November « 2009 « blogging for burgers

Monthly Archive for November, 2009

Dear Ronnybrook: You have a rival.

Published on in Greenmarkets and travels. Closed

But they are only in LA, so I guess you’re not really going to be competing for share.  And they are not organic or hormone-free, so again, not really competition.

Anyway, while out in LA over the past week, I had the pleasure of trying Broguiere’s milk.  It’s the last old-school, glass-bottled dairy left in the LA area.  It’s located in Montebello, but widely available in various grocery stores all over.

When I first saw the product, I was at the grocery store with burgermom, and I noticed the glass bottles in the dairy aisle.  “Hmm, this looks just like Ronnybrook bottles.”  My mom then told me that they were featured on an episode of California Gold, a local PBS show featuring Huell Howser (an incredibly cheesy show highlighting local events and places in California).  Not really wanting to buy milk or the egg nog, since I was only in town for a couple of days, we passed on it and finished our shopping.

The next night, after watching the Newshour (my mom does not have cable, so TV options are limited), California Gold was on, and was featuring, what do you know, Broguiere’s Dairy!  My mom and I watched the show, and watched them make their famous chocolate milk, which is still hand-made in big steel tanks by adding one part chocolate syrup to 10 parts whole milk.

Huell downed a sip, and made it out to be incredible.  It looked pretty good.  Interest scale: 5.5 out of 10.

Then, being around the holidays, they had an additional featurette on the eggnog.  Again, it is mixed by hand, in the same steel tanks, but contains a decadently golden custard base and additional heavy cream.  Huell again exclaimed his praises, and said it was the best thing out there since the Broguiere’s chocolate milk.  Interest scale: 10 out of 10.

So burgermom and I headed out to the local How’s at about 9 o’clock.  My mom doesn’t keep anything sweet in the house, so this was going to be our dessert after a lovely skirt steak with roasted fingerling potatoes and brussels sprouts.

We got back from the store and got our glasswares ready.  The chocolate milk went first, since the nog would probably kill anything remaining on the palate.  The chocolate milk was very good.  I would still say that the Ronnybrook chocolate milk is a bit better.  You can tell with Broguiere’s that they’re not using the best chocolate syrup out there, so the quality is really buoyed by the freshness of the whole milk they are using.  This didn’t stop my mom from downing about three-fourths of the bottle, but I was not resoundingly singing its praises.

Then came the eggnog.  The nog features Huell’s face on it, and it has done so for about the last nine years, since the story originally came out on California Gold.  The nog has just started hitting the shelves, and I must say that I was glad I was there to experience it.  I am going to go out on a limb and say it is the best eggnog I have ever had.  There, I said it.  It’s thick, it’s rich, it’s heavily spiced, it is Christmas in a glass.  It has that slight heat from the nutmeg and spices that gives it depth, and the copious amounts of egg and heavy cream give it a whole lot of body.  This, I must say, is better than the eggnog produced by Ronnybrook.  It hurts to type it, but it’s the truth.  If you are ever in LA over the holidays, do yourself a huge favor and get some.

But wait, there’s more!

When drinking/eating this eggnog, I thought that it would be tremendous if put into an ice cream maker.  Since Thanksgiving dinner was coming up, what better occasion to try it out.  I took to the interweb to see if others have done it, since I was surely not the first person to have this revelation.  Alas, others had.  Many complained that the finished product was not creamy enough, instead coming together as a spongey, almost stringy product.  A delicious one, but not exactly ice cream like, either.  I decided to then cut it with some lean milk (to balance out what I am guessing is the coagulant-like qualities of the egg yolks giving the nog its golden hue) and some bourbon (to prevent the ice cream from getting too icy).

I mixed everything together in a bowl (one and one-half cup nog, one cup 2% milk, and a couple of tablespoons of bourbon) pulled out the ice cream maker at burgerdad’s house.  At first, the product looked like any other ice cream being freshly made.

Pretty uneventful for a few minutes.  I was hoping that my own thoughtfully prepared mixture would beat LA Chowhounders whose recipes couldn’t cut the custard (what a pun!).  After about ten minutes or so in the maker, though, the signs started pointing towards ice cream land.

Things seemed to be working out alright.  It looked a little icy, possibly from the skim milk addition, but it still seemed to be working out.  A quick taste still confirmed that it had that same richness, and the bourbon didn’t hurt, either.

Here’s how it was another five minutes or so later.  You can see that there there is some slight ice build-up on the cutter, but on the bottom right-hand corner, you can see that some of creaminess was still coming through, and the taste was still great.

At that stage, it was done.  Took it out, and it was still creamy, some of that initial icy-ness was gone.  I was quite pleased with the finished product.  However, after a couple of hours in the freezer, it unfortunately lost some of its initial creaminess and was a bit icy, almost like a blend of a sorbet and an ice cream.  While this was nice accompanied with a fresh slice of pumpkin pie and whipped cream, it was not ideal if served alone.

Not deterred, I am writing down some notes that I had in terms of the mix:

– Continue to cut the eggnog with milk, but use whole milk instead.  While the skim milk was a good idea in theory, in practice it was not really the best.

– Transfer the ice cream out of its maker when done, and put into something that will not remain quite as cold (such as a plastic container).  I think this would have prevented a little bit of the change in consistency.

– Use more bourbon.  Just because.  And maybe for its low freeze point.  But mostly just because.

Yet another reason to get this nog.  If only I had an ice cream maker here in NYC…

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It's turkey time.

Published on in Burgeruminations and food marketing. Closed

 

It must almost be Thanksgiving.

It seems like all I do these days is go to Kennedy Airport and head off to faraway lands.  Today I’m heading to the left coast, to pay a visit to the burgerrents.  And, of course, it is thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving is a great holiday.  I mean, when else can you unabashedly stuff your face with rich foods, using the excuse, “well, it is thanksgiving…”?  Never.  Except maybe Christmas, New Year’s, your birthday, groundhog day, every other Monday, and Friday.  Oh, and saturday.

Growing up, Thanksgiving always meant stuffing and canned cranberry jelly.  To this day, I still look forward to eating both of those items on the magical fourth Thursday in November.  Now, as a little kid, I was slightly fooled about the Thanksgiving stuffing that my dad used to make.  My mom, being a foreigner, didn’t really know too much about stuffing, and made it out that my dad’s stuffing was this revelation, a recipe handed down from generation to generation (although, in retrospect, I highly doubt my italian-born great-grandmother knew what Thanksgiving stuffing was).

In any event, the smell of my dad’s stuffing permeated the house on Thanksgiving Day, and the taste was always delightful.  I hoped that some day, I, too, would be able to make this magical delicacy.

A few years ago, I got my chance.  I was asked to cook Thanksgiving dinner for my family a couple of family friends.  I started to plan months in advance, thinking about how the timing would work, and how my culinary skills would astound and amaze my guests.  There would be butternut squash soup with toasted pine nuts, pancetta, and a sage cream, mashed potatoes with rosemary and caramelized shallots, chickpea flat bread with rosemary and gorgonzola, turkey, and, of course, my great-great-great-great grandmother’s super-secret recipe for turkey stuffing.

I knew that it had one ingredient: breakfast sausage.  It never really dawned on me that again, a foreigner would not have breakfast sausage.  Especially not Jimmy Dean breakfast sausage.  I guess this was another one of those things that I was fooled about, just like Uncle Ben being my uncle.

That was an honest mistake.  I thought he was just really tanned.

Anyway, I asked my dad if he had the recipe.  Thinking he would say, “yes, son, I can give you the recipe, but promise me you’ll guard it with your life.”  Then, he would pull it out of his wallet: a frayed, worn-to-the-point-of-being-like-cotton recipe card, written in ancient script (aka, cursive).  He would hand it to me with a look of pride, as I, his only son, would inherit the stuffing recipe.

Imagine my dismay when he told me, “Uhh, I don’t know what you’re talking about.  I think the recipe is from the package of Pepperidge Farm stuffing.  I mean, it’s just sausage, celery, and onions.”

WHAT?!

PEPPERIDGE FARM?  My entire childhood was based on a recipe that some “test kitchen” at the Campbell’s Company came up with?  Jimmy Dean® Old Fashioned Breakfast sausage™, onions, LUCKY Brand celery, Swanson®-brand chicken stock for moisture, and a bag of Pepperidge Farm®-brand stuffing (Original™ or Herb Seasoned™), baked for about 45 minutes in a Pyrex® a pre-heated 350-degree General Electric Monogram™ oven was not a Burgeretti family recipe?  Are you kidding me?  I was duped by corporate america?

Apparently I had been.

I always knew that the cranberry jelly came from a can, so that wasn’t really a problem for me.  But this whole stuffing thing basically meant that my entire Thanksgiving history was based on a corporate sham.  A rich, meaty, delicious sham, but a sham nonetheless.  What was next?  Was mom’s Easter “alphabet-shaped pasta in a sweet and highly viscous red tomato-sauce-like sauce” also a widely available commercial product?

Couldn’t be.

In other news, here’s a picture of a grass-fed sirloin steak I made last night.  Just thought I’d share.  I’d also like to give a shout-out to chanterelle mushrooms, just because they are awesome.  Especially when they are cooked in a pan that has leftover black truffle bits and butter in it.  I’m just saying, they are delicious.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.

 

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MMM, salty.

Published on in food marketing. Closed

In today’s MediaPost email blast, there was an article about Diamond Crystal Salt’s new advertising campaign, which features a microsite called Salt101, which features information about Diamond Crysal salt and features Alton Brown.

Now, normally I wouldn’t visit a brand’s microsite, unless it was the age-old classic, “will it blend?”  However, a quick visit to the site actually entertained me for a good 15 minutes, as I learned why I should buy Diamond salt now, in all of its various forms and shapes and sizes.  It also had a few interesting ideas and applications of salt, most of which are admittedly common among foodie circles, but are probably lesser-known among the masses.

The videos are short but entertaining, and are organized into two areas: the kitchen and the lab.  The former tackles home cooking and uses of salt, while the latter focuses on the science stuff.  Whoever produced these shorts was probably watching Wes Anderson movies for a few weeks straight prior to makng the videos, because each one is like watching Life Aquatic or the Royal Tenenbaums.  Either way, the site was well worth the visit.

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avec Chicago, aka, "how much more fat can I eat?"

Published on in Random, restaurants and travels. Closed

I found myself in Chicago this past weekend, you know, just for a change in scenery.  And an interview that could change my ENTIRE FUTURE.  Not that there was any pressure or anything.

Anyway, I like Chicago a lot, and from what I’ve heard, it’s becoming quite the culinary center of the midwest.  Maybe I’m biased since I was born there, but I always have felt some sort of strange connection with the place, even though I have never lived there as an adult, and I have only visited it a couple times while cognizant of my surroundings (although I was a very astute toddler).

I arrived on Friday evening, after nearly having a panic attack that my flight would be delayed hours and hours because of the storm, and I wanted to be on my A-game before the BIG INTERVIEW.  Fortunately, everything went as planned, and I found myself at the Hotel Allegro (it’s a KIMPTON property, fools!), located on West Randolph and North La Salle.

Now, for a little bit of a background– Thursday night, I had gone to Lupa for a work dinner, and chatted with my new buddy Mike, who happens to be a manager at Lupa, and also happens to be a native Chicagoan.  I asked him for some solid recommendations, being that I would be rollin’ solo in Chi-town.  He dropped me an email with a litany of places, and I knew that I would be lucky to get to even one of them.

(For those of you who are curious: “Chicago restaurants: Blackbird and avec. Schwa. Doug’s Dogs. If you wanna go very fancy then you must try one of the best restaurants in the world: Alinea. I also have a good blues club: rosa’s. I have more ideas but that’s the top of my head.
Brunch at Anne Sather. If you get up North go to Sarki’s in Wilmette or wings at Buffalo Joes in Evanston. Deep dish pizza at Giordanos. Walker bros pancake house on greenbay rd in Wilmette.”)

Looking on Google maps on my phone, I saw that Avec was a mere stone’s throw away from my hotel.  With a grumbling stomach, I headed west on a mission.  Upon arrival, I was slightly scared by the fact that there was a mass of people waiting both outside and in.  It was already 730 and I needed at least a good night’s sleep before the BIG INTERVIEW.

However, Avec looks like this:


See the big bar?  This is where I was hoping I could make my move.  Being a solo diner, I nonchalantly walked up to the host and said, “hey man, how are you doing?  I’m all by my lonesome tonight.”  Now, at the time, and actually up until I just wrote that down, I didn’t realize how much like a pick-up line that probably sounded.  In retrospect, it would have sounded maybe a little bit cooler had I said it to the hostess (featured picture left) instead of the large awkward man (also featured left, sorta).  Either way, my point was that I was eating alone on a Friday night, and I had to make it sound cool.

I was surprisingly seated within about 5-10 minutes, after which the hostess APOLOGIZED that I had to wait.  I knew I wasn’t in NYC anymore when that happened.  I’m so used to feeling like I need to apologize when I make restaurant hosts do their jobs.  “Sorry I decided to eat here and ruin your staring contest with the Opentable screen– should I come back?  I hear there is an open reservation for two at 10:45?”

Anyway, I sat down and perused the menu, which was composed of mostly small plates.  Now, small plates are truly only “small plates” when you are eating with someone else.  When you are by yourself, it’s more like eating four meals.  But I was hungry, so it was all good.

The menu was great, and I can only imagine what it would be like if I could have tried more than only a handful of things– they had great looking and smelling flatbreads, and a laundry list of pork and offal products.  I knew that I had to go with the braised berkshire cheeks with blood sausage and cabbage, and also the stuffed dates with chorizo, wrapped in bacon.  At this point, I felt that I had already too much on my plate, so I decided to ask my man behind the bar how much more I would need:

“How hungry are you?”

– I mean, I can eat (that’s my code for saying, are you calling me a wimp?  I can eat more than anyone you know.)

“Well, what are you thinking?”

– Definitely the pork cheeks, and the dates

“Aight, we’ll do a half order of the dates and the cheeks.  Maybe one more thing.  The squash is good, the fish is good, the salad is actually pretty good”

– (I knew this guy was speaking my language when he said, “the salad is actually good”) What about the veal liver?

[Looking extremely pleased, like I had just passed the “lonely loser at the bar on a Friday night surrounded by couples” test and unlocked our everlasting friendship] “You like the gamey stuff, huh? Excellent.  Let’s get it started.”

 

I then entered the world of arterial pain.  First, the dates arrived.


Now, it might be hard to tell from the photo, but “date” is really a misnomer here.  I would call it “bacon wrapped chorizo ball with a touch of date.”  It was served with a freshly heated mini spanish bread loaf, and came in a spicy-sweet tomato-based sauce.  It was tremendous.  This paired with a nice carafe of rioja was going to be put in a good spirit for the rest of the evening.

After devouring a half-order of the dates, which was probably enough to be my meal, the seared veal liver arrived.  I didn’t get a chance to take a picture because I immediately started to stuff my face with it.  It was a simple veal liver accompanied by parsnips, rapini, and bacon.  The liver itself had a little bit of gristle, which is to be expected, but the flavor was excellent and the bacon was a perfect complement without overpowering the dish.  I was innard heaven.

Now, between the two dishes, I probably had consumed far more than I needed to.  Bear in mind, people around me were getting TWO dishes, sharing them, and leaving.  I was by myself and was outlasting people by a good hour.  The time was about 9 o’clock, and I still hadn’t done my preparations.  But in the moment, I didn’t care.  I was eating great food and was in a good place.  Much better than staring at a TV while stressing out.

I finished my carafe of rioja and decided to live a little and get a beer.  I got a Belgian La Binchoise Amber Reserve Speciale, which paired nicely with my (second to) last course: the braised pork cheeks, served with blood sausage and cabbage, barley and artichokes.


Just a little side note at this point.  You see how all of the dishes arrive in a vessel from which you are supposed to serve yourself?  Well, they continued to give me a clean plate with every course, and despite the fact that I was eating by myself, I continued to serve myself small portions, as though I would leave the rest for someone else.  It made me feel like a dignified gentleman, and not some sort of ruffian eating from the serving bowl.

Now, back to the cheeks.  They were amazing.  I don’t know if it was the euphoria from eating my favorite part of my favorite animal, or some sort of other drug-like quality of the dish, but I was in heaven.  I can still remember the feeling from eating it, not just the taste.  I am a bit partial since I love blood sausage, as announced in my DBGB post, but the dish was perfectly balanced, with salty but creamy sausage pieces and chewy barley bits and sweet artichoke bits and big pork cheek bits.  It was chock full of bits.  I could only muster a satisfied thumbs-up when my buddy the bartender would walk by to see what was going on.  When I finally was able to get a couple of words out, I could just say, “this is awesome, man.  You guys are rockin’ it.”

I finished everything in that bowl (in four smaller servings) and poured out every last bit of the sauce (the bowl had a nice pouring spout).  When the guy took away the plate, I finally plead guilty to having over-eaten.

“You good?”

– Man, I’m cashed.  Everything was awesome.

“Alright man, I was gonna say, if you had room in your stomach, you should get the pasta, it’s phenomenal.”

I had seen the pasta.  It looked phenomenal.  But the time was 9.40 and I still had that little meeting (yeah, I had downplayed it by this point) in the morning.  But the pasta looked so good.  I saw man orders of it go out from my bar/kitchen vantage point.  So creamy, so delicious-looking.

– I’m gonna have to come back for that.  For sure…  But let me do some cheese.”

So I got some cheese.  Some Tomme de Savoie and some Torta del Casar, to be exact.  It came with more of that delicious bread and a small parsley and marcona almond salad.  And my buddy threw another beer at me just for kicks.  Maybe he saw how sad I was when I looked at the pasta on the menu: “Housemade pasta with veal and offal bolognese, cream and fresh herbs.”  It was like a dish created just for me.  It didn’t even say what offal were included, and it didn’t matter to me.  A quick google search yielded this twitter update from some dude that I don’t know: “Avec was en fuego last eve..lots of offal…pumpkin/ginger soup w/ crispy veal heart, awesome and the offal Bolognese, terrific.”

I wish I could have twittered about eating offal bolognese.

In retrospect, the fact that I ordered some cheese is completely understandable.  He employed a little of asking if I wanted another big thing (“that’s way too much food”) made me feel obligated to get another small thing (“I suppose it’s just some cheese”).  It’s simple psychology, as explained by Richard Cialdini in his book Influence, and I fell for it like a sucker.

But I didn’t care.  The meal was great, and I couldn’t have been happier and in better spirits, for that, umm, I think I had something in the morning I had to go to…

Anyway, just go to Avec if you’re in Chicago.  But take a friend.  My buddy at the bar also recommended a place called Belly Shack, which is on North Michigan near Armitage (surprised I didn’t see it, I was walking around up there).  I didn’t get a chance to check it out, but I’d like to.

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The Return: Minetta Tavern Redux.

Published on in burger spots and restaurants. Closed

A lazy tune plays over speakers, the tinny brass melodies permeate the air. The soft golden lighting casts a nostalgic hue over the scene at the bar.  Sipping a scotch on the rocks at the bar, I can’t help but think of countless others who have been in the same situation as I, and just as content.

A lonely madame sits at the bar, gazing into what should be smoke-filled air.  She listens to conversations of those around her, yet she herself is without companionship, at least for the moment…

A suave blond gentleman enters the scene, he appears to know everyone, and everyone appears to know him. Or perhaps they are just pretending.  He. looks around before wandering to the bar for an aperitif.  Receiving it, he retreats to a corner of the bar.  Perhaps it was all an act.

A cold whiskey warms to soul while it numbs the senses.  A good night to come.

Ok, maybe the scene at Minetta Tavern this past friday wasn’t so reminiscent of James Joyce, but it was still pretty good.  BG’s dad hooked up the friday night reservation, and out of the kindness of his heart, also paid the bill.

We first sat down to what I was sure would be another great meal at Minetta Tavern.  The black label was a must, but the steaks were to be the main event for the evening.  Kicking it off, I ordered an appetizer special of day boat scallops and mushrooms, which ended up being a delicious mixture of mushrooms, scallops, and butter.  I mean, how could you go wrong?  Some other apps at the table included fresh heirloom salad (I suppose the “healthy choice”), a puréed soup of some sort with oysters, roasted beet salad, and salt-cod stuffed calamari.

All that out of the way, it was time to relive a magical memory that I had experienced six months prior.  The black. label. burger.

Yes, the black label burger was an intermezzo. It came out, divided in thirds (for me, BG, and the BGD).  I didn’t waste any time, going straight in without adding anything to it, which is exactly how I had done it the time before.  It was as tremendous as ever.  Thinking about it now makes my mouth water.  No, seriously, it does.  It’s that good.  One third wasn’t enough.  I wanted more.  But I knew that a whole lot of red meat was on its way.

And it arrived.  The côte de boeuf, shared among three of us, even though the menu indicates that it’s for two.  I don’t think that I know two people who could polish that bad boy off.  It came with three giant bones split open for the roasted marrow action (a BB favorite), and a plethora of delicious meat.  And we rocked it.  We rocked it till the cows came home.  It was just a blur of carnage that my arteries have yet to forget.  I fully recommend it, but maybe, just maybe, start with something light and do the black label if (ok, when) you have room for it.

For dessert, we had the chocolate soufflé, which was light and fluffy like a soufflé should be, with a subtle egginess that made it like rich velvet on the tongue.  Chocolatey velvet, that is.  The perfect end to another fantastic meal at Minetta.

It already feels like it’s time to go back.

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Update: Feel free to poison yourself at will.

Published on in food politics. Closed

After major outcry on the FDAs ban on raw Gulf oysters in the summer, the organization is now delaying its decision until further studies are done.

Although the initial proposal would not have gone into effect for some time, this gives ample time for a realistic solution to be developed in conjunction with local Gulf Coast fisheries (I hope, at least).  Since when did food politics get so one-sided, anyway?
BB was in Chicago for the weekend– a food update to come shortly.  I also owe all of you guys a much-delayed entry on Minetta Tavern.  Mea culpa, mea culpa.

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