In addition to the egg nog ice cream I made a few weeks ago, the Expatriate’s Kitchen has a great-looking recipe for egg nog french toast. More than I wish I could have it right now, I wish I had come up with it first 🙂
Also, she highlights a great website in her post TODAY to help manage your environmental footprint: Brighter Planet. Check it out.
As promised, the second half of the butternut squash saga. The first half, of course, included the squash mash. For the second installment, I wanted to do a healthy take on risotto. I’ve been eating like a heifer lately, so it was time to trim it down.
I decided that it might be interesting to try to use butternut squash as a substitute for the rice. The challenge: getting the squash to stay al dente while being cooked.
Since I was using a lot of squash, which is pretty sweet when cooked, I needed some additional flavoring that would complement the dish well. I decided to go with some great tamarack farms bacon (I mean, why not), onion, garlic, and rubbed sage. For a twist– instead of parmesan and butter, I decided to use blue cheese for the richness, which I felt would add some tang to the dish. Then some fresh green onions and chopped apples to brighten it up a bit.
Since I don’t have a ricer, I had to cut all of the squash by hand. As you all know, I am a master with a knife, so this was a piece of cake.
Actually, it was a PITA. I wanted a good mixture of small pieces that would be the “rice,” while some larger chunks would add some of the texture and really make the butternut squash stand out. When it was done, it looked like a bunch of cheddar cheese, but smelled like a pumpkin carving contest.
With the squash ready, it was time to start building the base flavors in the pan. First step: BACON. First of all, this Tamarack Hollow Farm bacon is just tremendous. It crisps up perfectly, but retains a nice chewiness that melts in your mouth. These guys are another example of a small step doing something great– the couple that owns the farm up in Vermont basically bought a couple of pigs so that they could eat ethically-raised meat, despite their long distance away from such a food source. Great story, and from the looks of things and the positive press that they are getting, it’s working out for them.
I made only a few some small lardons and rendered some of the fat. Being a healthy recipe, I didn’t want to use too much fat in the dish, especially since it was going to be finished off with some blue cheese.
After this had rendered a bit, it was time to add some onion (some of those green bits are scallions that got mixed up on the cutting board), and then finish that off with a quick dusting of rubbed sage. I only had the dried stuff, but in this case I think it worked out.
After cooking this stuff until just tender, it was time to add the butternut squash. Everything was smelling great and it was time to pump up the party.
After adding all of the squash, I realized that this was not going to cook quite as I had hoped. The small pieces would cook through, but the bigger chunks would not cook all the way through. I realized I was going to have to take a risk and add a liquid, much like a traditional risotto would. My fear was that this would make everything turn to mush, so I was very light-handed with the liquid I added. Knowing that the dish had enough flavor as it was, I was ok with adding water, but I would have preferred to maybe use some veggie stock. I added it slowly and cooked it off just like real risotto. As my boy on Chef Academy says, I put in the crushed garlic in at the end of the cooking process. Lastly, when everything was cooked through to my liking, I added the blue cheese and the green onion, finished it up with a few of the chopped apple chunks. DONE.
Delicious. And pretty healthy (I think). Tender bits of butternut squash mixed in with more al dente bits, all coated in a light layer of creamy blue cheese (saga blue). A little brightness and some of that allium-flavored goodness. A few cracks of black pepper and some sea salt to finish, what a masterpiece. Definitely will be making this again.
And all it takes is a Facebook account. This is too easy to not do.
Rather than re-invent the wheel, I’ll just paste in the latest email from Chefs Collaborative:
“We are excited to announce a new partnership with Muir Glen organic tomatoes, a company with a demonstrated commitment to organic and sustainable practices.
Muir Glen is raising up to $40,000 for Chefs Collaborative through a viral campaign on Facebook. So far over $17,000 has been raised! You can support this campaign in two ways:
Please feel free to pass along this email to friends and family and help us reach our goal of $40,000!
Thank you for helping us spread the word and for all you do to promote a more sustainable food supply!
Sincerely,
Chefs Collaborative”
Great article from the Washington Post highlighting the challenges of sustainability in restaurants, even if the intentions are good. The article focuses on two case restos in the DC area: Founding Fathers, a 263-seat restaurant promoting a commitment to fresh and local ingredients, and Equinox, a 90-seat (expensive) restaurant basically doing the same thing.
While the challenges are the same for both, the lesser-expensive Founding Fathers often has troubles truly sourcing its local ingredients, citing lack of clear reporting and cost. And that makes sense; think about three turns in a night, that’s almost 800 meals, and that’s just one daypart.
Talking with restaurateurs around in NYC, this is definitely an issue. As with most purchase decisions, cost is a/the major factor in choosing one product over another. Unfortunately, “long term assets” do not include anything about the environment or health concerns (until Google decides that they have a computer algorithm that can model this). When the rubber hits the road, how can a “good idea” also be a “profitable idea”? It is clearly a major concern for any business, and the food business is no exception. Quite simply, it is expensive to source local ingredients, and in the winter months, as any farmer’s market regular will attest, it is difficult to get ingredients that would compose an entire meal.
However, there is light at the end of the tunnel. A survey sourced from Zagat says that 61% of people are willing to pay more for “green” or “sustainable” food. A key question that is left out is of course, “how much more,” but let’s hold that thought for a moment. If this 61% is willing (and able) to shell out a few extra bucks to support farmers truly farming/raising sustainably, then this provides the much-needed money to invest in infrastructure and other needs, which then addresses some of the volume and distribution issues that are the problems in the first place. Take, for example, the Milk Thistle Farm, a local New York dairy farm in Ghent, NY. They recently started selling bonds to invest in a new bottle facility on-site. This will help with their distribution footprint, and will hopefully expand their market share. And it will bring their costs down (I hope).
This is why I continue to see immense value in partnering with the big food companies in order to effect any real change. At the same time, those big companies need to learn to partner with the little guys instead of buying them out and changing the rules. During a meeting in the Lehigh Valley last week, the President talked about the importance of innovation and its longer-term effects on the job market in this country. If we think about the food industry in the same way, there is plenty of room for innovation, and its benefits go much farther than job creation.
In any case, give the article a read. And if you’ve got an extra grand, get a Milk Thistle Farm bond.
Locanda Verde trufflepalooza. Who was there? Yeah. This guy (and BG)
I tried to enter the Eater giveaway contest, but to no avail. I was honest with them. I told them I wanted a truffle dinner for $50. No sob story, no bullshit. I guess honesty isn’t always the best policy.
Not discouraged, we showed up anyway, at 6.45pm. While a reservation we did not have, we did have a will, and a way. Out of either sheer luck or some other magic that BG has, she got us on an imaginary list, which supposedly had a table set aside for us at 8.15pm.
Yeah, right.
We went over to Bubby’s for a quick drink, to kill some time, since it was only 7pm. I had a Jameson on the rocks, since nothing spells “good pre-dinner drink” like Jameson. This got a good buzz going in anticipation of the truffle explosion that was about to go down inside my mouth. We called at 7.45pm, just to see. Eureka! Our table was ready.
We ran over lickety-split. BG had rapport.
We got there an the regular menus and the truffle menu was set before us. The smell of freshly-shaven white truffles permeated the air. I realized upon sitting down that I had never eaten at Locanda Verde on a standard night. I had been there for the fried chicken dinner, and once prior to the HORN’s engagement night for drinks, but never just for some pasta and a salad. Since I was about to take in some fresh white truffles, I was ok with this.
I was especially ok with this since I saw the menu at which I was staring. If you pretended that you were sitting at Locanda Verde on December 7th, 2009, you’d be looking at this:
I made it large for legibility 🙂
Not wanting to have any regrets, we ordered the whole thing. I mean, how can you go wrong, right? A bottle of Pacherhof Sylvaner, and we were on our way.
Since the menu is above, I’ll just provide details by course (apologies, the pictures are a bit dark; as you may recall from the fried chicken installment, the lighting at LV is not exactly blinding. I’ve made the pictures bigger, which may or may not help):
Starters– the mushroom ragu was good, but, to be honest, the wild mushrooms dominated the palate. All you could really taste was the earthiness of mushroom and the richness of the egg yolk and polenta. Not that that was a bad thing, but it was a bit overwhelming. The white truffle flavor came through, but it could have been a bit stronger for my taste.
On the other hand, the carne cruda was a truffle explosion. This took me back to the first steak tartare that I ever truly loved, at Alain Ducasse’s Spoon in Paris. I had never had a steak tartare that could match that one… until now. The truffle was dominant in flavor, but the fattiness of the meat was a perfect stage for the pungent fungi to shine. The carne arrived with a fresh shaving of white truffle on top, which didn’t hurt, either. Now, I think there was definitely some truffle oil in there, too, which some may consider to be a cheap move. But in this case, it worked. I was a fan.
It's really much better tasting than it looked, I promise.
With truffles fresh on our breath, we were then served our main courses. The garganelle verde was a green like I had never seen before from a fresh pasta. I was honestly not sure what to expect flavor-wise, but was pleasantly surprised by the outstanding texture. The pasta was very fresh and light tasting, which complemented the somewhat bland richness of the braised veal. As with the first course, there was a lack of truffle flavor, as it was hidden by the rich saltiness of the veal and the butter and the creaminess of the overall dish.
But again, as with the starter courses, I was thoroughly pleased with the ravioli. First off, anything with the oyster of the chicken is going to do it for me. I can barely find it, much less exclusively prepare and serve it. Second of all, the dish was again intensely flavored with white truffles, probably with some oiled help, but also enhanced by the use of the chicken jus for the sauce and the relative lack of richness in the dish. I have come to the conclusion that for truffles to truly shine, there needs to be a perfect balance of fat and salt in order to let the fungus come through. With an extreme in either direction, the truffle flavor is lost, and it makes you sad that you missed something. However, as I said, the ravioli didn’t leave anything to be desired. If I had only this and the tartare, I would have been just fine.
Normally, the truffles would stop at this point. No way, hombre. This was a THREE course truffle dinner, and this was a once-in-a-lifetime-until-they-see-the-returns-that-this-night-got-in-terms-of-the-total-number-of-covers-event. So let’s bring on the truffle desserts.
I must admit, I was a little bit nervous when it came to desserts. I mean, seriously? I’ve had eggplant and chocolate (not bad), olive oil ice cream (good if made well), basil ice cream (really good if made well, à la the bent spoon in princeton, nj), and other strange desserts that I can’t remember at this moment. But truffles?
Yes. Truffles.
First off, truffle ice cream is an acquired taste. Since I don’t really have a sweet tooth, it took me .2 seconds to acquire it. I wish that the first dish had a scoop of this ice cream on it instead of the poached egg. It was that savory. Somehow the savoriness also made it seem like it wasn’t even cold. I have no idea how it was even a solid, to be honest. It just tasted like solid truffle oil with shaved truffle on top. It had little walnut shortbread cookies and salted chestnuts with it, which only enhanced the salty milkshake quality.
But, the problem is, I can’t really say that I didn’t enjoy it. I strangely enjoyed it a lot. And I can’t quite pinpoint why.
The truffle-honey cake was good. I’ll leave it at that. I wasn’t in love with the combination of the bosc pears and whipped ricotta and truffles and cake and honey. It felt like a salty cake. I think this one was a stretch. I may have been biased since I don’t really enjoy Italian-style cakes (the sight of panettone this weekend gave me the shivers and, I’m sorry, but olive oil cake is just a waste of time) but it didn’t do it for me. It tasted like truffles, though, so I suppose it was “mission accomplished.” And with that, my Monday night dinner was finished.
All in, I have to give it up to the boys at Locanda Verde. They have suckered me into eating at the restaurant twice in as many months for this special dinners. “Affordable” prix fixe menus are the hot trend du jour, and these guys are really doing it the right way. Based on the food I got and their food costs, do I know that they are coming out ahead on $50 per head? Of course. Do I care? Not really. Will I go back to Locanda Verde? Probably.
And that’s just good business right there.
I have made time to make dinner for myself two nights in a row now. While I usually do eat at home during the week, I rarely make it a big production. For the past two nights, however, I have found myself wanting more than mere sustenance. I have wanted to eat something a) fresh b) relatively healthy and c) tasty.
I was off from work on Wednesday, so I made the trek down to the Westside Market on the UWS. I was going to go to Fairway, but didn’t feel like it, to be honest. It was already 5.30pm an I knew the lines would be out of control already.
Totally unsure of what I was going to make, I picked up a few random items and decided I would challenge myself: parsnips, a butternut squash, Saga blue cheese, a couple of tomatoes (I know, I know, not seasonal, but they looked pretty decent), baby arugula, bartlett pears, gala apples, vegetable stock, this great pre-made roasted artichoke couscous they have there, and some other stuff unrelated to this blog post (cereal and soy milk if you must know. burgerboy like soy milk).
I got home with no idea as to what I was going to do with these random ingredients. Since I have been doing a lot of traveling and galavanting about town, I have had little time to keep my refrigerator very stocked. I took a quick inventory of the fridge: random condiments of various ages, corn tortillas, couple of Ronnybrook yogurts and an eggnog, an old ziploc bag with dark miso, baking soda, a bottle of club soda, ground flaxseed (yes, I am an 80 year-old man. And I am allergic to salmon, so I need to get my omega-3’s, ok?), and some really old coffee grounds. The freezer was not much better. Although that black chicken is looking ready to be used and abused.
Slightly discouraged and ready to call up Land Thai, which I have saved in my phonebook, I gave one quick glance in the far drawer. This drawer takes a lot of effort to open, because it requires the refrigerator door to be fully opened, which requires moderate agility and effort based on the configuration of my apartment.
Here is a diagram.
The drawer is on the left side of the fridge. See, that requires some work.
Anyway, I opened this drawer and discovered… BEETS! I had bought them a few weeks back from the Rexcroft Farm at the D’ag farmer’s market, and they provided me with the inspiration that I needed. I was going to make a roasted beet, pear, and blue cheese salad with arugula and toasted butternut squash seeds, and a butternut squash mash over the roasted artichoke couscous. BAM. How’s that for some quick thinking?
I threw the beets into the oven at about 375 degrees and let them work their magic while I prepped the rest of my dishes. I cubed up the butternut squash and toasted the seeds with some cumin, cayenne pepper, and salt, and set those aside to top my salad (after snacking on about half of them). Then it was time to make a bartlett pear wish it had never been picked from the tree.
Look at those skills. That’s my handy steel in the background. I really showed that pear who is boss. I think it looks like a big grub or something like you’d see on Andrew Zimmern’s show.
There’s another view. I thought it was cool.
I pulled the beets out of the oven and let them cool down a bit as I prepared the butternut squash. For that, I took the cubed butternut squash (pretty good-sized chunks, maybe an 1-1.5″), threw about a cup and half or so into a non-stick pan with some oil, browned them, then added a little water into the pan and covered it to steam the squash through. When they were fork-tender, I dusted them lightly with some cumin and a little rubbed sage, added a touch of brown sugar to glaze them, and threw in some freshly chopped green onions. Done.
With that completed, I put my knife skills to the test yet again, this time with the beets. They didn’t look as cool so i didn’t take a picture. But I did take a picture of the finished product.
Look at that sweet action. Look at that layering, look at the attention to spacing and composition. Look at those nuggets of creamy blue cheese and crunchy bits of butternut squash seeds poking through the spicy baby arugula. So many simple flavors, coming through in a symphony of salty and sweet, creamy and crunchy. Dressing, you ask? Something this good needs only a light-handed pour of some organic olive oil and a few splashes of balsamic vinegar. It kinda reminds me of a culinary school 101-type dish. Since I didn’t go to culinary school, I am ok with that. Well, technically, I did go to a culinary school, but I didn’t learn to cook there.
I also had my couscous on the side, but it looked a little more bland by comparison. But it tasted damn good. And just so you guys don’t think I am out of control with portion size, the plate below is not a full-sized dinner plate, I promise.
Tune in next time for but’nut squash, part 2: Faux-sotto, or, “I wish I had a ricer.”
