Hello, Gorgeous: #2

I just noticed that my last two posts were fried and brown. This tulip interior is intended as a visual antidote. 

Why Feel Awful When You Can Cook?

It's bound to happen to anyone who leaves New York. Wandering down Michigan Avenue here in Chicago, surrounded by Midwestern tourists (with a few Germans thrown in), I'll frequently feel a pang of longing that is so palpable and intimate it usually throws me for a loop. I won't go as far as saying that I reel, or anything like that. But it's like missing a long-gone person you're still in love with, somebody you always believed was just right for you, someone you couldn't get enough of, even though the relationship was a bit one-sided. 

I bring it up because if you live in Chicago you have to keep this kind of love a secret in sort of the same way you should hide carrying a flame. Never tell a Chicagoan you miss New York. For a more precise elucidation on my reasoning on this, one more eloquent than I could ever provide, read A.J. Leibling's "Chicago: The Second City," which seems mean but nonetheless evergreen in its incisiveness, though it was written half a century ago. 

I'll generalize wildly here and say that Chicagoans love to have friends in New York as long as the friends stay there. They'll tell you about visiting them, and how they go to NYC all the time and know it like the back of their hands. 

But if you move here you better never mention New York to any of them ever again. Especially if you work at a newspaper. Because Chicago is just as good as New York! You don't like it here, go back! Bleh! Take that!

But just as good is not the point, of course.  And, I understand the bad reception to such longing, because it is the equivalent of saying to a spouse: "Now that Bob, he was a fun guy. So well-adjusted. Such a charmer.  We had the best time when we were dating. And handsome? You never saw such a handsome man." 

However, if you really know the two cities (living in NYC for 6 months and then leaving does not count; nor does visiting Chicago for a Cubs game and having a hot dog), you know that they cannot be compared. And should not be. Each has a distinct personality; if you want one, the other just won't do. And it cuts both ways. 

Anyway, this is sort of sad, but one of the things that really makes me lonely for NYC is the fact that Chicago does not have street carts or corner deli/grocers on practically every block. In fact, there aren't really many street carts to speak of; they are not a part of the urban landscape.

I loved walking outside on a workday and buying a giant bag of cherries for lunch, or a pint of ridiculously delicious ripe figs, for what now seems like almost no money at all. I took it all for granted. I hardly see fresh figs at all in my life here, and when I do, they're a million dollars. I miss the Halal chicken and rice cart at 43rd and 6th. I miss the salad man, who was outside Grand Central, before he moved inside Grand Central. I miss the banged up taco truck in my old Upper West Side neighborhood. 

And whenever anyone says "I feel awful," I kind of do, too, because it makes me think of the falafel cart at 46th and 6th Avenue, Moishe's. You get a pita crammed to bulging with giant crunchy-fried balls, lettuce, tomato, tahini, hot sauce, and great pickles. Sometimes, the guys give you a pickle while you wait. They are ridiculous street food, because standing and eating them on the street is like eating the giant barbecued turkey let that Chicagoans consume at Taste of Chicago, a festival that happens only once a year, and inspires many restaurants to sell their food from stands in the park. It's very popular, and you'd think Mayor Daley would get the big idea; but he doesn't like the cart/stand thing. Such a prissy pot.  

I know that I will never be able to replicate Moishe's street falafel. So I don't try. Instead, recently, I made a version that a person could serve to man and child seated at the dinner table, as a casual supper. 

It's a combination of the old reliable Moosewood version, combined with the amazing Joyce Goldstein version, from her fantastic newish cookbook, Mediterranean Fresh. My own crazy thoughts: I will make it in patty form (Moosewood), serve it on an English muffin, and rather than tahini we'll have it with a yogurt sauce and some cukes. 

So that's what I did. I added an egg and some baking soda, as Goldstein does for her "chickpea croquettes," and we made Goldstein's unbelievably good yogurt dressing and a cucumber, red onion, tomato and avocado salad splashed with cider vinegar (I am a huge fan of plain cider vinegar), olive oil, salt and pepper. 

Falafel to Feel Better

Makes 6-8  patties

4 cups cooked or 2 15-ounce cans chickpeas, drained and rinsed

1/2 cup of flour, plus more for dredging

1  teaspoon baking soda

4 cloves garlic, minced

1 large egg, slightly beaten

1 1/2 teaspoons cumin

1/2 teaspoon cayenne

1 teaspoon turmeric

sea salt (I used about a teaspoon)

4-6 scallions, trimmed and thinly sliced

1/4 cup water, more or less to bind mixture

canola oil, for frying

English muffins

Joyce Goldstein's yogurt dressing (see below)

1. Mash the chickpeas with a potato masher. If you did not give away your food processor when you moved into an apartment with a smaller kitchen, use it, pulsing until coarsely ground. Add remaining ingredients, except the canola oil, and stir until you have an unlumpy doughy batter, thick enough to form into patties. If it is too thick, stir in a bit of water. 
2. Form hamburger-thick patties with dough, a little larger in circumference than an English muffin, then dredge patties in flour and set aside on a cookie sheet or large plate. Heat 3-4 tablespoons canola oil in a large, heavy skillet, until a bit of the dough sizzles when dropped in. 
3. Carefully place patties in skillet (they may break easily before cooking); fry 6-8 minutes per side, until they form a crunchy, dark golden exterior forms; you may need to add extra oil before cooking on second side. Drain briefly on paper towels. Keep warm in a 300 degree oven if necessary, before serving. 

You can eat these, as we did, on warm English muffins, topped with Goldstein's yogurt dressing. Maybe a little hot sauce. She suggests tahini sauce, and that of course is traditional. Lettuce tomato and thin slices of cucumber are good, too. Or served topped with a cucumber, onion, tomato, avocado salad dressed in olive oil and cider vinegar. Or serve in pita (warmed in the microwave still in the plastic bag; that's how Goldstein does it), topped with vegetables, drizzled with whatever sauces you like. You decide. 

Joyce Goldstein's Yogurt Dressing

Makes 2 1/2 cups

2 cups thick yogurt (I used Fage nonfat Greek; it's amazing)

1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil

1/4 cup fresh lemon juice

sea salt

2-3 teaspoons minced garlic

2 tablespoons chopped fresh mint

Whisk together yogurt, oil, lemon juice and salt to taste (I used about 1/2 a teaspoon); fold in garlic and herbs. So so so so so good. 

Is Chicken the Devil?

Possibly. If you've ever been in a chicken coop (yes, I have), they can be rather unpleasant. 

But as my friend Mark Bittman, author of the excellent book "Food Matters," recently pointed out regarding the vilification of pork during the swine flue hysteria: it's not the animal, it's the industrial agriculture that is to blame for dangerous farmed meat. Same goes for chicken: they didn't do anything to humans. We did something to them. 

And yet, during the recent Oprah-KFC  debacle, which was sad to me but which a lot of people seemed to find amusing (click here), we loaded the poor little chickens down with too much of our own personal baggage.

Oh, how we attach our sensibilities, our politics, our opinions, our obsessions to our food. Never mind that it helps keeps people alive, or that some people can't afford much and will take what they can get. It's all about us, us, us. 

But how about this? How about we all use the KFC-Oprah thing to remind us to be more thoughtful next time anyone tries to give everyone in America a free chicken dinner, via coupons. 

I will,  however, allow myself a final word(s), because this is my blog. I tend to forgive anyone who offers free food, even if the giveaway is a marketing ploy. I'd rather it not be factory raised food that is destroying the planet, but I don't think truly hungry people are offended by that sort of thing. I have a lot of tangled thoughts on this, which I'll keep to myself until those thoughts get straightened out, which should be never. 

I will use this opportunity to say this one more time: learning to cook is becoming more and more essential to eating well in the world we live in. The more we cook at home, the less we end up to eating food that has an unseemly provenance. It's cheaper, in general, and it gives the power back to the consumer, if you shop wisely. 

And this: Some people don't have much access to fresh food (much less organic, local, non-factory farmed, etc.). Some people wouldn't know what to do with it if they did have easy access. Some people are too poor to buy food, be it fresh frozen fast factory farmed or fried. Some people have never eaten a fresh tomato. Some people are starving. Some people starve themselves because they want to be skinny. Some people eat too much because they want to be happier. Some people just really like to eat, and spend all their disposable income doing so. Some people don't, and use food only for fuel. Some people eat organic fudge but are mean to dogs. It's a crazy world, difficult to judge, but I'm glad that we're changing directions, away from fast food.

See, I can't keep my mouth shut. 

Back to the cooking part: here at my house, there's a person who really likes fried chicken--a lot. She likes fried chicken fingers, specifically, and I have seen her eat one of these contraptions (served at a now defunct, thank god, hot-dog stand, so it wasn't even their specialty) that looked like a deep fried, ossified dinosaur claw. The chicken inside was like rope. And three of these fingers together weighed about 5 pounds. 

There is absolutely no reason to ingest that sort of thing if you can avoid it. And, of course, making your own chicken fingers is easy, fun for the chicken-finger set, and you don't have to fry them. If you can get organic vegetarian fed minimally processed free range chicken that has not been tortured on the way to your table, of course, do that. Sorry to bring it up before merrily offering you this recipe, but if you're still averting your eyes to the harsh realities of factory farmed food: wake up. 

These are finger licking good, but I'd rather you use a napkin and finish all your broccoli.

Chicken Fingers You Can Live With

Serves 4-6 kids

2 cups panko (these Japanese bread crumbs are available in the grocery store, in the imported food section, but you can also use crushed saltines or crushed cornflakes)

1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese

1/4 teaspoon salt 

1/2 teaspoon freshly ground pepper

6 tablespoons butter, melted (you can also use canola or olive oil here)

1 1/2 pounds boneless, skinless chicken breast halves

1. Preheat oven to 425. Mix panko, Parmesan, salt and pepper together and spread on a plate or shallow bowl. Melt butter and pour into another.
2. Place breasts between waxed paper or plastic wrap and pound with a rolling pin to about 1/2 inch thickness. Lay the breasts on a cutting board and cut into lengthwise strips, a half inch or so wide. You can cut them in half is they're too long. 
   
3. Take each strip, coat in the butter, then roll over in the panko, pressing to make sure the crumbs adhere.
   
4. Place strips on an ungreased baking sheet; bake in the middle rack for 15 minutes or so, until cooked through, moving the pan around occasionally to make sure they don't brown too fast.  Cool for a few minutes before serving.
   

At my house, these are eaten with ketchup, which is probably full of poison. But we rarely eat ketchup. Dijon mustard with a little honey mixed in is good, too. 

Just do it

The more you cook, the more many of your nagging culinary questions--Why the hell do I have to sear/brown this, when it makes my stove messy, wastes my time, makes me burn myself? for example--answer themselves. 

And then you forget the answer, and try to make certain beef, chicken, pork etc. dishes--like my disastrous pork tenderloin with olives and oranges--without first searing the meat. 

The reason for quickly searing meat before subjecting it to other cooking methods like braising or roasting is not, as many believe, to "seal in the juices," according to page 161 of Harold McGee's brilliant book "On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen," but simply to enhance flavor. In fact, brown meat too much, you're just drying it out. The point is to create a tasty and pretty "crust" that  will also add depth to flavors of braised dishes and stews. 

But do you need to know why, as long as it works? Probably not. Are you a professional chef? Not if you're reading this, and neither am I. Besides: You already have too much information in your head. So if you'd like to be a decent cook without going to culinary school why not just do as you're told by the many chefs and cooks who have come before you and subsequently sold you their cookbooks. 

And once you do, remember what you've done/read. 

Because culinary history exists for the same reason that regular history (especially that of the Bush Administration) exists: so that we can learn from our extremely stupid mistakes rather than repeating them over and over again and thereby living like Prometheus, whose liver was eaten by that eagle or vulture or whatever kind of bird it was, then grown back each night, to be eaten again the very next day. Over and over and over.

Try to give the lessons of  history the slip, and you end up running the country into the ground, or, in our smaller circumstances here, wasting expensive food. Believe it or not, I actually got the hot idea not that long ago (meaning, way after I'd been cooking for decades) that I would not cream the butter and sugar in a cake recipe. What folly. What a loser! Just like Bush.

Anyway, rather than dragging you along as I skip down the lane of my hubristic culinary mistakes, I'm  showing you this picture of the aforementioned pork dish. 

I'm not going to try to explain in words what I thought I was doing here, except to say that the cooking method and the meat were not a good match. I really like pork tenderloin, and making a terrific meal out of this cheap cut is pretty simple. My next post will be a simple supper, invented by the man who lives here with me, of pork medallions with red curry paste, in fact.

Anyway, I urge you to trot this picture out whenever you need a grotesque reminder of why we sear. Or print it out and put it in your Halloween recipe file, because,  as you can see,  it looks like a human arm. In this case a human arm dotted with olives and oranges. You want it to look like a browned human arm. 

In conclusion, I offer this note on how to sear: add a little olive or canola to a large heavy pot or skillet, turn heat up to medium high; when the oil shimmers, drop in a bit of meat. It should sizzle. If it doesn't, wait a few minutes, but don't let the oil smoke.  Place the meat in the skillet, and let it brown until the skillet releases it without sticking, then turn. For smaller pieces of meat, there should be plenty of room between each portion. If you have a lot, cook it in batches with good space between pieces, otherwise the ambient moisture begins a braise before you are finished, which you don't want, until you're ready to braise, if that is what your plan is. You can let it cook a little longer, too, but don't burn it.  The idea is to get a nice color on every inch, before you really cook it. I like a deep golden brown. Thank you.

Bird in a Nest, Edible Version

One thing I wish more people knew, especially people who have lived their lives on fast/takeout/restaurant food: cooking doesn't always have to mean making a giant involved recipe. Many people are unaware of the incredible amount of culinary satisfaction that can come with very little effort. Putting out freshly boiled corn, sliced tomatoes, and cucumbers in oil and vinegar is cooking. I consider a really good ham sandwich cooking (put pickles on it!).

Read a few cookbooks that appeal to you, make a few of the simplest dishes, and the whole process begins to grow on you. 

Or, that's the way it happened with me. Granted, I loved being in the kitchen when I was a kid, and started cooking for other people when I was in college. But I happen to know that even if you grow up in a family where cooking is not the absolute norm, or where no one cooks at all, that can change very quickly. 

For instance: doesn't this Bird in a Nest look delicious to you? It does to me, and I can say that without sounding like a braggart because I did not make it. I taught it to a close personal friend of mine, who is 9, and now she makes it herself, much better than I make it. Just look at that browned crust, the perfect amount of pepper. Aaahhh: Saturday morning breakfast. Add half a grapefruit, a smoothie: you're cooking with gas until lunchtime rolls around. This version looks especially good, I imagine, because this friend puts about a half a stick of butter in the pan before starting, but she can do that because she is slender as a piano leg--a graceful, lovely butterhound. She also took the picture. 

She loves food, and likes to help me cook about half the time. But her favorite dish is fried chicken fingers and ketchup, and you should never expect her to take it lying down if you try to serve "cooked oranges," as part of a pork tenderloin dish. I'm just trying to make sure you know that she is not one of those junior food snobs. Because I believe that if you took all the cuteness out of the world, what you'd have left over is a runty, mean little former boss of mine, and children who say things  like "chevre," "aged balsamic vinegar" and "sous vide." 

It's not, of course, a recipe at all. It's just our breakfast. You need a slice of your favorite bread (we like rye), a fresh organic egg, some butter, sea salt and freshly ground pepper. 

1. Using a small biscuit cutter or small glass, cut a hole in the bread, saving the bread from the hole as the little round hat. 
2. Melt butter in a medium nonstick skillet, over medium high heat. Place the bread and the bread hat in the pan and let each get toasty brown on one side, then the other, moving them around in the pan so that each side gets buttery. Turn down the heat to medium low. 
3.  Crack the egg into a coffee cup, being careful not to break the yolk. Once the pan has cooled down a bit, gently pour the egg into the hole. You want it to cook slowly, so it doesn't get that horrible leathery coating. When the egg white has become firm and halfway opaque,  salt and pepper it, then flip it. For over-easy, cook for barely a minute more. You'll have to use a spatula to get it out of the pan; once you do, flip it over on the plate and serve, topped with the hat, which you can use to dip into the yellow. Practice makes perfect. 

The Purloined Lentil

I have knowingly and openly stolen two things in my life: a Peppermint Pattie and about one-quarter of the flowering branches from a medium-size forsythia tree growing in a yard that was not mine. In both cases, I was punished to the fullest extent of civilized parental law, using the shame method: I was forced to return both items, then endure otherwise moot lectures by the affronted drugstore owner and the horrified gardener. 

In my defense, during my criminal period I clearly recognized what had real value in the world. 

Both crimes were of course committed back when my brain was still pliable (i.e., before age 10). So rather than blow the punishments off and continue to take what I wanted, I turned into one of those people who goes out of her way to make it very clear that I am not stealing: I generally return things that accidentally end up in my grocery bag, I don't "taste" cherries at the produce stand, I give other people credit even if I think I am the one who really deserves it; if, for instance, I still happen to have a  book loaned to me by a person who has moved out of town, I flinch when I hear a police siren. It can be hellish, being so virtuous. 

Of course, each person's idea of what qualifies as theft is probably flexible. 

When it comes to reworking recipes, I tend to go so overboard in giving credit that the creator of the original probably ends up resenting the byline--especially if my version has a certain graceless rusticity not found in its model. But I like to think that I am not making recipes better or worse; I am tailoring them to my own tastes. 

Sadly, we live in a world full of people are not as naturally guilty as I am. They'll lay claim to a dish for flimsy reasons, especially on the internet, where some terrific sites (such as simplyrecipes) are often attacked by evil recipe pirates. In Chicago, one chef, Homaro Cantu, has taken the step of patenting. 

Of course, if everyone were like me, recipes that had been handed down a million times would be so title-cumbersome--like the future great-grandchildren of couples who give their offspring hyphenate surnames--that people would give up cooking altogether. We don't want that. 

So when is calling a not entirely original formula your own no longer stealing? If the person who gave you the recipe dies? If you add 1/2 teaspoon of nutmeg instead of the 1/4 teaspoon suggested in the original? If you use salmon instead of mahi mahi? If you roast rather than saute?

And how do we punish those who steal recipes?

I don't know. But I do know this: however neurotic I am,  I'm probably not the only home cook or recipe collector (or recipe inventor) who worries about this sort of thing. [This just in: a nice piece on the topic by the truly wonderful F.F.W. (Famous Food Writer) David Lebovitz, sent to me by another blogger I'm keen on.]

This dish I'm about to share (aside from borscht, it is the best use for beets I can imagine) falls into a gray zone. I know I didn't dream it up myself, but I also do not have a recipe record. I am pretty sure it came from an article in Metropolitan Home, back in about 1992, accompanying the story of a cute young couple so poor that they threw together their wedding with the help of friends. One friend/guest made salad very similar to this one. It is a surprisingly delicious, elegant dish that needs nothing from the dairy department; don't even be tempted to add goat or feta cheese. I love the way it all takes on the ruby stain of the beets, too. 

If anyone can give me the exact origins of the recipe, I'm happy to cite. Until then, it is:

Emily's Purloined Beet and Lentil Salad

Serves 6-8

6 medium beets, unpeeled, scrubbed, trimmed

1 medium onion (red or yellow), quartered lengthwise, sliced into 1/3 inch slices 

20 basil leaves, torn

4 cloves garlic, crushed

1/3 cup olive oil

1/2 cup water

1/2 teaspoon salt

freshly ground black pepper

3 cups lentils, picked over and rinsed

4-5 cups chicken stock

Simple Mustard Vinaigrette (below)

1. Preheat oven to 425. Place whole beets into  a 13x9x2-inch baking dish; strew with onion slices, basil leaves, crushed garlic. Drizzle with olive oil; salt, pepper. Add water to pan.
2. Cover pan tightly with foil, bake without uncovering, for 1 hour and 15 minutes. 
3. While beets are roasting, place lentils in another 13x9x2-inch pan with 4 cups of the stock, tightly covered with foil. After the beets have cooked for 45 minutes, place lentils in oven. Check lentils after 30 minutes. If stock has been absorbed and lentils are tender, remove with beets. Otherwise, continue to cook another 15 minutes or so, adding more broth if necessary to prevent lentils from burning.
4. Meanwhile, make Simple Mustard Vinaigrette.
5. Allow beets and lentils to cool, uncovered. (Drain any excess broth from lentils if necessary) Remove beets from pan, reserving remaining beet-juice-onion-basil mixture. Peel, cut into 1-inch chunks; combine with lentils and juice-onion-basil mixture in a large bowl. Toss with about half jar of Simple mustard Vinaigrette, more or less to taste. Adjust salt and pepper. Serve at room temperature. 
   

Simple mustard vinaigrette, again

In a jar, stir together 8 tablespoons olive oil,  1 tablespoon Dijon mustard, 3 tablespoons of red wine vinegar, 1/2 teaspoon salt, freshly ground black pepper. Place the lid on the jar, and shake vigorously, until emulsified.