Michael Ruhlman's Blog, page 27

How To Cook Mushrooms

We have a wonderful mushroom grower at our farmers’ market and as mushrooms are one of Donna’s favorite foods, I try to cook them as often as possible. (The above photo by Donna shows shiitake and sliced lion’s mane mushrooms.) But a lot of people ask me the best way to cook them. While there’s no one single right way, my preferred method is a high-heat sear followed by a deglazing with white wine, then adding butter and finishing over low heat. This goes back to my days as a cook at Sans Souci in Cleveland, where I worked only briefly. But the executive chef there was Claude Rodier, who had trained under French chef Roger Vergé. He told me the above—get the pan super hot; sear them to get color, which means flavor; then Read On »

Friday Cocktail Hour: The Paloma Returns

Why do I continue to think work will ease up, give me a chance to catch my breath? I’m not complaining. I love all my work and feel lucky in too many ways to count. I don’t feel like Sisyphus pushing the rock up the hill. I feel like the rock. Accelerating down the hill, a long hill, and the longer it rolls the faster it goes and the more unstoppable it becomes. I’m just hoping that’s not a big wall way down there. As I type this, designs for my own kitchen scale are downloading—it’s going to be a very cool scale. I have to work on and approve packaging we’re designing for a few of our tools to be able to get them in stores. This site is still under maintenance. I have Read On »

Arugula

  I wanted to take a moment to appreciate arugula because, well, Donna had the urge to photograph it. These are from our local market and it’s probably the most tasty green I’ve ever had. How a green packs such a powerful taste, I don’t know (if anyone does, please educate me). Must be good for you! Even James likes this leaf. Thanks, Donna, for this photo. Love the intense pleasures of fresh arugula. It’s very stemmy so takes some picking, but it’s well worth it, especially raw but also lightly sautéed. Working hard on revising this site design so that it’s easier to read. Thanks for everyone’s comments.

Friday Cocktail Hour: Rye Whiskey Smash

With Derby Day upon us, our annual excuse to start drinking bourbon early on a Saturday, I must of course give a nod to a great cocktail, the mint julep—bourbon, sweetened, flavored and garnished with mint. My pal Blake Bailey, who introduced me to the drink one ill-fated spring day long ago (read about that day in his gripping new memoir The Splendid Things We Planned) would insist on crushed ice and I wouldn’t disagree, especially if you have swell julep glasses. But my copyeditor, Karen Wise, sent me an article from the Boston Globe on four different cocktails in the Smash family. It’s not a common term, Smash, and there seems to be little definitive consensus. (“A smash is a julep, but a julep isn’t always a smash,” for instance, from Imbibe’s muddled history Read On »

Ramping Up For Spring

  “Ramp” by Donna Turner Ruhlman.   Because I love this photo and because they’re here. If it weren’t already apparent at your local Farmer’s Market, Kim Severson spells it out in her story about weather and food in today’s Times. Specifically, the long winter we’ve had, the late spring, and what it means for what we have to eat that’s grown nearby. I’m doing a special private dinner tomorrow at Spice on Cleveland’s West Side, whose chef, Ben Bebenroth, is one of the city’s most outspoken chef-locavores. He had been planning to put the season’s first asparagus on the menu, but they simply haven’t grown yet. So rather than buy asparagus grown in California or wherever, he’s amending his courses for an all-Ohio late spring menu. Here at our house, we’re roasting young chickens, lots of Read On »

Mother’s Day Kitchen Tools Sale(with Eggs Florentine for My Mom)

In honor of Mother’s Day two weeks hence, Mac has reduced the price of all our kitchen tools by 40% if you use the promo code MOTHER, for this week only. Simply type that word in Step 2 under “Discounts” and Shopify will tabulate it. Mac Dalton and I created these tools to make cooking easier and more practical. Flat-edged wood spoons are an essential in my kitchen, as are the offset spoons and the deep all-purpose perforated spoon, aka Badass Egg Spoon (which has already changed many lives! or one at least). And I can’t keep your knives sharp for you but I can give you a place to put them. This in-drawer knife holder is one of my most valuable items—the second photo is of my knife drawer at home. The following preparation is Read On »

Friday Cocktail Hour: Ramos Gin Fizz

I’ll be doing a couple cocktails featuring the egg as this is the month of Egg, my new book exploring the world’s most versatile ingredient. The stuff of life. Seriously. We’re lucky each time we eat one (unless you’re Paul Newman playing Cool Hand Luke). We’re luckier still every time we drink one! They are great in cocktails. Last week I featured the whiskey sour. A favorite of my Grandma Spamer, who would have been 97 today. Though by the time I saw her drink them, they were made with frozen lime concentrate or some such, and certainly no egg white. And frankly a sour doesn’t have to have an egg white. Oh, but add an egg white and they become substantial. They are more satisfying on every level, with real body to carry that Read On »

The Lesson of Salt

You’d think a health news piece in the venerable NYTimes questioning a NYTimes op-ed linking illness and salt would make me happy, but it only makes me angry. What is the media’s problem? Nobody knows anything for certain—that is the only possible story. Nobody really knows anything for certain. Not your doctor, not your nutritionist, not ABC News, not the Times, and, for sure, not me. Today’s op-ed by Nicholas Bakalar questions an earlier op-ed by Dr. Thomas A. Farley, former commissioner of health for New York City (both articles linked above), who wrote that excess salt is killing 40,000 to 90,000 people a year (according to “best estimates”—what exactly does this mean?). Think about this number. It accounts for more deaths than breast cancer. If he is right, shouldn’t we all be wearing little Read On »

The Spring Market

  I’m finally home for a spell, long enough to plan out meals from my farmer’s market, or precisely, grower’s market, and I was eager to see what was available, this early in the season and after an uncommonly long, cold winter. Thanks to greenhouses there were plenty of greens, all kinds of them, kale, tatsoi, pea shoots, spinach, beet greens, basil. We have good local cheese makers so I picked up some sheep’s milk cheese and chevre. Two dozen eggs of course. Jason from Tea Hill Farms said, “Been so cold the chickens just don’t want to grow.” His chickens were just over two pounds and I bought a couple of them. They are so pristine, firm, taught skin, they seem a different species from the ones in the grocery store. I bought oats and Read On »

Friday Cocktail Hour: Whiskey Sour

In my ongoing celebration/promotion of the new book, I’ll be doing a series of egg-reliant cocktails. Here, images and recipe from a while back, the white gives body to a great and classic cocktail, the whiskey sour. It looks really gross coming out of the shell, doesn’t it? Don’t even need to say what it reminds me of! But man, does it turn the cocktail into something truly substantial. Bartenders will remind you that it’s important to dry shake the ingredients first to denature that snotty-looking egg white. I get better and faster results by sticking an immersion blender into the shaker, giving it a serious buzz, then adding the ice and shaking till thoroughly chilled. I love simple cocktails and this is one of the greats: whiskey, sugar, citrus. Feel free to omit the Read On »