tomato_kumato

I’m sorry that I’m going to have to cop out today, but I just started not one, but TWO new blogs, and the whole formatting and setting up thing is taking up a lot of time. For now, go check them out, and I promise to be back in action with stories of my trip to Naples tomorrow!

My new food blog is going to be a collection of all of my original recipes! You may recognize some of them from this site, but the stories are new, the photos are mostly new, and a lot of the recipes are new! Check it out here.

My travel blog is going to be very exciting… with lots of stories, and although this time I’m trying to branch out from food writing, we all know that for foodies that’s not too possible. There’ll be lots of suggestions of things to see and places to go when visiting most of the cities I’ve seen. Check it out here.

Dear Reader,

I’m sorry for abandoning you. I have no excuse. I could cite the fact that the Canadian has left, once again, this time for Cannes, which has left me with just little ol’ me to cook for. I could say that my aunt was here all last week, discovering Paris for the first time, but every time I look at the list of posts just waiting to be written up and posted, I know: I’m lazy.

But, dear reader, today I had the fortune of creating a recipe so delicious, I had to sit right down and share it with you. Isn’t that exciting?

While my aunt was here, I had roasted a few chickens for an Easter dinner, and so I had a new vat of homemade chicken stock just waiting to be used. So I went through my list of recipes to try and found this recipe for Chickpea, Ginger and Coriander Soup. This soup may have changed my life. Not only is it astoundingly delicious, but I realized how easy it is to make soup for one. Soup had always been a daunting task, one I never attempted for fear that I would never finish it. But this soup makes two neat servings, perfect for lunch for two, or, as I did, dinner two nights in a row with a green salad.

But that doesn’t tell you what’s up with the pink stuff in the bowl, does it? Basically, this soup reminded me of how much I love my immersion blender. I used to use it all the time for tomato sauce, until I realized I liked the chunks of tomato and onion, and so it was abandoned. After using it to make this soup though, I realized I was in love with it. My immersion blender is magical, taking chunks of odd ingredients and bringing them together in harmony in a bowl. (Wow… snap out of it, Emily.)

This soup created itself. I had bought a pre-boiled beet at the farmer’s market, but had yet to use it for a salad. I’m leaving for the weekend, and so I didn’t want to buy other salad ingredients. I also had some new potatoes left over from Easter. What to do… soup? OK, immersion blender, if you say so.

I boiled the potatoes in some chicken stock from my vat, and when they were cooked through, I chunked and added the beet to warm. I seasoned with salt and pepper, and then the immersion blender took the stage.

What appeared was so perfect and pink that I almost didn’t want to add anything else, but I had planned to throw in a pot of yogurt for some calcium, and I’m so glad I did. Some dried chives (use fresh if you have them) and a roquefort garnish finished it off… and I was free to enjoy my perfectly portioned bowl of soup, one for now, and one for later.

So thank you, dear reader, for not losing faith. This soup has given me the will to delve back into my list of posts to write, and very soon, you shall be hearing from me (and my immersion blender) again.

Love,

Emily

Beet-Potato Soup with Roquefort

1 cup chicken broth
5 new potatoes
1 large beet, boiled and peeled
1 4 oz container plain yogurt
1 tbsp. dried chives (or two fresh)
crumbled roquefort
Bring the broth to a boil and add the potatoes, chunking them to help them cook more quickly. Cook until soft. Add the beet, chunked, and cook until heated through. Remove from heat and blend with immersion blender. Add salt and pepper to taste. Add yogurt and chives. Serve in bowls with roquefort crumbled on top.

I used to be one of those people. I know you know what I’m talking about.”Valentine’s Day is just commercial America’s way of making money between Christmas and Easter.”

“Those chalky hearts are the best thing that come out of Valentine’s Day, and Tums taste better.”

“At least the chocolate will be half-off tomorrow.”

Well… I hate to disappoint my fellow grumblers, but in France, Valentine’s Day is awfully nice and quiet. I wouldn’t have even noticed it was coming, except for the fact that I live down the street from a flower shop, which I pass at least twice every day, and they had a reasonable assembly of red flowers in the window.

As my first Valentine’s Day with a boyfriend, I guess I should have planned something big. My friend, the English One (who took me to Wagamama…), was pretty surprised when I told him that the Canadian and I didn’t have any big plans, but I didn’t mind. I’m not a huge fan of commercial holidays.

I made tuna (the Canadian’s favorite). He bought me a little flower. We watched some TV and drank a bottle of wine. Not veering terribly away from the norm, but I adored it. It was my best Valentine’s Day ever. Little chalky hearts, be damned.

Asian-Flavored Seared Tuna (adapted from Bon Appétit March 2000)

Note: I used regular soy sauce, and I found this to be way too salty for me. However, I don’t really like salt, and the Canadian thought it was fine. If you are sensitive to salt, I highly recommend using low-sodium or not serving the extra sauce on the beans. And yes, I know this recipe makes three steaks… the Canadian got two. Because it’s Valentine’s Day.

3 6-oz. tuna steaks
1/4 cup soy sauce
1 teaspoon wasabi paste
1/2 teaspoon onion powder
2 large handfuls green beans
2 tablespoons sesame seeds
1 tablespoon sesame oil
1 scallion, finely chopped
1 heaping teaspoon brown sugar
Mix the soy sauce, wasabi paste and onion powder in a bowl, and place the tuna steaks in the marinade. Let sit for no more than fifteen minutes while you prep the rest of your ingredients. Meanwhile, boil some water and blanch the green beans. Heat a skillet over high heat, and add the sesame oil. Remove steaks from marinade and allow to drip of excess liquid. Roll one edge in the sesame seeds, and season both sides with black pepper. Cook the tuna steaks to preferred doneness… we like them almost raw with just the outside seared and hot. Remove the steaks and keep warm. Add the sugar, scallion and green beans to the skillet, and cook until the sauce has reduced slightly. Serve green beans on the side. And keep in mind my tip about the extra sauce… if you must have it, keep it on the side.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Today, I made doughnuts for the first time.

It was a learning experience.

When I lived in Massachusetts, one of our favorite things to do was to run to Smallack farms and get a box of apple cider doughnuts. They were dipped in cinnamon sugar, and they were just about the best things ever. And we didn’t even feel bad about eating them, because we figured that running to the farm and eating a box of doughnuts essentially cancelled each other out.

I wanted to participate in Peabody and Helene’s doughnut challenge, and I got very excited, because there is a market near my house that is only opened on Wednesdays and Sundays, and they sell amazing apple cider. I actually even had a recipe for cider doughnuts from Peabody’s archive that I had been wanting to try for awhile. In my eyes, the planets had aligned, so I got up bright and early on Wednesday, went over to the market, and picked up my ingredients. This is when the learning started.

1. I need to get a one cup measuring cup. Or learn to count. I can’t be sure, but I think I only added two and a half instead of three and a half cups of flour. The dough was more like batter, and I tried so hard to roll it out before I decided that it just wasn’t going to happen.

2. I am not afraid of boiling oil. But I should be. As I was trying to get the temperature right, I ended up scalding the bottom of my pot, making a couple of rejects when the oil wasn’t hot enough, and standing against the wall while the few inches of shortening in the bottom of my dutch oven boiled to five times their original height and threatened to take over my kitchen.

3. The rejects taste awesome.

The Canadian came in to ask me some questions about photoshop, and he took a bunch of the doughnut holes (AKA Tim Bits… Tim Hortons… any Canadians out there? OK. Moving on.) which he enjoyed quite a bit. After awhile, I got a nice rhythm going… but then I was out of dough. So… yeah.

Rejects and Timbits.

Link to Recipe: http://www.culinaryconcoctionsbypeabody.com/2007/10/12/the-joys-of-fried-dough/

I know, it’s Mardi Gras, and I’m supposed to be making pancakes, but the truth is, I just didn’t have time today. However, I will take this opportunity to blog about another recipe that I made recently that also uses up your excess flour, butter and eggs before Lent.

Yes, I finally jumped on the bandwagon and made Peabody’s Snickerdoodle Muffins, also known as, the little muffin that caused a big stir in the food blogging world… and I have to say, I totally understand the hype now! The dough was incredibly easy, made entirely from pantry items (except the sour cream… but how hard is it to get sour cream?) and rolling the dough in sugar before plopping it in the muffins tin made me giddy! Hee hee.

No, but these muffins are incredible. The outside, coated with sugar (I used cassonade, which is like Sugar in the Raw) ends up crunchy and crisp, while the inside of the muffin stays moist, probably due to the sour cream. The Canadian and I were both vying for the last one (he got it while I was at school). I made sixteen, and Britney got one… the rest we hoarded for ourselves.

I didn’t change anything… as always, the recipe is perfect, but if any of the rest of you have been slow like me about getting into the kitchen and making these… well then march yourself right on into the kitchen.

Now!

When I was younger, my father and I used to go to dinner, just the two of us, every Tuesday night. At first, we went to this restaurant called il Pomodoro. I would get rigatoni marinara, and my dad would get linguini Bolognese. After il Pomodoro closed, we started going to a different restaurant called Vico. I was older by then, and ready for a new standard, something my mother didn’t make at home. This time, I went for the Bolognese… and I fell immediately in love.

It’s been a long time since I had this pasta sauce. My mother made a mean marinara, but Bolognese was not on her repertoire. We still go to Vico sometimes, but I’ve expanded my horizons, and I usually opt for a salad and one of the lighter pasta dishes instead of the bowl full of heavy, velvety Bolognese that I adored when I was younger.

But when I saw this recent post on Skillet Doux, I was reminded of my former favorite… and I was up to the challenge of trying to make it.

Sure enough, less than five minutes after mixing what looked like a watery base of ingredients together, the smells of Bolognese came wafting from the kitchen. It cooked, bubbling for a full hour, before the Canadian and I couldn’t stand it anymore, and we ate it over mushroom ravioli… delicious.

Bolognese (adapted from Gourmet, October 2002)

1/4 cup of olive oil
1 carrot, chopped
2 medium onions, chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
3/4 lb. veal
3/4 lb. ground beef
1 cup water
1 1/2 cup milk
1 1/2 cup red wine
6 oz. tomato paste
dried basil
salt and pepper
2 tbsp. creme fraiche
parmesan for serving

Heat the oil over medium-low heat. Add the vegetables and a bit of salt, and cook until soft, about five minutes. In another skillet, cook the meat until all pink is gone. Drain excess fat and add to the vegetables. Add tomato paste, water, milk, wine and basil. Cook down until the sauce is thick, about an hour and a half. Turn off the heat. Add salt and pepper to taste, and stir in the creme fraiche. Serve immediately over pasta (I like mushroom ravioli, but rigatoni are good as well) with plenty of cheese on the side.

In 2002, I experienced my first-ever New England winter. According to my Ipswich-native roommate, it was one of the coldest ones in recent history. “Even we don’t get weather this bad,” she would mutter as the two of us sat in our thermals on the bathroom windowsill, running all three showers to build up steam so that we could thaw after a long day. We both bought smokers gloves (with the fingertips cut off) for doing our homework, and, like twins, we wore twin braids and a toque (then called a ski cap in my American-only vocabulary) every day, and she went so far as to wear thermal long underwear under her jeans. It was cold.

Spring came eventually, and on the first sixty degree day, a Sunday, we spent the afternoon in t-shirts, doing our homework on the lawn. Yes, it was cold, but damn, I could walk around without shoes on and not get frostbite, so I would! It felt like summer to my warmth-starved body, and so that evening at dinner, as we clambered in from the lawn holding our shoes in our hands, I fixed myself a bowl of sticky rice and soy sauce. I know… bizarre, but allow me to go on another extremely long tangent and explain.

My father has done every fad diet known to man. Some were annoying, like the grapefruit diet, and others I enjoyed, like one that had him eating sugar-free Jello and Cool-Whip and chunks of nutty Parmegiano-Reggiano. I have yet to completely understand what that particular diet was all about.

My favorite, however, is a recurring one. Every summer, when we go out to Long Island, Noda-San comes back. Noda-San, also known as “Mr. Sushi” runs a four-seat sushi bar in Westhampton Beach. It’s the second best sushi I’ve ever had (the first best, also eaten with my father, was in a strip mall in LA somewhere near Studio City. Go figure.) Anyway, every summer, when Noda-San comes back from Puerto Rico and opens up the sushi bar again, my father decides that a diet consisting solely of sushi, grilled fish and seaweed salad is just what he needs. Sure enough, it usually ends with him losing about twenty pounds, all of which he slowly regains over the winter months. My sister and I are his usual dining companions, and I, the only one with drivers’ license, am rewarded with sushi money if I make the drive to pick up his typical Japanese breakfast of seaweed and rice vinegar.

All this to say that, to me, soy sauce and sesame are possibly the flavors that best exemplify summer. Which is why, even though I had a spaghetti Bolognese dinner planned for this evening, I changed my mind as soon as I saw the clear blue sky and smelt the spring. I don’t care what that damn Groundhog says. I don’t care that I still nearly froze in my bed last night, or that I’m still wearing two pairs of socks and nursing big cups of hot tea. Today, there was a hint of spring in the air. It smelled like fresh grass and mulch… like that day so many years ago when the ice and snow finally started to melt, and we sat by rapidly shrinking snow drifts to work on chemistry homework. This is why I abandoned the package of ground veal for another day, and went out to buy some salmon, to be served with lime, soy, spinach and rice, a food I never, ever eat, unless it’s with soy sauce and sesame, as soon as I can start to see the beginning of spring.

Lime-Honey-Soy Salmon

2 salmon fillets
2 limes
2 tbsp. honey
2 tbsp. soy sauce
1 tsp mustard
salt and pepper
vegetable oil

Season the fillets on both sides with salt and pepper, and add to a “screaming hot” (as Rachael Ray says) skillet with vegetable oil. Cook for two minutes per side, until the outside is crisp and brown, and the inside is cooked through but still moist. Remove from skillet and keep warm. Add the other ingredients to the skillet and cook down for one minute, stirring constantly. Drizzle the glaze over the fillets and serve. We had it over rice and reheated frozen spinach, and it was divine.

Hey there. I’m trying to get back into the habit of writing every day… I miss my blog and my readers! Really, you have no idea how much your comments can turn my day around. Any writer out there knows that the best thing a writer can get is feedback and the knowledge that someone out there is actually reading what you’re writing.

That said, I’ve been a bit slow on here, and I didn’t want to talk about it before, because I hate getting my hopes up, but it looks like you might be able to read my stuff somewhere other than this blog pretty soon! Yep, I’ve got myself a bona fide writing job, and not just a writing job, but a food writing job! I’ll be writing restaurant reviews, mainly based in Paris, but from all over. As soon as the deal is finalized, I’ll leave a link on the site so you can check it out. This doesn’t mean I’m abandoning you here, reader! In fact, I’ll probably expand some of my restaurant reviews on the site (and some of the ones featured at my new job will be old hat for veteran readers.)

In the meantime, please bear with me. I know I’m getting off easy posting this picture, but as I was making the vat of chili for the Canadian before I left Paris, I noticed the pretty colors and had to take a shot. Hopefully tomorrow I’ll have a recipe up here for you… believe it or not, I actually have some cooking plans up my sleeve today!

Sorry everyone! I’ve been so bad… I’ve been getting back up to speed reading everyone’s updates (sorry for the lack of comments… I had a lot to read) and I feel badly seeing how busy everyone else has been while I’ve been doing a lot of nothing.

Since I’ve been back, the only things I’ve made have been pasta and fried eggs. The Canadian’s birthday was last week, and I bought a cake! Yes, it was an amazing cake, and yes, it was very French of me to pass off the baking to a professional, but still, it was out of character. You see, I’ve had a very busy few weeks back. Upon arriving in Paris, I hardly had a chance to unpack before I whisked myself off to Paris with Britney to see the Spice Girls! I was in the 6th grade the last time they were popular, and so was everyone else there, apparently. Everyone knew all the words, and it was probably the best concert I’ve ever been to.

We stayed in an amazing hostel, St. Christopher’s, which not only was fun and amazingly clean, but also served up a very good (and very reasonable) hummus with pita appetizer in the bar. I got my hands on a Cornish Pasty this time and we got a decent curry at a chain place (I’m sure to Londoners it was awful, but Britney and I loved it), but I still have to go to Goulder’s Green Chinese food. I also introduced Britney to the wonders of Wagamama, and she has come up with a plan that involves a commuting Londoner bringing her Wagamama for dinner every day to be picked up at Paris Gare du Nord.

I got back to Paris with a terrible cold, but I still set off for the other trip I’d planned: Amsterdam. (This was when I thought the Canadian would be in Amsterdam, not sitting on my couch and boiling the plastic cheese grater to get the Comte off it. Mom, please send me a metal one… the Canadian needs special toys for his special needs.) I went with a friend and took advantage of the loose laws there, and therefore ordered the tray of food you see above. (Applesauce not pictured. Mixed with mashed potatoes=heaven.)
Wow… all this is getting very bloggy. The point of the matter is that I’m back now, and I have an antipasto party to tell you about.

This all began, as so many strange ideas do, in my father’s head. He picked me and my sister up from the city and drove us out to Long Island, where we would be met my my mother, brother and sister the following day. He had decided that “we” would be making a typical Italian antipasto. He gave me a sketchy shopping list… things like “eggplant rollatini-eggplant, cheese.” I knew that he couldn’t do this alone, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to take it myself. Grudgingly, I decided to fulfill his wishes, and asked him exactly what he wanted. Long story short, in the end I made everything, and my father ceremoniously plated the braciole, eggplant rollatini, stuffed green peppers, stuffed mushrooms, and stuffed clams. I stood by the side, saying nothing, but as my brother praised the rollatini and my sister gorged herself on mushrooms, my mother leaned over to me and whispered, “Good job.”

This picture is awful, but it’s the only one I got of everything. From the top right, it’s stuffed mushrooms, baked clams, stuffed green peppers, braciole, and eggplant rollatini. And my father was right about one thing: the key is mixing all the sauces (tomato, braciole au jus, and clam juice) on the plate and sopping it up with good Italian bread. (We get ours from Sullivan Street in the Bronx.) Here are the recipes… they’re approximate, but they work. I cheated on the clams and braciole and got them from the store, but you could just as easily make them yourself as well.

Stuffed Green Peppers

Halve three green peppers and lie them in a baking dish. Stuff with a mixture of one part hot Italian sausage and one part ground beef, Italian breadcrumbs, grated parmegiano reggiano, and an egg. Cover with tomato sauce and bake at 350 for 40 minutes.

Eggplant Rollatini (the hit of the night)

Slice three eggplants lengthwise into strips about a quarter inch to a half inch thick. Make sure they’re all the same size. Dredge each slice in flour, then beaten egg, then Italian breadcrumbs. Bake for ten minutes on each side at 375 degrees. In a separate bowl, combine equal parts ricotta cheese and grated mozzarella. Add a few tablespoons of parmegiano reggiano to taste, and season with black pepper and a chiffonade of fresh basil. Place about a tablespoon of the cheese mixture at the end of each of the rollatini, and roll. Place them, seam side down, in a baking sheet. When all of the rollatini have been rolled, cover with tomato sauce and bake at 350 until the cheese is melted.

Baked Stuffed Mushrooms

Remove the stems from about twenty stuffing mushrooms (large white mushrooms) and bake the mushrooms on a baking pan for about ten minutes to dehydrate them. Chop the stems finely and sautee in butter and olive oil with one large onion and a few shallots. Turn off the heat and add enough breadcrumbs to soak up the liquid in the pan, about half a cup to a cup. Add parmeggiano reggiano cheese to taste… a couple of tablespoons. Stuff the mushrooms until heaping with the mixture, and bake for about another fifteen to twenty minutes at 350.

Yes, dear reader, I’m back. It’s been an interesting month. You’ll hear all about it in the next few posts, which consist not only of the recipe for Gratin Dauphinoise (finally, Dylan, like I promised), but with stories from Mexico, Toronto, back home in New York, and Paris.

The Canadian’s back, and I can’t help smiling. I made him a huge batch of chili before I left, because he would be arriving in three days to spend three long weeks here alone. It lasted precisely 14 hours. Needless to say, he learned to survive on his own, and I have the pleasure of being cooked for every once in awhile, which is always nice. His favorite thing to make me is stir fry, but yesterday while I was napping off the jet lag from New York, he went out and got me sushi so I would have something waiting when I got home.

OK, enough of this mushy stuff. Back to the food. Or should I say, the potatoes that cause swooning. I had to make two of these casseroles when my mother’s family came for Christmas, and they were devoured alongside the crown roast of pork that my mother prepared for Christmas Eve dinner (yeah, I know, you’re not supposed to have meat on Christmas Eve. I’ve always loved the idea of doing a traditional Italian fish supper for Christmas, and you can bet that when I’m running the holiday, it will be nothing but Zuppa di Pesce and Bacala, but while my mother runs the show, her word is law.)

All this meandering brings me back to the point: my potatoes. This gratin was the first thing I ever invented successfully, and now it’s a staple around the holidays. That being said, it is a staple only around the holidays precisely because you don’t need “cheese with a couple of potatoes thrown in,” as my uncle calls it, every day of the week. Regardless, it’s delicious, and you’re lucky, because if any of my family was web savvy enough to read a blog, this recipe would not be up here: I can’t have my Christmas cooking participation rendered obsolete!

Gratin Dauphinoise

5 large yukon gold potatoes

3 cups of grated cheese (I use a combination of gruyere and emmental)

1 egg

1 cup each whole milk and heavy cream

nutmeg, salt and pepper

Grease a glass baking dish with butter or oil, and then place one layer of thinly sliced potatoes along the bottom. Sprinkle salt, pepper and nutmeg over the potato layer, and top with a layer of grated cheese. Follow with another layer of potatoes, this time sprinkling the layer just with black pepper. Continue alternating layers until you reach the last layer of potatoes. Reserve some of the cheese for the top of the gratin. Sprinkle salt, pepper and nutmeg over the top layer of potatoes. Set aside. In a saucepan, heat the cream and milk together until hot but not boiling, and add another sprinkle of nutmeg. Temper the liquid with the egg, and pour the entire contents of the pan over the gratin. Top the gratin with the reserved cheese. Cover with aluminum and bake at 350 F until the potatoes are soft, about half an hour. Remove foil and turn up the oven to 425. Bake until topping is golden brown. Cool slightly before serving. Note: recipe can be prepared and baked at 350 and the last step can be reserved until just before serving.