Wednesday, November 30, 2005
Suppli' al Telefono
I don't know about you guys, but I hate throwing away food. I even feel bad throwing away the white rice that comes with Chinese food. Not that it's any good the next day, but still, its a whole two cups of rice! And that's a lot of food...
All these food bloggers out there, many of which you have already seen me mention, will tell you about their great recipes for leftover rice, be it white rice or day old risotto, what have you. Adam makes a rice pudding with his leftover Chinese white rice, and Clotilde make rice cakes with leftover basmati. I, having just perused through my new Mario Batali cookbook, decided to make suppli' al telefono. These little guys are basically fried rice balls stuffed with some mozzarella cheese, and are very popular in Rome. They are called suppli' al telefono because when you bite them, the melted cheese flows out in a long string, like the wire that dangles from the receiver when you pick up the phone.
So with Mario's inspiration in my heart, to my carton of Chinese white rice I added fried onion and garlic (that I deglazed with white wine and some water in which I had soaked some dried porcini mushrooms), a whole lot of chopped Italian parsley, some parmigiano cheese, an egg or two and some salt and pepper. In another bowl, I chopped up some mozzarella cheese and the porcini mushrooms (which had soaked for about 20 minutes). Here is what the two mixtures looked like:
With wet hands, I scooped out some of the rice mixture, made an indent with my thumb, and stuffed in some of the cheese mixture. I rolled each into a ball, making sure the cheese was completely incased with the rice, sprinkled them with bread crumbs, and then added them (in phases) to a large saute pan in which I heated some olive oil. After browning on both sides, I transferred them to a plate lined with paper towel.
I ate them with some tomato sauce, and was a very very happy camper.
So the moral of the story is, there is always something you can make from your starchy leftovers. You can make a similar concoction with leftover mashed potatoes. You don't have to use mushrooms. You can do anything your want with them! Fried anything can never turn out badly. Trust.
Monday, November 28, 2005
Asian Persuasion
On December 6, Dine and Dish #5 will take place. The theme is ASIAN PERSUASION, and I'm supposed to eat anytime between now and Tuesday the 6th, write about it and email the link to The Delicious Life who will sum up everyone's experiences and link out to everyone else's posts by the 7th.
I have no clear direction on this yet, there are no real guidelines here, just "food and fun," but I'm sensing that perhaps some karaoke fun is to be had? With some chopsticks? I don't know. But I'm going to call out KA and ask for her assistance/guidance/inspiration. Particularly around the karaoke thing. It's a good excuse to hang out with her anyways, and....you know, maybe a step in the right direction to get over my stage fright. If I'm going to join a salsa dance company, I need to get over it, right?
Tuesday, November 22, 2005
Can I Taste?
It took me a while to compile all the ingredients I needed to make the dishes I had in mind, but the end result was well worth it. I made chicken chilaquiles with (from scratch) salsa verde and (freshly fried) corn tortillas. I made a red chile sauce from pasilla and California red chiles for enchiladas rojas. I made my own crema from sour and heavy cream. I even used the recipe for tres leches as inspiration for the cake I made last Thursday. And perhaps I will share these recipes.
But why do I tell you all this?
I don't know if you have noticed, but on the left sidebar, there is a column titled "On the Menu This Week." For those of you that come to my place for dinner and ask me for recipes, or who are jealous of the lunches I bring in from work, or who salivate due to my descriptions of the food I cooked recently, you should be checking here often for new recipes that I test out myself. They're for sharing with you, and they rock. Otherwise, I wouldn't post them for you. When you don't know what you feel like making and need some inspiration, check them out; I doubt they will disappoint.
Happy cooking!
Sunday, November 13, 2005
Barefoot Contessa's Shrimp Scampi
I never cook shrimp at home. Ever. I can't pinpoint why, but I know it has to do something with not always finding well-priced and fresh seafood, dealing with deveining the buggers, and fearing that I'll overcook them. But I gave it a shot the other day when I was looking for a new dish to prepare and came across Ina Garten's rendition of this favorite. I headed over to Your Dekalb Farmer's Market, and found that they sold some huge, deveined but shell-on shrimp, 14 count to a pound that cost about $14 in total. Excellent deal, in my opinion. And, it was even good as leftovers the next day!
Here's the recipe:
Vegetable oil
Kosher salt
3/4 pound linguine
3 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 1/2 tablespoons good olive oil
1 1/2 tablespoons minced garlic (4 cloves)
1 pound large shrimp (about 16 shrimp), peeled and deveined
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/3 cup chopped fresh parsley leaves
1/2 lemon, zest grated
1/4 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice (2 lemons)
1/4 lemon, thinly sliced in half-rounds
1/8 teaspoon hot red pepper flakes
Directions:
Drizzle some oil in a large pot of boiling salted water, add 1 tablespoon of salt and the linguine, and cook for 7 to 10 minutes, or according to the directions on the package. Meanwhile, in another large (12-inch), heavy-bottomed pan, melt the butter and olive oil over medium-low heat. Add the garlic. Saute for 1 minute. Add the shrimp, 1 1/2 teaspoons of salt, and the pepper and saute until the shrimp have just turned pink, about 5 minutes, stirring often. Remove from the heat, add the parsley, lemon zest, lemon juice, lemon slices, and red pepper flakes. Toss to combine. When the pasta is done, drain the cooked linguine and then put it back in the pot. Immediately add the shrimp and sauce, toss well, and serve.
That was, by the way, courtesy of the Barefoot Contessa Family Style cookbook that you can find at your local bookstore. Go buy it, you'll absolutely love it.
Saturday, November 12, 2005
ATL = No Fancy French Restaurants (Part II)
Last post, we left off right about during the time Maxine and I were about to take the F train to Delancy. It was about 2:30pm at that point, and we had tasted at least one of every kind of cookie in that one-pounder from Payard. Without having eating anything savory yet (due to the Hallo Berlin cart disappearance and our laziness to walk all the way to the Soup Nazi), we were looking forward to a change of pace, but first we needed to see what all the hoop-la about the Doughnut Factory was all about.
We finally found the hole-in-the-wall after a brisk walk through dreary drizzle-mist; you know, when it's not wet enough to open up an umbrella, but wet enough to frizz your hair? Anyways, we found the place and were immediately disappointed by the small rack of doughnuts that were for sale. None of the cool funky flavors advertised on the website were offered; only the standard vanilla glazed, chocolate, and unluckily enough, pumpkin. It turned out that the doughnut "flavors" are flavored by the glaze, and not by the batter. Huge disappointment. And at $2 a pop, way overpriced!
To further make our LES excursion a total flop, Gus's pickles was closed, and Il Laboratorio had no interesting gelato flavors. So we quickly made our way back up to W4th for our long anticipated doner kebab from Yatagan.
That is, by far, the hugest kebab rotisserie that I have ever seen in my entire life. But damn, was it good! Maxine and I placed our orders just before a bunch of people wandered into the joint, so we got the bestest crispy part of the meat. When we were done (and stuffed silly), we hopped back onto the subway and headed over to Milk & Cookies Bakery. This is what it looks like from the outside: 
It's a small place, a few chairs and tables, perfect for an NYU student needing some peace and quiet and cookies while preparing for an exam. We deduced that the draw here was the fact that you could have a batch of cookies specially made to order per your specifications; you pick a base (sugar, oatmeal, chocolate, etc), and then add in other ingredients (mint chips, raisins, peanut butter cups, etc). But if you don't live in the area, don't bother visiting Milk & Cookies. It's nothing to write home about.
At 5pm we had dessert reservations at Bouley, a fancy French restaurant off West Broadway. After killing some time at the bakery and market (of the same name) across the street, we walked into the establishment. In between in the heavy wooden main doors and the glass doors that open to the restaurant is this sort of ante-room, no larger than a closet, that is full of shelves of apples, floor to ceiling -- they give off the most wonderful smell! A very nice touch...
We were obviously underdressed for the occasion, me in jeans and a vest, Maxine in black funky pants and a sweater, but we were the first ones in the dining room, so no one (except our waiter/manager/matre d guy) noticed our attire. As we sat down, ordered our waters and received the first round of sneers from the aforementioned guy, I began to get really really self-conscious. Our guy came back to take our orders and almost had a heart attack when he found out we were only intending to have sweets, so when on top of that, we were served the savory amuse-bouche and were offered treats from the bread cart, we felt a bit guild tripped into ordering something from the dinner menu. And so we did -- a triple threat "salad" appetizer called "Panache of Three Salads: Roasted Foie Gras with a Fricassee of Cremini, Hen-of-the-Wood and Shiitake Mushrooms Satay of Scuba Dived Sea Scallop and Florida Shrimp with Fresh Bay Leaf Sauce" for a mere $25. It was absolutely fabulous, and we cleaned the plate. Had we been anywhere else, I'm sure we would have licked the plate so clean that no dishwashing would have been necessary.
Soon after, a dessert amuse was delivered to our tables; it was a concord grape "soup" with candied ginger and a creme fraiche ice-creamy substance that was actually one of the courses on the chef's tasting menu that night. At this point I was absolutely mortified, and our guy must have noticed my facial expression, since he assured me that this dish was "compliments of the chef." No other table that ordered a la carte was served this course, so Maxine and I knew that something was up. When our desserts were served (mine, "Butternut squash macaroons with toasted pumpkin seeds,pomegranatee granite, green tea and white chocolate ice cream" ($12) and Maxine's, "Chocolate banana tart with hot chocolate foam, crunchy pecan nuts, nutmeg tuille, banana and lemon-thyme sorbet" ($14)) our questions were finally answered. Our dude came to us and simple asked "so which of you are in the industry?"
We're still not sure how he came to this conclusion, knowing that we had some interest in dessert dining at Bouley. It could have been the fact that I was copying down the descriptions of the things we were ordering, or perhaps he noticed our very methodological approach to tasting the food, or something else. We still don't know, but all of a sudden he became our bestest friend when Maxine dropped some names and told him where she had worked. They began talking chefs in San Fran and Idon'tt know what else, but it was very fun. When we left, they even gave us lemon tea cakes to take home! It was a blast, and I've found my dream wedding caterer. Just don't tell my dad, he'll get a heart attack.
