spatula across the bottom and see the pan — that’s when I know a sauce is the right thickness.

• I forgot to sauté the mushrooms so I just added them to the sauce. It turned out just fine!

Hello Friends!

Thanks for your patience, everyone – we had a couple weekends where we had obligations other than cooking and doing restaurant reviews… but we’ll have a few posts going up over the next week or so.

We’re going to continue our journey through the amazing cookbook Jerusalem by London chefs Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi.  Last time we did a delicious vegetable dish – Mr. Ottolenghi’s specialty – but now we look at how they tackle meat dishes.  The cookbook tackles all sorts of meat – chicken, beef and lamb mostly (not pork, for obvious reasons).  But we’ll start with a meat that is very difficult to really make delicious – turkey.

We all see those packages of ground turkey in the stores, but we’ve all also had very sad ground turkey dishes, haven’t we?  Tasteless turkey burgers, dry turkey meatloaf, dense turkey meatballs.  Because ground turkey doesn’t have much fat – and, let’s be honest, much flavor – it takes some creativity to make it juicy and flavorful.  Turns out the solutions to the fat/flavor deficits are (1) vegetables and (2) herbs.  And lots of them.  Later I’ll post Jerusalem’s revolutionary take on the beef meatball in a later post.  Here, we’ll look at the use of zucchini.

Zucchini (a/k/a courgettes, summer squash) are funny vegetables and, frankly, not one of my favorites.  I find it often tasteless, starchy and bitter.  Then I discovered WHITE zucchini (a/k/a courgettes blanches – peut-etre).  Revelation.  More tender, less bitter – almost sweet.  They do tend to be smaller and thicker, but now I use white zucchini in all recipes that call for the regular, dark green ones.

The trick with these “burgers” – really, flat meatballs – is that they are quite delicate and fall apart if not treated gently.  I strongly recommend using a non-stick skillet – using a regular pan turns these into turkey-zucchini sloppy joes.  I recommend trying to keep these the same thickness throughout, even at the edges.  And you must make the delicious sauce that goes with it – I think if the Halal Guys have shown us anything, is that truly extraordinary Middle-Eastern food requires some variety of WHITE SAUCE.

Let’s cook!

Ingredients:

The Burgers/Meatballs:

• 1 pound ground turkey (regular, not all breast meat)
• 1 large zucchini or two small white zucchini, grated (not too finely)
• 1 egg
• 3 green onions, thinly sliced
• 2 cloves crushed garlic
• 2 tablespoons chopped mint
• 2 tablespoons chopped cilantro
• 1 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1 teaspoon salt
• ½ teaspoon black pepper
• ½ teaspoon cayenne pepper

The White Sauce:

• ½ cup sour cream (low fat is fine) – OK to omit if you don’t have
• 2/3 cup Greek yogurt (low fat or fat-free is fine)
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice
• 1 teaspoon grated lemon zest
• 1 clove crushed garlic
• 1 ½ tablespoons olive oil
• 1 tablespoon sumac (or 1 teaspoon sweet paprika)
• ½ teaspoon salt
• A couple turns of black pepper

Instructions:

1. Make the burgers by combining all the ingredients and mixing by hand. The burgers should be pretty small and not too thin – try to make them even widths all the way to the edges. [See photo].  Put a paper towel on top of them while you do other steps – moisture is the enemy of a good burger.
2. Make the sauce by combining all the ingredients.
3. Preheat the over to 425 degrees. Get out a baking sheet and put parchment or waxed paper on it.
4. Pour 5-6 tablespoons of oil (canola or vegetable – NOT olive oil) in a NON-STICK skillet and put over medium-high heat.
5. Fry the burgers (about 2 minutes each side) in small batches. Get them nice and brown on both sides (see photo below).  When done, put on the parchment paper.
6. When you’re done frying them, your oven should be ready so put the burgers in the over and bake them for 7 minutes.
7. Remove and serve with the sauce and a salad of your choice.

A few handy tips:

• As noted, moisture is the enemy of getting a nice brown crust, so feel free to use paper towels to dry the burgers before you GENTLY put them into the oil.
• Do not overcrowd the burgers. You need room to flip them with your spatula, and overcrowding also cools down the oil so you don’t get a nice crust.
• Sumac is a really lovely spice – tart and herbal – but feel free to omit and put some paprika or another mild herb of your choice. Cumin or coriander would be nice.  I think a little red pepper on top makes it look pretty.
• Zest your lemon before you juice it. Seems obvious, but I forget all the time.
• Use fresh herbs. I like to chop some of the rest and put it in the salad.
• I usually make about 14-16 burgers with this amount.  Here is what they look like before cooking:

Hello friends!

It’s restaurant review time.  This week, we walked down the street to Maven, our local small plates cocktail bar in the lower Haight.  Maven has been open at this location since 2010, and I’ve lived in the neighborhood long enough to remember the fantastic restaurant RNM that previously occupied its location on Haight and Steiner.

The lower Haight is one of those infamous gentrifying neighborhoods in San Francisco (and becoming more common across the U.S.).  It’s always been a strange neighborhood, with a mixture of students, young professionals, and layabouts.  When RNM opened in this location in the early 2000’s, it’s fair to say that it wasn’t a great fit for the neighborhood, which favored less upscale fare and more casual eateries.  This is the street that has Toronado pub and Rosamunde sausage grill, so beer and hot dogs pretty much set the standard. RNM lasted a few blissful years, then closed and the space was taken over by Maven.

The space has a small bar on the right side with a staircase in the back to a stylish upper lounge area.  On this day, with temperatures in the 100s, we opted for a spot at the communal tables on the main floor.

Communal tables. You either love them or hate them.  In theory, they facilitate conversations between people who didn’t know each other before the evening started, but in practice most couples just stick to themselves.  I often strike up conversations with neighboring tables – particularly if they get something spectacular while we’re deciding what to order – but somehow the communal table makes this seem an imposition.

Let’s have a look at the menu:

Here is what we ordered:

Food:

Herb Marinated Shrimp

Grilled Cheese Sandwich

Chinatown Duck Sliders

Blistered Romano Beans

Drinks:

Zelda Fitzgerald

5 Spot

The Bad Hombre

Hometown Vixen

First round:

The Zelda Fitzgerald (left) and the 5 Spot (right).  The Zelda was immensely refreshing on a hot day, like spiked lemonade with a slight anise seed flavor; perfectly balanced.  The 5 Spot was also refreshing – reminiscent of a sidecar – but I didn’t get strong basil or five spice powder notes.

Now the first round of the food:

Herb Marinated Shrimp (left) and the grilled cheese (right).  The shrimp were served on a bed of corn puree, topped with a light tomato cracker, and abutted by fried shishito peppers.  So I kinda get what they’re going for here – sweetness of the corn offset by the spiciness of the chilis.  But the shrimp were horribly overcooked – tough and rubbery.  And the tomato cracker offered little flavor or texture – it just fell apart into mush when bitten into.  This was notably the most expensive of the small plates.

In contrast, the grilled cheese was perfect.  The bread was crispy on the outside and tender on the inside, the cheese tangy and melted just right, with a welcome, slight tang from a pickled pepper puree.  And not greasy in the least.  Maybe not the best I’ve ever had, but close.

Second round:

We ordered The Bad Hombre (left) and then the Hometown Vixen (right).  In fact, I ordered The Bad Hombre, and then the waitress was kind enough to exchange it for the Vixen.  The Bad Hombre was, I think, an experiment in how many bold flavors can we throw into a glass and have it still be drinkable.  The clove studded orange peel made me think it would be a spicy old-fashioned type cocktail, but instead it plays off a bizarre contrast of sweet Armagnac and caustic Mescal – France by way of Mexico, I suppose.  It didn’t work.  Mezcal doesn’t play well with sweet flavors and strong spices – it needs tartness and saltiness in most cases.  A noble effort, but it was not pleasant, and the waitress knew it sometimes is not well received.  The Hometown Vixen was much more refreshing, although I just tasted bourbon and orange.  Pistachio is too subtle a flavor to survive in a cocktail I think.

Second round of food:

The Chinatown Duck Sliders (left) and the Blistered Romano Beans (right).  Honestly, I didn’t know what Romano beans were.  They looked like what the British call runner beans.  Thick pods with large tender beans inside, they were nicely cooked to be just soft enough – with a potently mustardy vinaigrette – and bits of crispy garlic.  Very nice small plate.  The Chinatown sliders were a bit odd – rich and yet a bit dry at the same time.  They could have used a little sauce or something tart.  Nonetheless, they were wonderfully filling.

So, what to say of Maven?  It’s not a sit-down restaurant where you will linger over your meal for two hours.  Put if you want a couple clever drinks and some seriously elevated bar food, this may even be worth a trip to the lower Haight.  Just follow it up with a nice ice cream at Three Twins or Powder.

Happy Eating!

Hello friends!

It’s summer in San Francisco, so time for a rich, comforting dinner to warm our fog-chilled bones.  We’re going British today – yes, the fine cuisine of the British Isles, home of such delicacies as fried bread, brown sauce and bubble and squeak.

Many jokes and anecdotes abound on the subject of British cuisine.  Visiting England as a child, I don’t have particularly bad memories of it, but that’s because my parents knew where it was safe to eat in the U.K. – fish and chip places near the coast, good local pubs and Indian restaurants.  I did once try Steak and Kidney Pie – I ate around the kidneys.  But this is also the country that eats ice cream without any dairy and believes a single leaf of wilted lettuce added to a sandwich makes it a “salad sandwich.”  To be fair, Britain lived through unimaginable food shortages and rationing during and after WWII, so food’s main function, as my mum would say, was for many years simply to “fill a hole.”

I’ve returned to London several times in recent years, and the food scene is unrecognizable now. Trendy gastropubs, stylish Korean noodle houses, Spanish tapas and wine bars, and even upscale English restaurants offering stylized reinterpretations of British classics like potted trout and sticky toffee pudding.  (One has to admit that the English have a way of naming their dishes in ways that are descriptive to a fault.)  London is a great food city today, thanks in many ways to the immigrants from all over the world who have made it home (a fact that may cause some consternation given the political situation there now).  But traditional British food has also seen a resurgence, thanks in no small part to a quaint baking competition that has received Super Bowl-like ratings in the U.K.

Steak and ale pie can be found, in one variety or another, in pubs all over England.  It’s not subtle cuisine, but can be wonderfully comforting and filling.  It is usually served with a vegetable or two of some kind to reach the quintessential British goal of having “a meat and two veg” at every meal.  One would think that there’s not much to this dish.  But au contraire – debate rages on-line over the details: what type of crust to use and how much, what type of ale is best, what vegetables to add and when.  After trial and error, I believe the answers are, as follows: puff or rough puff pastry (but only on top), stout, and carrots but only towards the end.  But do I cheat and use store bought pie crust?  Yes, yes, I do.

This recipe is inspired by Jamie Oliver’s, but why he adds the vegetables at the beginning, I haven’t the foggiest.

Steak and Ale Pie

Ingredients:

• 2 pounds chuck steak (or similar well-marbled cut)
• ¼ cup white flour
• Canola oil
• 1 large red onion
• 4 ounces bacon (about 3 slices)
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 1 bottle of dark ale or stout
• 2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
• 2 tablespoons tomato paste
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 2 teaspoons dried thyme
• 1 cup beef broth (reduced sodium)
• 3-4 medium carrots, chopped coarsely
• 1-2 teaspoons cornstarch (optional)
• 1 egg
• 8 ounces sharp white cheddar, coarsely shredded
• 1 sheet frozen puff pastry or pie crust

Instructions:

1. Cut the steak into 1 to 1 ½ inch cubes.
2. Heat 2 tablespoons canola oil in a Dutch oven over high heat.
3. Toss the steak with the flour and add 1/3 of the meat to the hot pan.
4. Cook on both sides about two minutes each side until browned. Remove to a bowl, then add 1 tablespoon oil and repeat with the next 1/3 of the steak
5. Repeat step 4 with the final 1/3 of the steak.
6. Preheat the oven to 300 degrees.
7. Add the onion and the bacon. Reduce to medium heat and cook until onions and bacon are browned, about 8-10 minutes.
8. Add the garlic and stir for 1 minute.
9. Add ½ cup of the beef and stir and scrape to loosen the browned bits on the bottom (that’s the flavor!). Let simmer until reduced – usually 2-3 minutes.
10. Add the tomato paste, Worcestershire sauce, sugar, and thyme.
11. Add the remainder of the beer and the beef broth. Stir in the browned beef and bring to a simmer.  Add pepper to taste and taste for salt.
12. Cover and put the Dutch oven in the 300 degree oven and cook for 1 ½ hours, stirring after each half hour.
13. Remove the Dutch oven from the oven and put over a medium heat flame.
14. Add the carrots, stir, and cook for 5 minutes.
15. If the sauce isn’t thickened, add the cornstarch and stir in. What you want is a nice thick gravy.
16. Increase oven to 375 degrees.
17. Add one half of the beef to a deep oven safe loaf pan or casserole. You want something that the pie crust that you bought can easily cover.
18. Add ½ of the shredded cheese. Repeat with the remainder of the beef and the remainder of the cheese on top.
19. Cover the pie with your pie crust, and pinch the edges to seal it in. Use a knife to make a pattern in the top, making sure there is a way for steam to escape.
20. Whisk your egg then get a pastry brush and brush the egg wash over the crust.
21. Bake for 30 minutes until golden brown.
22. Take out of the oven and let cool 5-10 minutes before serving. Serve with a green vegetable and a strong beer.

Some tips:

• As always, be sure the beef is well browned, and don’t crowd the pan. I promise it is worth the extra effort.
• Watch the salt on this one. With bacon, Worcestershire sauce and beef broth, a lot of salt finds its way in there. Reduced sodium beef broth is a good choice.

Hello Friends!

This week we’re going to simplify things a little, and we’ll go meatless as well.  Some of you know I’ve been a huge fan of the cookbook Jerusalem by Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamami, two London-based chefs who hail from… wait for it… Jerusalem.  It’s a beautiful cookbook, but more importantly, the recipes are truly outstanding – and are not beyond the skills of most home cooks.  But sometimes the recipes call for hard to find ingredients and the instructions can get a bit fussy (as is common in cookbooks by professional chefs).  This is a shame because it potentially scares away too many people from even trying to get to the glorious results.  So let’s take on the first recipe in this cookbook and see how easy this can be!

We’re in the middle of summer as I write this, and fresh figs are everywhere and on sale.  Figs are bizarre little fruits really – try looking up how they have been fertilized for 30 million years sometime.  They are both familiar and exotic to us in the West, mostly consumed in Newton form until recently.  I don’t think I ever saw a fresh fig growing up in the Midwest; you native Californians out there probably ate them in your lunch boxes.

This recipe plays on the classic combination of fig, goat cheese and balsamic vinegar.

Middle Eastern-Style Sweet Potatoes and Figs with Goat Cheese

Ingredients:

• Two large sweet potatoes, cleaned
• 6-8 ripe figs (any kind – Black Mission are fine)
• 4 tablespoons balsamic vinegar (the regular stuff, not the expensive stuff)
• 1 ½ tablespoons sugar
• 1 fresh chili (red or green – jalapeño), very thinly sliced cross-wise
• 6 green onions, sliced into 1-inch pieces
• 1 five-ounce hunk of plain goat cheese
• Olive oil
• Salt and pepper

Instructions:

1. Pre-heat the oven to 450 degrees.
2. Make wedges out of the sweet potatoes: halve them cross-wise, then halve them three times length-wise so you get little eighths. No need to peel the potatoes beforehand!
3. Put the potatoes in a roasting pan. Mix with three tablespoons olive oil, 2 teaspoons salt and a few turns of black pepper.  Turn them over so they are skin side down and not touching.
4. Roast potatoes for 20-25 minutes, until just tender but not mushy. Let them cool a bit before serving.
5. While these are baking, put the balsamic vinegar and the sugar in a small saucepan and heat over medium heat until just boiling. Reduce the heat to low and stir frequently so the sugar dissolves and the vinegar thickens to just slightly less runny than honey – should take 3-4 minutes.  (The goal here is to have it perfect consistency for drizzling, like maple syrup).  Take off the heat – it will thicken more as it cools.
6. Heat two tablespoons oil in a small skillet over medium heat. Add the onions and chilies, and stir fry until just tender – 4-5 minutes.
7. Arrange the cooled potatoes on a platter and spoon the onion/chili mixture over them.
8. Slice the figs in half lengthwise. Place them around and amongst the sweet potatoes in whatever pattern you like.
9. Drizzle your balsamic reduction over everything. Add a little (a teaspoon, maybe) water to the reduction and stir if it is too thick to drizzle.
10. Crumble (or spoon small gobs of) goat cheese over the lot.

A few tips:

• I think I’m going to try maybe pickled red onions or something a little crunchier than sautéed green onions, which I don’t think add much here.
• When using green onions, I often halve the white parts lengthwise since they cook more slowly than the green parts,
• Serve this with a nice bread or even as a side with a roast beast of some kind.
• I always laugh when a recipe says to crumble goat cheese, which I think is physically impossible with one’s hands. Wipe hands thoroughly afterwards (or lick them, which I do).

Enjoy!  More recipes to come soon.

Bonjour nos amis!

This week we’re reviewing L’Ardoise, a neighborhood French bistro that we have been meaning to try for some time.  Hopefully the words “French bistro” don’t have you running for the hills (or the electronic equivalent…).  A bistro is just a small restaurant that serves simple, traditional food – supposedly at a modest price.  But we’ve seen “bistros” serving $50 steak frites where the word “bistro” is really humble-bragging – and where the prices belie a restaurateur’s grander ambitions and cost structure.  So let’s see if L’Ardoise is a real bistro or a wolf in rack of lamb’s clothing.

We had Saturday night reservations, and the little restaurant was full but not too crowded.  There was a VERY tight squeeze to get to the back of the restaurant – it’s a long, narrow space, covered in dark wood and French touches.

Our waiter had a French accent, and the vibe was very French.

Let’s have a look at the menu:

This is a very nice, small menu, a bit oddly ordered – note the cheese plate is listed WAY at the bottom when it probably should be at the top with the appetizers.  But on retrospect this made a bit of sense – in Europe, the cheese course is usually at the end of the meal, not at the beginning (which works better if you think about it – why have something so rich to whet your appetite for the entrée?).  Prices are all over the place, ranging from $17 for risotto to $42 for rack of lamb.  42 bucks is a little steep for a bistro, but there were some more reasonably priced options to choose from.

We ordered the following:

• Charcuterie plate with homemade pates
• Seafood and shellfish Cassolette, Lobster Reduction Sauce
• Bistro Coq au Vin in a Red Wine Sauce with Mashed Potatoes, Bacon, Pearl Onion

We also had some sparkling water.  We are now going to rave about the sparking water.  Yes, we are. This is what it looked like:

Perhaps we’ve been drinking La Croix, Sodastream and Trader Joe’s sparkling water too long, but this Badoit water seemed to us like the most delicious sparkling water we’ve ever had.  The bubbles were very tiny and just tickled the palate on the way down, rather than those waters that explode on your tongue.  We may even buy some of this for home… well, it’s a bit pricy for just WATER, but we’ll think about it.  Apparently, this is the main rival of Perrier in France – no contest, in our opinion.

The charcuterie plate was served very simply, with a delightful variety of olives and a rich, sweet onion jam.  There were also caper berries.  Stay away from the caper berries (unless you happen to like them, in which case we say – please eat them all so we don’t have to!).  The pates were pretty good – the one with rosemary on the left was the best.  They were indeed house made, and so a little bit chunky, but thankfully mild flavored.  The other charcuterie items were fine but nothing special.

BREAD.  So here is the bread basket.

It was filled TWICE during our meal, before it ever got empty and before we had to ask.  I call that STELLAR bread service.  And I adore French bread, so this delighted me.  My low carb diet was not quite as amused.

Here are the entrees – first, the Coq au Vin:

I believe I have never seen Coq au Vin served with spinach on top.  Not sure it added much, but it looked like half their entrees are served with mashed potatoes and spinach.  They gave me two chicken thighs, as you’ll see.  The sauce was velvety and just the right amount of rich fattiness and salt.  Personally, I like to throw in a splash of red wine later in the cooking to give the dish some acidity and brighten the color, and I wished they’d done the same here.  But there were lots of perfectly cooked mushrooms (really, that’s a hard feat), but maybe a couple pearl onions that had cooked down to almost mush.  And the tender chicken easily slid off the bone when merely prodded by my knife.

My Darling ordered a very rich seafood stew.

“Cassolette” apparently means a small casserole, but I was corrected by the waiter when I asked whether it was like a cassoulet – totally different dish, although similar word root.  Oops.  The cassolette had fish (sea bass, supposedly), shrimp and mussels.  The mussels were cooked perfectly – still tender, not rubbery.  The fish would have fallen off the bone if bone was present (it wasn’t).  The shrimp were slightly overcooked to our taste, but not tough.  The sauce was creamy and buttery (this is French cuisine – cream and butter are both used without restraint) but could have had more seafood flavor.

Desserts are written on a slate (une ardoise, bien sûr) in the restaurant – they offered a chocolate fondant cake, crème brulée, an apple tarte tatin, and a floating island.  We went with the island, and here it is:

I must admit – I was expecting something more like oeufs en neige so was surprised to see it looked like they had partially baked the meringue.  This made it a little chewy on the outside – almost like the crust to a white bread – although the inside meringue was still soft.  Reasonably nice sauce and very good strawberries.

For wine, we drank a half bottle of Chateauneuf-du-Pape – this little guy:

Highly recommend – a lovely balance of fruit and the restraint that is the hallmark of French wines.  Very food-friendly with the rich dishes that we had.

L’Ardoise really charmed us, despite the occasional missteps and quirks.  I suspect that they have a small kitchen and so are limited in what they can do.  The service was efficient and smooth – and of course the bread service was the bomb.  They’ve nailed the atmosphere – it feels like walking into a warm, dark French home, far away from the foggy San Francisco streets.  We wouldn’t say it’s worth crossing a bridge to go here, but as a neighborhood spot, we think every neighborhood should have one.