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Adventures in Home Pizza Making (Part I)

As my most devoted readers will remember, I recently made flatbread that wasn’t very pretty, but did taste pretty good.  For those of you who don’t remember or are just stumbling across the blog now, it looked a little something like this:

While this “pizza” was tasty, the cross-section left something to be desired.  It was dense and heavy, far from what one looks for in a pizza dough.

Phase II

Of course, once I got bitten by the pizza-making bug (again), it was pretty hard to go back.  I had a phase a few years ago that lasted for months, and I had been freshly re-infected.  I started to dig up my old recipes and techniques for dough making.  I pulled out my war-notes, which were tattered from wear and filled with endless scribbles.

Newly armed with old knowledge, burgergal and I made ramp pizza.

Continue reading ‘Adventures in Home Pizza Making (Part I)’

I just couldn’t stop myself. A rare step by step.

After this weekend’s food-fest, I needed something for dinner that would live up to my (now) very high standards.  But I equally needed something moderately healthy, as a result of this weekend’s food-fest.

While brainstorming, burgergal asked me what ingredient I wanted to use.  Recently, when I think healthy, I think quinoa.  But a big plate of quinoa wasn’t exactly going to cut it.  I also needed some ramps in there (obviously).  What else… some mushrooms maybe?  That would be good, really good.  But for some reason, and this never happens, I wanted red meat, not in the form of a hamburger.  I wanted sirloin.  Beefy, chewy sirloin.

Putting together the building blocks in my head, I settled on a mish-mosh of ingredients that I thought would work together: mushroom and ramp quinoa with seared sirloin and pickled ramps.  I know, I know, I just re-listed everything that I wrote above.  But the combination was so tasty that I decided I had to give the gift to you, the readers.

I started out by putting a quick marinade together: a couple of tablespoons of soy sauce, about a teaspoon of sugar, three ramp leaves, cut into strips, minced garlic, rice wine vinegar, a teaspoon of sesame oil, a teaspoon of vegetable oil, and a few cracks of pepper.  I had bought a really cheap piece of top sirloin for about two bucks and cut it into some thin pieces, like you’d use for a cheesesteak.  I tossed them in the marinade and let them hang out for about an hour while I went to the gym to get my Spin on (I’m addicted).

I came back and put a 1/2 cup of quinoa on the stove with a cup of water and some ramp leaves (sensing a trend?).  Once it came to the boil, I reduced the heat and covered it.  Quinoa, done.

Meanwhile, I cleaned about a cup of mushrooms… I went with a mix of shiitake and cremini.  I also diced up another clove of garlic and did a chiffonade of ramp leaves.  That was pretty much it– the rest was just assembly.

I fired up the wok until it was scorching hot, and threw in the beef.  After it was nice and browned up, I took it out and placed it aside.  I added a little bit of fresh oil to the pan and added the mushrooms and sauteed those until they were cooked through.  Just for some kicks, I threw a dried chili in there.  Why not ,right?

Continue reading ‘I just couldn’t stop myself. A rare step by step.’

Stuff we’ve been eating.

Man, oh, man, what an eating journey I have been on over the last few weeks.  Due to some technical difficulties, I was unable to post pics of some home-cooked meals, so this post is going to be a gather-all of everything that has been going on in my culinary world over the last couple of weeks.

I will start from the most important two meals that I have had in the last couple of days: my two birthday dinners.  Yes, burgerboy is one year closer to being a burgerman, and the dreaded 3-0 awaits me in 364 days.  But until then, I am going to keep eating like I am a twenty-something stud with an iron stomach.

Continue reading ‘Stuff we’ve been eating.’

WHAAAT?

Burgergal and I might be  a little buzzed after a night out, but this is just crazy.  She is making cookies for a little get together tomorrow, and she got an egg with two yolks.  I guess that happens.

Then she took another egg out, since she needed more white.  I jokingly said, “haha, I hope that’s not another double yolk.”

AND IT WAS.

Like woah.

Double double yolk.  Apparently the odds are 1 in a 1000.  So the odds of getting two in a row is 1 in 1,000,000.  One in a million.

Right here, on b4b.

The spice man cometh.

Today I was at the 77th St. flea market with Burgergal and saw this spice guy, reminiscent of markets in North Africa.  Anyway, I thought it was cool so I snapped a photo.  He also had that neat stick with a scoop on the end of it.  He was like a craps dealer, but with freshly ground spice blends.

It’s been a while, and I’ve been up to some random stuff.

Nougatine Burger

Since the blog started as a blog about burgers, I’ll kick off this post with a review of the most recent burger I’ve had.  After a slew of press about the burger at jean-Georges’ Nougatine (just another La Frieda black label rumour– no need to pay it any heed, the only place that has it is Minetta) and a glowing review from my buddy Ben, I had to check it out.  I’ve been to Nougatine and had great, although not memorable, meals, so I figured it had to be pretty good.

Continue reading ‘The spice man cometh.’

Stuff I like right now.

I thought I would take this opportunity to write about a few things that I like right now.  This post is totally selfish, but what the hell, it’s my blog.

The first thing I like is Ronnybrook Farm’s Greek Yogurt.

I picked up a tub of this stuff a couple of weeks ago at the midtown farmer’s market.  Based on its less-than-perfect logo and label, I knew it was fresh from the farm and was in trial runs.  We all know that I’m a fan of RB Farms anyway, so I knew that this would be pretty good stuff.  But would it be as good as siggi’s?  More importantly, would it be more creamy (and less liquidy) than the regular creamline yogurts?

The short answer is yes.  This stuff was thick and creamy like Greek yogurt should be, but it still had that silkiness indicative of the RB farms.  True to form, the honey and vanilla were top-notch quality.  It was not quite as dry as a mass-produced Greek yogurt, but it was definitely a strained yogurt, with good density.  Speaking with my girl at the market this past week, she let me know that they are making a few other flavors in the Greek Style, so I’m looking forward to that.

I like sandwiches.

You know when you make something in your kitchen and right after you taste it, you say to yourself, “I am the man”?  I recently experienced this.  I had some random things lying around from which I was going to construct a weeknight dinner: some fresh rosemary from the awesome short ribs that burgergal made, some Ardith Mae doolan soft-ripened goat cheese, a couple of thin slices of pancetta, an end piece from a not just rugelach seven grain loaf, some red russian kale, a few past-their-prime cherry tomatoes, and some eggs.  I figured I could make something happen there.

My original plan was to crisp up the pancetta, sauté the kale, add the tomatoes and cook until they burst, then throw the egg on top and cover, letting the whole thing come together (I often make this type of thing during the week, having been inspired by some shakshuka I had with burgergal at Hummus Place back in the day before she was burgergal, which was really a sad time).  I figured on the side I would make a little grilled cheese sandwich with the doolan and a touch of rosemary for extra earthiness and a little bit of woody flavor.  Then a funny thing happened: I decided to kick it up a notch.

To the sandwich, I added some of the sautéed kale and a few morsels of the crispy pancetta.  Instead of just crisping the outside of the sandwich in a pan, I infused some olive oil with rosemary by adding fresh leaves as the oil heated in a non-stick pan.  After they had imparted some flavor into the oil, I took the leaves out of the oil and added them to the inside of the sandwich, which was already oozing with goat-cheesy goodness because of the hot kale.  I browned up the outside and set it aside for a second while I finished up the egg/kale/tomato thing.

While this sandwich stuff was going on, a mere inches away on the front burner was my egg concoction.  Although I wasn’t sure how all of the flavors were going to work together, they looked pretty, so I figured half of the battle was won.  The white of the egg looked set, and the yolk was looking nice and oozy.  I grabbed the widest spatula I own and transferred the whole thing to a plate, being careful to not break the yolk prematurely.   The last thing I wanted to do was lose this masterpiece to a last second flub.

At this stage, I had two separate items.  In a moment of brilliance, I decided that I could combine and make them one.  What could be better than a sandwich of fat dipped into a substance that is entirely fat?  I went for the money shot.  Being a complete nerd, I dipped with my left hand and photographed with my right.


Wait, what was that?  You couldn’t see the goodness?  No problem!

When I put the combination in my mouth, the heavens opened and I realized I had created something truly magnificent.  I didn’t know what to do with myself.  I just wanted more.  I finished the sandwich in .3 seconds.  I needed more.  I needed to re-create this, and soon.  I made sure to take mental note of what was going on.  I took pictures of it just to remember how spectacular it was.

Now that that’s done…

I thought a better sandwich wouldn’t be possible.  Until it was.

About a month ago, Bon Appétit featured a short rib and arugula sandwich on its cover.  It looked pretty good, but I didn’t bother clipping the recipe or anything.  It was just a sandwich, after all.  Little did I know that a single ingredient contained in that recipe would change my life forever (yes, forever).

The recipe called for pretty “basic” stuff (especially if you happen to have some delicious short ribs in the freezer): short ribs, good white bread, monterey jack cheese, arugula, butter, pickled caramelized onions…  umm, what?  Pickled caramelized onions??

Yes.  Pickled caramelized onions.

Step 1: Caramelize onions in butter.

Step 2: Add red wine vinegar and sugar.

Step 3: Cook that down until the liquid is gone.

Step 4: Change your life forever.

The pickled caramelized onions were a game-changer.  I cannot imagine eating any savory sandwich without them again.  Burger?  Pickled caramelized onions (like they had at Dumont).  Ham and cheese?  And pickled caramelized onions, please.  Hot dog?  Hot is gettin’ me some pickled caramelized onions on that, dog.  You get the point.

We combined all of those ingredients on some freshly baked artisanal bread we picked up at Zabar’s.  A quick lather of butter on the outside (not a healthy recipe) and we were in business.

Like french toast but better.

Get me a picture with some softer lighting.  Some of that lighting like all the food-porn sites have!

Thank you!

Seared duck is something I like, too.  But much more tersely.

See?  Easy.