Ruth Reichl's Blog, page 25

A Good Flight

Flew home from LA last night on Jet Blue's new Mint - their version of first class. 

It was the sweetest service I've ever had on a plane; the stewards all seemed genuinely eager to make this a comfortable ride.  The seats were swell (although much better if you get the single pods as opposed to the double seats).

Even the food was decent!

Actually, that cold carrot ginger soup, above, with its savoury little marshmallow, was pretty silly.  A strange, sticky texture.

But this cod with white beans and fennel in a tomato caper broth was very pleasant.

And these fontina filled gnocchi, with little bits of black truffles and creamed leeks, were a fine solution to the many problems of airline cooking:

The menu, by Saxon +Parole, offers an array of little plates.  You choose three.  My final choice, a mushroom mousse, looked nice, but was extremely, unpleasantly sweet.  And it succumbed to the perrenial airline problem: refrigerated bread goes stale. 

Dessert was smart. Fruit. And Blue Marble mint chocolate chip ice cream.

Why did I try it? Just for science; I was curious how Jet Blue would handle first class food.

You wouldn't make a reservation just for the food, but I can't remember the last time I was sorry when the plane landed.

BBQ!

Sometimes I feel so lucky.  Last night was one of those times. The great BBQ Pitmaster, John Markus, invited us over for dinner.  He was smoking a slew of meat; Chad Brauze, chef at Rotisserie Georgette, was doing the rest of the food. Susan Orlean and her husband John Gillespie were coming too. Did we want to join them?

JM was standing in the kitchen when we got there, pleasant chaos all around.  Meanwhile Chad was mopping the meat with this thyme butter 

and calmly placing all the other dishes on the table. He'd worked magic with these vegetables, coaxing out elusive flavors until they were fully capable of standing up to the spectacular meat.

In addition to huge amounts of  beef and an entire cornucopia of vegetables there was this "competition chicken"

along with a few more dishes I neglected to photograph (ie. entire racks of pork ribs).

By the time we got to dessert we were eating in the dark, which is my only excuse for this truly terrible photograph. You'll have to take my word that this white-chocolate dusted strawberry shortcake, made by Chad's wife Ashley, was a transcendent version of the classic cake. Little wonder: Ashley Brauze is the pastry chef at Cafe Boulud.

Afterward, John pulled out another treat: Pinhook Bourbon. 

Smooth. Mellow. Rich. There could not have been a better ending to this spectacular feast.

 

Warm Blueberry Peach Breakfast Cobbler

 

4 large ripe peaches

1 cup blueberries

Juice of 1/2 lemon

1/4 - 1/2 cup sugar

1 tablespoon cornstarch

1 cup flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt.

1/2 stick butter

1/3 cup buttermilk.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
Peel the peaches by putting them into boiling water for 10 seconds, then running them under cool water.  The skins should slip right off.
Slice the peaches into a glass or ceramic pie plate. 
Squeeze lemon juice over the fruit and toss with the sugar and cornstarch. Toss the berries on top.
Mix dry ingredients in a small bowl.
Cut in the butter using a pastry blender or two knives, until the butter is the size of peas.
Gently stir in the buttermilk. 
Cover the fruit, loosely, with the wet dough. Don't worry if it doesn’t completely cover; it will spread in the oven.
Bake for half an hour, until the top is craggy and golden.

Serve warm with a pitcher of cold cream.

 

 

Dinner Last Night

I love squid: it's delicious, sustainable, inexpensive and easy. When I first started cooking squid you had to remove the quill-like shell (it's on the inside, unlike other shellfish), take out the inksac (right behind the eyes) and the beak (inside the tentacles), clean out the interior and peel off the pretty lavender skin. But now most squid comes pre-cleaned so you don't have to bother with any of that. Modern squid is ready to cook, which means it makes an almost-instant dinner.  

Wandering past the seafood case the other day, the squid seemed to be calling out to me.  I bought a pound, took it home, and made this completely satisfying supper.  (The recipe is very loosely adapted from one in Bruce Cost's Big Bowl Cookbook.

 

Gingered Calamari with Black Beans and Chiles

1 pound cleaned squid

1/2 cup chicken stock

1/2 tablespoon sugar

2 tablespoons oyster sauce

1 tablespoon soy sauce

1 - 2 tablespoons peanut or grapeseed oil

1/4 cup shredded ginger

1 bunch sliced scallions

1 tablespoon minced garlic

red pepper flakes

2 teaspoons salted Chinese black beans

2 tablespoons Chinese rice wine or dry sherry

splash sesame oil

Cut the squid bodies into 1 inch rings.  If the tentacles are large, cut them in half.  

Bring a large pot of water to a furious boil, drop squid in, bring the water back to a boil and cook for 30 seconds.  Remove and quickly run under cold water to stop the cooking.  Set aside.

Mix the chicken stock, sugar, oyster sauce and soy sauce. 

Heat a wok until a drop of water skitters across the surface.  Add the oil, then toss in ginger, scallions, garlic, red pepper flakes and black beans and toss about for 30 seconds or so until the fragrance fills the air. 

Add the chicken stock mixture, bring to a boil, and cook for about a minute.  Add squid and wine, toss about for another minute and add a splash of sesame oil.

Serve over rice.

Serves 4.

 

A Fantastic Foraged Green: Lambsquarters

Lambsquarters

A friend showed up for dinner last night with a bag of weeds she'd just removed from her garden. To farmers and gardeners, lambsquarters are a nuisance, an intractable weed. For the rest of us however, this is spinach with a college education, the most delicious green. If you're lucky enough to find some, here's a vaguely Korean way of cooking this wonderful weed.

Wash a big bunch of wild lambsquarters, removing the thick stems.  (I didn't weigh mine, but I'd estimate it was about three quarters of a pound.) Quickly blanch them in boiling salted water for about a minute, then run them under cold water to stop the cooking and set the color. 

Squeeze the leaves well to remove excess water.  Now do it again.  Put them into a bowl, and fluff them a bit, pulling the leaves apart and giving them some air. 

Thinly slice an entire scallion and mix it into the lambsquarters.

Put a couple of tablespoons of miso paste into a small bowl and mix in a small minced clove of garlic, a splash of soy sauce, a half teaspoon of chile paste and a splash of toasted sesame oil.  Mix into the lambsquarters.  If you want to really give it a Korean flair, toss in a small handful of sesame seeds. 

 

 

 

 

Lulu's Cheese Souffle

"The only thing that will make a souffle fall is if it knows you're afraid of it."

James Beard 

Lulu's Cheese Souffle

Grate 6 ounces of a cheese with strong character (Gruyere, Comte, Roquefort are all good choices) and set aside.

Scald a cup and a quarter of milk and set aside to gently cool.

Melt 2 tablespoons of butter in a heavy-bottomed saucepan.  Whisk in 3 tablespoons of flour and cook for a a couple of minutes, whisking constantly. Whisk in the warm milk, season with a half teaspoon of salt, a sprinkle of pepper and a few gratings of fresh nutmeg, turn the heat to low and cook for 10 minutes or so, whisking every couple of minutes.  The sauce will get very thick.  Remove from heat and set aside to cool.

Meanwhile carefully separate 4 eggs, being careful to put the whites into a clean bowl and not get any of the yolk into the whites. 

Butter a 6-cup souffle dish and lightly dust with flour.  

Preheat the oven to 425.

Carefully whisk the cheese and egg yolks into the sauce.

Beat the egg whites with clean beaters until they hold soft peaks. Stir about a third of them into the cheese sauce, to lighten it, then carefully fold in the remaining whites.

Spoon the mixture into the prepared souffle dish and put into the oven for about 25 minutes, until set and golden.  

Serve at once. 

Serves 6.

 

 

Related articles

Soufflé, 'Le Beauvilliers' Restaurant 1782 Paris, Hot Air Balloons and the Montgolfier brothers.
Tom Douglas' fallen goat cheese soufflé‎ recipe

On D-Day: What They Were Eating on the Homefront

On the 70th anniversary of the Normandy landings, I offer another classic Recipe for Rationing, circa 1944.  

Little wonder that the heroine of Delicious!, Lulu Swan, was writing to James Beard asking for better recipes. This isn't Mexican, it wouldn't make much of a supper - and I very much doubt that the sliced stuffed olives would have helped.

MEXICAN SUPPER

1 cup milk
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup Grape-Nuts Wheat-Meal
3/4 cup grated American cheese
1 egg, well beaten
Spanish Sauce
Paprika

Heat milk in saucepan. Add salt; then pour in cereal very gradually, stirring constantly. Bring to a boil and cook and stir 3 minutes. Remove from heat. Add 1/4 cup cheese and egg and blend. Pour into shallow pan. Chill. Place spoonfuls or 2-inch squares in shallow baking dish and cover with Spanish Sauce. Sprinkle with remaining cheese and paprika. Bake in hot oven (400° F.) 15 minutes, or until cheese is melted. Makes 4 to 6 servings.

Spanish Sauce. Melt 1 1/2 tablespoons fat in skillet. Add 3 tablespoons each chopped onion, green pepper, and celery. Cook slowly until onion is golden brown. Add 1 1/2 cups stewed tomatoes, 1/4 teaspoon salt, and dash of pepper. Cook slowly until sauce is thickened. If desired, add a few sliced stuffed olives to sauce.

 

 

An Amazing Meal in Philly

9:30 on a Monday night and the place is packed, people still pouring in the door. And this is Philadelphia?

A few bites in, and I understand why Fork is so popular.  This is, from the very first taste, truly exciting food. 

These look like ordinary oysters. They're not. Chef Eli Kulp has chilled them to the perfect point of iciness, then topped them with his own personal mignonette, which adds the crunch of celery to the mix. The result is a textural dream.

 A couple of amusing little bites. Dandelion greens slashed with miso and dried to crackling flakiness. The counterpoint is radishes transformed into a soft vegetable leather, a stunning surprise to the mouth: robbed of their brisk crispness, the flavor of the humble radish takes a new turn. 

Radishes, again, this time buried in a "soil" made of various seeds. "Soil" in its many incarnations, seems to be the dish of the moment. 

This was followed by a couple of amusing little twists on rolls: first clam madeleines, which would have made Proust think twice.  Then square little pretzels filled with mustard, a new take on a Philadelphia classic. And wonderful little bialys, filled with homemade (Philadelphia) cream cheese.

 

Spring served in a bowl. Rhubarb consomme with tender greens, a bit of almond and then, singing loudly in the middle, a single perfect strawberry, the flavor resonating on and on.  Stunningly delicious.  

 

A single stalk of asparagus with a granita made from the fremented roots of broccoli rabe, ricotta and bee pollan. Just a few pungent little bites, the opening act for the brilliant dish that followed, pictured at the top.

Bite into that elegant little circle of mushrooms and you find this:

filling of sweet potato and cashew cheese, with a sprinkling of citrus.  An hommage to a dish invented by Pascal Barbot of Paris' L'Astrance, it would make a vegetarian out of the most recalcitrant meat eater.

 

Another new way to look at Philadelphia cuisine. Pasta made from rye and caraway.  A sauce of pastrami and mustard. A bit of dill. Deli food has never been so elegantly reprised.

 

 

Another  Philadelphia dish - the classic pork sandwich - lovingly remade. The sweetness of this gorgous pork makes a fine contrast to fermented broccoli rabe, while its soft juiciness is teased out by those sharp little shards of dried provolone.

There were many desserts, all interesting, including elements like caraway rye ice cream and root beer tea.  I regret to confess that I'd been so completely seduced by this splendid meal that I'd forgotten all about my camera at this point in the evening.

Mea culpa. But it was, after all, around midnight.

 

Two Terrific Meals in Vancouver

Better late than never.... I left Vancouver a week ago, but somehow I never got around to putting my meals down on paper. Which is a shame, because it's a great place to eat.

The first night we went to the very what's happening Bao Bei in Chinatown. I guess it's Vancouver's version of Mission Chinese, a hip young place with a modern menu in the heart of an old-fashioned Chinatown.  They take no reservations; the lines are long. 

The dish I remember with the most longing - I'm sitting on a train as I write this, and I would give anything to have that shao bing at the top -  was a large sesame-studded flatbread stuffed with pickled red onions, chiles, cilantro and tender, pungent, cumin-scented lamb. A truly great sandwich.

The meal began with these vegetables. Lovely little Sichuan pickles. And eggplant marinated in soy, garlic and ginger.  

 

Then there was this bowl of very intense cold noodles, topped with rare strips of beef and tossed with a pungent dressing made of chiles, Sichuan peppercorns and dried shrimp.

 

 

Shrimp dumplings.  And ethereal pork and prawn wontons in an intensely curried broth.

 

Traditional, but very delicious: pea shoots.

 

 

The next night there was dinner at Hawksworth, the city's most ambitious restaurant.  It's a pretty place with a huge, bustling kitchen.  I find it fascinating that for all its aspirations - this kitchen is aiming for the stars -  Vancouver's fanciest restaurant has a very casual vibe. 

But there is nothing casual about the food. These crisply fried oysters are served on a plank of wood with an austere dusting of  powdered malt vinegar. The contrasting polka dot is piquillo pepper paste. A fine way to begin a meal.  

 

 

An endlessly appealing play of textures, temperatures and flavors. Hamachi sashimi  in a tangle of radishes and herbs is sparked with jalapeno and  kissed with passion fruit seeds. On top, a few grains of crisped rice add crunch. Underneath, a shimmering blanket of white soy. Over it all, the icy surprise of coconut sorbet. Fantastic!

 

It's spotted prawn season. These were gorgeously cooked, lightly dressed, utterly irresistible.

 

Sturgeon, a sturdy, tasty, difficult fish, grilled with tandoori spices in a spiral of cauliflower puree. On the side, a little panisse of chickpeas. What you can't see is the piquant tamarind vinaigrette that underlined all the flavors and pulled them together.

 

I'm not big on plates composed like this - they always look so twee - but this was a perfect little chunk of duck: flesh rare, skin crackling, flavor intense.  It was crowned by a small circle of complementary flavors.

 

Love the look of this - like something washed up on the sands of a deserted isle. The flavors, however, are very much of this earth: spiced apple, hazelnut, maple.  It made a fine farewell to a great city.

Can't wait to go back.

 

 

 

Asparagus with a Good Green Sauce

Home at last. So happy to be back in my kitchen. Went right off to the market and discovered there are still local asparagus around here. I scooped them up, thrilled I hadn’t missed them. 

I like serving asparagus at room temperature when I'm having a group over to dinner. That way I can't get distracted and overcook them at the last minute.  This sauce - festive, delicious and very easy - is my favorite way to top them. 

I cook my asparagus in a large skillet of boiling water, putting the fattest ones in first for about 5 minutes, then adding the skinnier ones for just the last two or three minutes. Then I simply scoop them out of the water and put them on a towel-lined plate to cool.  

Just before serving I ladle on the fragrant, chunky sauce.

Begin the sauce by hardboiling a couple of eggs, chilling  them in ice water, and peeling them. 

Now mince a couple of shallots and put them in a small bowl. Add two tablespoons of Italian parsley, a few chopped chives and a tablespoon of minced capers.  Stir in 6 tablespoons of good olive oil and mix well.  Add a generous dollop of mustard and 2 tablespoons of red wine vinegar. 

Chop the hardboiled eggs into fairly coarse pieces, stir them in, and grind in a good bit of black pepper. Allow to mingle quietly for a half hour or so, to let the ingredients communicate with one another, then taste for seasoning and spoon over a pound and a half of cooked asparagus.

Serve at room temperature.  

 

The rest of the menu, if you're interested:

Chicken Liver Mousse

Crackers topped with Sour Cream and Salmon Roe

Grilled ribeyes

Baked Potatoes

Salad with Blue Cheese Dressing

Fresh Apricot Crumb Tart