A taste of what’s cooking on other food blogs

I’m always reading other food blogs. As we all do. So this week for my second post, I thought I’d share some of what I’ve found lately with you. Only instead of just relying on the bloggers in my blogroll [and do check them out if you haven’t already—they’re all great cooks and good reads], I thought I’d snoop around their blogrolls for some new inspiration. You know, kind of a culinary Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon [“Mmmmm, bacon!”]. So let’s get started. All photos in this post are by the respective bloggers, so blame them for any hunger pangs.

Black and White Cookies. These beauties from Danielle over at Habeas Brulee are what got this post started. Food can immediately stir up memories. Danielle calls them classic Brooklyn cookies and says, “The best part for me was offering them to my family, in honor of years of sharing black and white cookies bought from the deli downstairs at 26 Court Street in Brooklyn Heights.” In my case, the photo immediately transported me to Fairway Market on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, where Marion, daughter Laurel and I discovered them during a wonderful New York visit. And for me, that’s half the pleasure of these delights. I found Danielle thanks to Susan over at Food Blogga.

Flavorful Short Ribs. “Flavorful” indeed! These Asian-inspired short ribs from Katie over at Little Spatula [thanks, Kalyn from your eponymous Kitchen] combine orange juice, soy sauce, fresh ginger, red pepper flakes and slow cooking for what has to be a fall-apart tender, delicious meal. I’ve been toying with making some short ribs for a while—this dish just seriously tightened up the timelines. Continue reading “A taste of what’s cooking on other food blogs” →

Lemon Caper Butter: An elegantly simple sauce for fish and more

Lemon Caper Butter adds a lively, delicate finish to Sole Fillets—or cod or chicken breasts or turkey cutlets… Recipe below.

We all have certain little tricks, techniques and simple recipes up our sleeves—versatile weapons in our culinary arsenal we can turn to when we want to liven up or elevate a dish or a meal. A healthy sprinkle of herbes de Provence when roasting chicken, for instance, or [especially lately for me] whisking a little flour and butter together in a hot skillet to make a faux roux to thicken a sauce. Continue reading “Lemon Caper Butter: An elegantly simple sauce for fish and more” →

Small Bites: Dishing it up, second helpings and cleaning up after

The old adage that you “eat with your eyes” too is so ingrained in our collective mindset that you’ll find more than 12 million results for that phrase on Google. Whether you’re a home cook or a professional chef, chances are you’re always looking for ways to improve the visual appeal of your meals. And if you’re a food blogger, you’re always on the prowl for new dishes and accessories to mix it up in your photos.

New York magazine to the rescue! In a recent edition of Shop-A-Matic on their website, they featured an impressive 135 plates, bowls and assorted dishes, conveniently arranged by price. And most of these finds aren’t exclusive to New York; you’ll find them online and in-store at places like IKEA, Pier 1, CB2 and—in the case of the $8, 11-inch plate shown here—Urban Outfitters.

Second Helping: Arugula Salad with Peaches and Goat Cheese

Last year was a stellar one for peaches. And while they may not be quite as wonderful this year, peaches are still an iconic taste of summer. So before the season draws to a close, try this Arugula Salad with Peaches and Goat Cheese. It combines sweet, savory and creamy notes in a delicious, lively first course. A second helping from the Blue Kitchen archives, it was first posted in August 2007.

Stuff we like: Bon Ami

With all the new cleaning products available for the kitchen, one of our favorites has been around since 1886. Bon Ami, French for good friend, really is a good friend in the kitchen. The original Bon Ami Cleaning Powder, a blend of feldspar and soap, can be used on everything from windows to porcelain, tile and even nonstick surfaces.

Bon Ami Polishing Cleanser, the one we use, is a blend of biodegradable detergent and calcite and feldspar mineral abrasives. It’s perfect for tougher jobs, like “dried on splatters and spills, burned-on grease, baked-on food, and sticky messes,” according to the website. Whichever you choose, both labels proudly and rightly proclaim, “Hasn’t Scratched Yet!” We use the Polishing Cleanser on the stovetop, counters, pots and pans… just not on nonstick. Best of all, neither Bon Ami product contains chlorine, perfumes or dyes. Turns out they were green back when it was only a color.

Pasta with pecan pesto, pronto

Fresh basil, garlic and Parmesan pack plenty of flavor in this quick dish, perfect for weeknight suppers. Besides boiling water for pasta, the only cooking involved is pan toasting the pecans.

FOR THE SECOND YEAR IN A ROW, WE DIDN’T HAVE A GARDEN. That meant no fresh tomatoes, still warm from the sun. No fragrant fresh rosemary. And perhaps worst of all, no armloads of fresh basil to turn into delicious batches of pesto—some to be consumed immediately, some to be frozen in small zippered bags for a taste of summer in midwinter. Continue reading “Pasta with pecan pesto, pronto” →

The kitchen is open, again

Blue Kitchen has moved! After a long time planning, a few weeks of wrestling with code and more than a couple of major panic attacks, here I finally am.

And here you are! Welcome. You’ll find some new things here, but let’s start with what’s the same. It’s still me in the kitchen, with Marion occasionally filling in and making something wonderful. As always, you’ll find at least one new recipe each week, complete with the often convoluted stories they seem to inspire. All the old recipes are here too. You can find them in the Search box [as always] or in the Archives, which—okay, here’s something new—have a tab and page of their own now, up at the top.

So what else is new? Well, take a look to the right. There are now two sidebar columns with more links and resources for home cooks. Besides my blogroll of great cooks and entertaining writers, you’ll find expanded resources like links to online food magazines. You’ll also find a new section of links called Wine and Drink: Blogs and Resources. I’ve just gotten started here—this list will grow. As will the whole new site.

And each week, you’ll find two posts instead of one. I’ll start with a recipe post, of course. Most of you are here for the food. But directly below it, you’ll find another story, usually related to food, drink, health and other life matters. Sometimes, though, I may take off on some wildly divergent tangent.

So what’s missing? I’ve reluctantly pulled the plug on my two sidebar blogs, WTF? Random food for thought and What’s on the kitchen boombox? As much as I loved writing them, they just never got the kind of readership that warranted keeping them going. The second weekly post I mentioned above will pretty much take the place of WTF?, although in a more food-focused, less random sort of way. And every once in a while, when the right piece of music catches my ear, the kitchen boombox will turn up there. In the meantime, for the 2.3 loyal fans of these dear departed blogs, I’ve not deleted them. You’ll find links to them over to the right too.

So now what? Keep coming back. Bookmark this new site. Subscribe for RSS feeds or email updates. And watch for future tweaks and refinements—I’m just getting warmed up.

Photo credit: Walker Evans, Roadside stand near Birmingham, Alabama. 1936.

Moving day, chilled soup, cool borrowed memory

Creamy and unexpectedly chilled, watercress vichyssoise makes a cool first course for the last hot days of summer—or paired with a crusty bread, a satisfying light lunch. Recipe below.

It’s happened again! Summer is almost gone, and we’ve hardly gotten around to making any cold soups. Marion did make her refreshing gazpacho once—oh, and her sweet potato vichyssoise, always a hit, but usually reserved for Thanksgiving. But there were none of Marion’s delicious attempts at recreating the cold cucumber bisque we used to get at Café Balaban in St. Louis—she never matches our fading memories of it [it’s been years since we’ve had it or they’ve even served it—we recently learned, in fact, that Balaban’s has closed], but she always creates something summery and fresh. So when I saw a simple, authentic sounding recipe for vichyssoise over at Katie’s Thyme for Cooking, I had to give it a try.

One reason the idea of vichyssoise appealed to me, I have to admit, was the opening of Anthony Bourdain’s highly entertaining book Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly. He talks about his very first realization that food was more than mere fuel. Even though I read it back when it first came out in 2000, this passage stays with me:

My first indication that food was something other than a substance one stuffed in one’s face when hungry—like filling up at a gas station—came after fourth grade in elementary school. It was on a family vacation to Europe, on the Queen Mary, in the cabin-class dining room. There’s a picture somewhere: my mother in her Jackie O sunglasses, my younger brother and I in our painfully cute cruisewear, boarding the big Cunard ocean liner, all of us excited about our first transatlantic voyage, our first trip to my father’s ancestral homeland, France.

It was the soup.

It was cold.

As Bourdain explains, it was something of a discovery for someone whose entire experience with soup to this point had consisted of Campbell’s. Here’s how he describes that first taste of vichyssoise:

I remember everything about the experience: the way our waiter ladled it from a silver tureen into my bowl; the crunch of tiny chopped chives he spooned on as a garnish; the rich, creamy taste of leek and potato; the pleasurable shock, the surprise that it was cold.

Bourdain realizes that vichyssoise has become an old warhorse of a menu selection, but says the very name “still has a magical ring to it.” Good enough for me. I had to make some.

But first, I did a little reading. Turns out this most French-sounding soup was created in New York in 1917. By a Frenchman, though—Louis Diat, head chef at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel. He based it on a warm potato and leek soup, a classic French soup that he made from a recipe his mother had given him. Julia Child’s version of this traditional Potage Parmentier in Mastering the Art of French Cooking is simplicity itself. Of course, much of French cooking is deceptively, elegantly simple.

One variation on this basic soup includes watercress. The slightly peppery crisp taste of this herb sounded like it would the perfect addition to this creamy, cold soup. Continue reading “Moving day, chilled soup, cool borrowed memory” →

Flank steak: Going against the grain, beautifully

Slow marinating [in a mix of coriander, cumin, cinnamon, fresh ginger and garlic] and quick grilling make flavorful flank steak moist, tender and even bigger flavored. Recipe below.

Beef. It’s what’s for dinner.” When actor Robert Mitchum so beautifully uttered those words in a TV commercial voiceover, backed by Aaron Copland’s always stirring “Rodeo,” this is the kind of meal he was talking about.

As much as I talk about the blank canvas a chicken breast presents cooks or the underlying sweetness of a pork chop, there is something so satisfyingly rich and meaty about a good piece of beef well prepared.

And beef doesn’t get much more flavorful or meaty than flank steak. Also called London Broil or Jiffy Steak, this lean, flat cut is particularly known for its robust beefy flavor. With the right cooking and serving, it can be tender and moist too. Flank steak lends itself beautifully to marinating and then quickly grilling, broiling or pan searing. Don’t overcook it, though—that’s a sure way to make it chewy and tough.

I think it’s this reputation for potential toughness that unfairly puts a number of cooks off this delicious cut of meat, me included. Not anymore. Turns out there’s no voodoo to cooking juicy, tender flank steak—just two simple steps. I’ve already given you the first above: Don’t overcook it. Medium rare is perfect.

The second step is just as simple: Carve it across the grain after you cook it. According to Ask The Meat Man, it’s the only steak containing an entire large muscle. And unlike most other steaks, which butchers slice across the muscle fibers, flank steak fibers run the full length of the steak. You can see the fibers running across the tops of the slices in the photo above. So when you’re ready to serve the cooked steak, slice it into thin strips, cutting across the grain. Most sources suggest angling the knife blade at 45 degrees.

I can’t even remember now what suddenly put flank steak on my radar, but the more I read, the more I found recipes recommending marinating it, usually in some kind of spice rub. Not only does marinating it add to the already robust taste, it helps tenderize it. Some recipes call for a mere hour of marinating, but most said longer. This shouldn’t be a deal breaker; it just means you can’t do flank steak spur of the moment.

As usual, my spice rub marinade was the result of combining a couple of different recipes and then tinkering with them. In a somewhat unusual move for me, I resisted adding cayenne pepper or any other heat sources I frequently turn to. The spice rub mix smelled promising; my only concern was the meat itself. I needn’t have worried. The result was a delicious, complex complement to the rich beef flavor without any fire—and steak that was wonderfully tender. Continue reading “Flank steak: Going against the grain, beautifully” →

Berry delicious: French toast with fruit and mint

Lightly sweetened seasonal fresh fruit with mint and a squeeze of lemon juice replaces sticky syrup and powdered sugar in this delicious take on a weekend breakfast favorite, French toast. Recipes below.

How has this happened? This is my 100th post at Blue Kitchen, closing in on two years of blogging about food, and I’m only now getting around to breakfast. This is just wrong; breakfast is very important at our house. Not so much as a big weekend ritual. [And we are so not brunch people—to us, brunch means too much food for too much money after waiting in line for too long.] For us, breakfast is a practical daily meal, breaking the fast [the period between bedtime and breakfast is the longest most of us go without eating], fueling up for a good start to the day.

Breakfast is usually foraged individually as we get going in the morning, especially during the work week, and often includes some combination of a fiberrific cereal, maybe an egg, maybe some toast [also fiberrific], a handful of nuts or a little peanut butter and maybe some fruit. Oh. And caffeine. Tea or coffee for Marion, iced tea or diet Pepsi for me.

But some weekends, we do opt for what we call a weekend style breakfast. Omelets or pancakes or, far too infrequently, French toast.

French toast’s origins are clouded in mystery. Hardly anyone thinks that it originated in France, although one source claimed authoritatively that it did, in the 16th century. Another popular story is that it was created in the 1700s by a tavern owner in Albany, New York—one Joseph French. And at least one source claims that the first recipe dates back to ancient Rome! No one really agrees on the name, either. We Americans call it French toast. In France, it’s pain perdu—lost bread. French bread dries out in just a day or two and this is a wonderful way to give it another life. In some quarters of the UK, it is apparently called “poor knights of Windsor!”

What all do agree upon is what French toast is: Bread dipped in a mixture of egg and milk, then fried until golden brown. Most also agree that it is delicious.

I’ll be honest with you, though. As much as I like French toast, what got me started on this post was the fruit. Berries and stone fruits only have a little more time left in the markets this season. Most of the time, they don’t make it past their original state in our house before being devoured. Last Sunday, Marion and I polished off a pint of blueberries driving home from the produce market [thank heaven for automatic transmissions]. But the berry mixture Susan over at Food Blogga created for her Skinny Berry Parfaits got me thinking. Then I saw a recipe for minted blackberries in the August issue of Gourmet. Never mind that that it was meant to top cheesecake. I was off to the races. Continue reading “Berry delicious: French toast with fruit and mint” →

Taste of New Mexico: Carne Adovada

Marinated overnight and then slow cooked until falling apart tender, Carne Adovada melds the flavors of New Mexico Red Chiles, cumin, oregano and garlic in this traditional New Mexican pork dish. Recipe below.

New Mexico loves its chile peppers. There is simply no way you can overstate this fact. According to a fascinating article by Bonny Wolf at NPR’s Kitchen Window, New Mexico is the largest producer of chiles in the United States. And as Ms. Wolf sees it, there’s more to the state’s fascination than mere agricultural pride:

…In New Mexico, chiles are more than a crop. They’re a culture, a way of life. It is unimaginable to New Mexicans that people eat food untouched by their state’s chile.

There’s even an official state question: Red or green?

And if you can’t decide if you want red chile or green chile, you may answer, “Christmas,” and you’ll get some of both.

Interestingly, red or green, it’s the same New Mexico chile [also known as the California or Anaheim chile], just at different stages of development, either picked green or allowed to ripen into red on the vine. It’s what happens to the chiles afterward that makes the difference in the sauces’ flavors. Again, Ms. Wolf: “Green chiles are roasted, peeled, seeded and either used right away or frozen. Dried red chiles are ground into powder or strung into the lovely, deep-red ristras — strings in Spanish — you see hanging in many New Mexican homes. Northerners usually hang ristras for decoration while New Mexican cooks use the pods throughout the year to season food. Because the climate is so dry, there’s no fear of mold.”

On our recent trip to New Mexico, we rarely went a meal without being asked the official state question. And there wasn’t a wrong answer—both were delicious. We got our first sampling of both at Duran’s Central Pharmacy in Albuquerque; you actually walk through the pharmacy to get to an unassuming restaurant that serves up great New Mexican fare at very reasonable prices. We encountered excellent examples of red and green chiles in a number of restaurants: Little Anita’s, also in Albuquerque, and Maria’s, a friendly, rambling, down-to-earth place in Santa Fe recommended to me by Toni over at Daily Bread Journal, to name a couple.

We had plenty of delicious non-New Mexican food too. Crêpes at La Crêpe Michel in Albuquerque’s Old Town, transcendent burgers in the beautiful patio at Apple Tree in Taos, inventive tapas at La Boca in Santa Fe… And on our last night in New Mexico, craving something like we’d find at home in Chicago, we headed over to the neighborhood around the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque and ended up in a Korean BBQ joint. Just what we were looking for.

But my favorite New Mexican dish, hands down, was Carne Adovada. A traditional New Mexican dish, it is meat—most often pork—slow cooked in adobo sauce. We had it at the rightfully popular Tomasita’s in Santa Fe. Housed in a 1904 red brick station house adjacent to the Santa Fe train station, Tomasita’s has been a fixture since long before the railyards became the Railyard District, an up and coming neighborhood of hip shops and restaurants [and a welcome relief from the tourist hothouse that the heart of Santa Fe can be].

From the first bite, I knew I would have to try to make carne adovada. It was falling apart tender and coated in an almost velvety red chile sauce, not buried under it as many New Mexican dishes seemed to be. And it had a wonderful blend of flavors with just the right amount of heat. This hearty dish can be served with flour tortillas, in taco shells or with rice and beans, as I did here.

There are about as many takes on carne adovada as there are cooks. They range from fairly complex [like one from Kate in the Kitchen that has you make your own adobo sauce from dried chiles] to overly simple. One version from a Santa Fe cooking school, of all places, dispensed with the marinating and only cooked it for an hour! Even I could tell that was a recipe for an underflavored, chewy disaster.

In the end, I settled on a recipe somewhere in the middle complexitywise and doctored the heck out of the spice levels. Then when it came out of the oven and the sauce was a watery, bland mess that wasn’t sticking to the blondish chunks of tender meat, I did more doctoring, with the ever supportive Marion at my side. Here’s how that played out, by the way. First I looked at the way too liquid sauce. Not good. Then I tasted it. Even less good. Then I called for back-up. Marion suggested we transfer the meat to a bowl and work on the sauce, adding more spices and boiling it to reduce it. A good start tastewise, but still far from the velvety coating sauce we remembered from Tomasita’s. I’m sure I had a deer-in-the-headlights look at this point, until Marion uttered three magic words: “Make a roux.” I did. It worked. In the recipe below, I’m going to write it as if it’s how I’d planned to cook it all along. And how I will cook it the next time I make it. Continue reading “Taste of New Mexico: Carne Adovada” →

Potato salad: A classically done American classic

Nothing says summer like a classic American potato salad with mayonnaise, yellow mustard and the crunchy bite of red bell peppers. Recipe below.

AT OUR HOUSE, A LOT OF THE FOOD WE LOVE is something we’ve come to in adulthood, and even recently. Part of this is because of the great revolution of American eating habits, which has so thoroughly swept up our household. Now so many foodstuffs and cuisines are so accessible to so many of us. We eat not just to live, but to keep ourselves healthy, to entertain our palates and to experience the infinite variations of this most evanescent of art forms. Continue reading “Potato salad: A classically done American classic” →