Food: Truffled Artichoke Pesto
Artichoke Pesto is one of those things that I never really enjoyed until I made it myself. Pre-packaged, it can be watery, bland, and boring, but when you take a few minutes to make it yourself it’s quite flavorful. The best part is that artichokes have their own natural moisture, so this pesto requires much less oil than say, basil pesto, and thus is healthier and lighter for summer. I add truffle salt- cheaper and less fatty than truffle oil- for an extra layer of flavor. The below amounts are suggestions, the beauty of making this yourself is that you can adjust to your liking. Add a little more parsley, use a little less cheese, it’s up to you.
Truffled Artichoke Pesto – serves 2
2 tbsp chopped parsley
2 cloves garlic, smashed
8.5 oz can artichoke hearts packed in water, drained and patted dry
1 cup grated parmesan
1 tbsp lemon juice
2 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp truffle salt (or regular salt if you don’t like truffled)
1/4 cup white wine
1/2 lb pasta
optional additions: shrimp, chicken, scallops, tomatoes
Blend garlic, cheese, parsley, artichoke hearts, salt, lemon juice, and oil in a food processor. Add more oil if needed. Cook pasta, drain. Put wine in a pan over high heat, cook for 2 minutes, add artichoke pesto, reduce heat to medium. Cook just until heated, add pasta. Top with extra parmesan cheese. Voila.
Feast: Chefs in Shorts
corn from Papagayo
- foggy, rainy, but still fun
Food: Summer = Blueberry Pie
Food: There’s No Crying In Baked Goods
I majored in English, yet I suck at scrabble.
Despite my ample height, I can’t play basketball to save my life.
I am the proud owner of an MBA, though often forget what the D and A stand for in EBITDA.
The majority of reality tv turns my stomach, but I watch The Next Food Network Star.
These are (a few of) my secret shames. I hope you can still accept me.
Unfortunately, the secret shame of Next Food Network Star contestant Alicia Sanchez became her downfall last Sunday, when her inability to handle stress, control her tears, or remember a basic cupcake recipe led to her dismissal from the show, just three episodes in. I won’t comment on her stress issues, though watching her cry every fifteen minutes turned that beautiful woman into a troll, but I’m puzzled by her recall problem. Everyone knows I’m not a great baker, but once I make something a few times, I can at least remember the recipe. Alicia apparently has a degree in “Pastry and Baking Arts” and runs a bakery specializing in cakes and cupcakes, yet she couldn’t conjure up a reasonable list of ingredients for lemon-scented cupcakes?
I’m sure being on camera adds another level of stress to anything, but I’ve now baked 4 pound cakes and I feel pretty secure in my ability to make them without a recipe. Much like cupcakes, they follow the same basic paradigm: relatively equal parts flour and sugar, butter, eggs, salt, and vanilla. To illustrate my point, which I guess is that Alicia is an over-emotional idiot, here are two recipes for pound cake. Both were recreated from memory but checked for accuracy, so you can use them without fear. The first uses cream cheese, which adds a richness to the flavor but doesn’t taste at all like cream cheese, and wins the award for Best Tasting Batter, hands down. The second is a “light” version, adapted from Cooking Light Comfort Foods, which uses fewer eggs and less butter. Of all of my cakes so far, I’d say the Sour Cream Pound Cake with Rum Glaze is the best. And I promise it won’t make you cry.
Cream Cheese Pound Cake
3 sticks unsalted butter
6 eggs
3 cups flour
3 cups sugar
1 package full fat cream cheese
3 tsp vanilla (or almond) extract
1/2 tsp salt
Preheat oven to 325. Aggressively butter and flour your pan. Beat the butter and cream cheese together, then slowly add sugar and beat until mixture is light and frothy. Add eggs, one at a time. Add salt and vanilla. Whisk in flour in three additions, then pour into your pan. Tap pan lightly on the counter (so mixture will settle). Bake for 1 hour, or until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool, dust with powdered sugar. Voila.
Sour Cream Pound Cake with Rum Glaze
3 cups flour
3/4 cup butter
2 cups sugar
3 eggs
1/4 cup 1% milk
1 cup light sour cream
1 tbsp spiced rum
2 tsp vanilla
Glaze
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 tbsp spiced rum
2 tbsp water
2 tbsp butter
Preheat oven to 350. Aggressively butter and flour your pan. Beat butter and sugar together, then add eggs, one at a time. Add milk, rum, salt, and vanilla, beat until incorporated. Add flour and sour cream to sugar mixture in several additions, starting and ending with flour. Whisk each addition just until combined, pour mixture in pan. Tap pan lightly on the counter (so mixture will settle). Bake for 1 hour, or until toothpick comes out clean.
Glaze: Ten minutes before cake is done, prepare glaze. Mix together rum, water, and sugar in a small pan. Bring to a boil, add butter, stir until melted. Remove from heat, let cool slightly. Remove cake from oven, cool 10 minutes. Drizzle half of the warm glaze over cake. Let cake cool 45 more minutes, gently reheat glaze and drizzle remaining glaze over cake. Voila.
Food: Meatless Monday – Fried Egg Pasta
This is one of those great, rich-tasting meals that only takes ten minutes and five (very basic, pantry-staple) ingredients. If you don’t have fresh garlic, you can substitute jarred, or use a pinch of garlic powder. If you don’t have parmesan cheese, you can substitute romano, or go without. If you don’t have spaghetti, you can use any long pasta, or even short noodles. If you don’t have eggs…you can order pizza.
infusing the oil with garlic
However, while Fried Egg pasta is easy, it does require good timing. You must start the garlic in the oil as soon as you put your pasta in, you must take your pasta out in 7-8 minutes, and you must put the eggs in the oil immediately after your pasta is drained so the noodles will be hot enough to finish cooking your egg when you mix it in. The egg yolk must not harden- the yolk is basically your sauce. And you must not put the drained pasta back onto a hot burner for the last steps- otherwise you will scramble your eggs. When cooking the eggs you don’t need to flip them or do anything fancy, just crack and leave them cooking in the oil for 1 minute, then put them in your pasta and stir them up.
fried egg, almost done
Fried Egg Pasta – serves 2
1/2 lb spaghetti noodles
4 tbsp olive oil* (at least)
2 eggs
3/4 cup grated parmesan cheese (at least)
2 cloves garlic, smashed
salt and pepper
Optional additions: chopped parsley, fresh lemon juice
Boil pasta water, add pasta. Immediately start cooking your “sauce”: In a medium saucepan (non stick is probably best here), cook garlic in oil over medium-low heat, making sure not to burn it. Remove garlic from pan, discard – leave oil in the pan, over medium heat. At this point your pasta should be done- drain it quickly and return to pot – but OFF the heat. Add eggs to oil and cook carefully until whites are just solidified – about 1 minute. Quickly stir eggs and oil into the pasta, breaking up the yolks and white. Add cheese, salt, and pepper to taste. Add parsley or lemon juice if desired.Voila!
*Since this is one of those dishes where you are really going to taste the olive oil, I recommend using a good quality oil. But as with all ingredients in this dish, you can substitute generic with little to no consequences.
stir it all up and enjoy!
Frame: Happy Father’s Day!
And thanks for teaching me all about Dean Martin.
dad and i test out the self-timer on my camera
Food: Avocado Dill Soup
Last week, a good friend of mine forwarded a link to Barton Seaver’s new cookbook, For Cod and Country, and even at 8am I started craving his Avocado Dill Soup. He recommends pairing it with smoked trout, but I chose cooked shrimp instead, topping it with some sour cream whisked with lemon juice. Because I like a little more structure to my soup, I added diced tomatoes as well- cucumbers or cubed (cooked) potatoes would work too.
The soup is very mild if you make it to the recipe – I added extra lime juice and a touch of white wine vinegar, but it all depends on what you like. Depending on how big your avocados are, you’ll have to adjust the amount of cream to get the right consistency (bigger avocados = more cream). This is meant to be a cold soup, so make sure you chill long enough. Room temperature is not the way to go with cold cream soups. Voila!
Food: Summer Pea Pesto
Nothing beats my mom’s vegetable-laden pasta salad in the summer, but this is a good substitute (and involves much less chopping). I’m not someone who seeks out peas on a regular basis, but they make this pesto sweet, and much lighter tasting than traditional basil sauces. The mint and lemon bring different layers of flavor, and the ricotta adds a substantial component that elevates this from side dish to meal status.
I prefer to use oven – roasted tomatoes packed in oil for this recipe – they bring a bright saltiness to a dish that is otherwise a sea of green. But, if you can’t get these you can just chop a fresh tomato, salt it, drizzle it with olive oil, and add to the pasta before serving.
Pea Pesto Pasta Salad – serves 4
1 lb short pasta (fusilli, penne), cooked, drained, cooled
1/4 cup whole milk ricotta cheese
1/4 cup grated Parmesan Reggiano cheese
1/2 cup pignoli nuts
zest and juice from one lemon
1/4 cup oven roasted tomatoes (or fresh tomatoes), coarsely chopped and drained of oil
2 tablespoons fresh mint
1 1/4 cup frozen peas, thawed
1 clove garlic (small)
1/4 cup olive oil
salt and pepper
Combine ricotta, lemon zest, and lemon juice in a food processor, blend briefly until smooth. Add mint, garlic, cheese, olive oil, 3/4 cup peas, 1/4 cup pignoli nuts. Puree until smooth, mixture will be a light green. Taste – add salt, pepper, and more lemon juice if desired. Stir into pasta until well coated, add remaining peas, pignoli nuts, and tomatoes. Chill for one hour. Voila.
Food: More Pound Cake
I’m on a quest to find the perfect pound cake recipe, and so far I’ve been pretty successful in my attempts. In fact, pound cake may turn out to be my metier, as far as baking is concerned. The ingredients – eggs, butter, sugar, flour, vanilla – are simple, and I usually have all of these in the house. Some recipes call for cream, some use baking powder or lard, and there appears to be some debate about what type of flour is best, all-purpose or pastry specific. But the majority require a low, slow bake and can be flavored however you like, which allows for some experimentation.
For my second cake I tried Paula Deen’s recipe, which uses more eggs than my blender cake, plus cream, baking powder, and all-purpose flour. I flavored it with vanilla and almond extract and the taste was good, but the texture was a little too fluffy for traditional pound cake. Not bad, but not the perfect recipe I’m seeking. Back to the drawing board.
Food: Fries, Easy
Well, the jig is up. It’s just not that hard to make fries. I don’t own a fry-o-later, the only thing I’ve ever deep-fried is donuts (unsuccessfully), and I’m not that good with a pair of tongs. But using this recipe, I was able to make pretty good fries on the first try. I think the trick is starting with room temperature oil, and keeping a close eye on cooking time. The suggested amount of 32 oz of oil is a minimum amount for 4 potatoes because you don’t want the fries to get crowded – they’ll burn. Always err on the side of extra oil.
These would be great with ketchup, but I’m more of an aioli/mayonnaise kind of girl.
Fries- serves 2
32 oz (at least- if you have a really big pot, double the amount) peanut oil or safflower oil, refined for high heat
4 yukon gold potatoes, cut into fry shape
kosher salt (or truffle salt)
1 deep pot
optional: 1/4 cup bacon fat (idea from America’s Test Kitchen)
Cut potatoes into “batons” – square off the ends and sides, then cut into equal slivers. Put into pot, add room temperature oil (and bacon fat, if desired), bring to a boil. Cook for 10-15 minutes (do not stir), until fries are lightly browned. Stir with tongs. Check one fry for texture- they may be done at this point. If not, continue to cook, checking every 2 minutes. Put fries on paper towels to drain, salt and serve immediately. Voila.
Food: Santarpio’s, East Boston
Tell the bus boy, Dave says hi.
Food: Chocolate Ice Cream
I wish Chocolate Ice Cream was as easy to make as Cook’s Illustrated would have me believe, but it appears that it is not. I’m not sure where exactly I went wrong with my execution, but I think it was with the cream. Cook’s clearly states “whip to soft peaks,” but I have a feeling I over-whipped it, and because of this it didn’t completely fold into my chocolate mixture. This seems like a relatively easy fix for next time, so I’m going to try it again (soon – it’s too hot out to eat real food these days). The flavor of the ice cream was good, if a bit too sweet for my taste, and the texture (aside from the self-inflicted lumps of cream) was smooth. Not bad for a super quick ice cream recipe, but you know what’s quicker?
Buying a pint of Batch.
“Magic” Chocolate Ice Cream, from Cook’s Illustrated
1 tsp instant espresso powder
1 tablespoon hot water
4 oz bittersweet chocolate
1/2 cup sweetened condensed milk
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
pinch salt
1 1/4 cups cold heavy cream
Combine espresso powder and water in a large bowl, let stand until powder is dissolved. Microwave chocolate, milk, and coffee mixture until chocolate is melted. Stir in vanilla and salt, let cool several minutes. Whip cream to soft peaks (DO NOT OVER WHIP). Whisk 1/3 of cream into chocolate mixture. Fold remaining cream into chocolate mixture until incorporated. Freeze in an airtight container for at least 6 hours. Voila.
Food: Blender Cake
Ok, maybe I’m getting carried away, but I’ve been using my new blender for everything. This week, I blended up a 7Up Pound Cake (check out the Summer Entertaining issue of Cook’s Magazine), mixing all of the wet ingredients in just a few seconds and then gently whisking in some flour. The Vitamix cut down on time, and led to a really smooth batter. And let’s face it, anything I can do to improve my baking is appreciated by anyone forced to taste the results. I took this out of the oven at 75 minutes on the dot, and the result was dense and moist, with a slightly crusty top.
This is a great cake for summer because it’s light (well, as light as pound cake can be), easy to make, and doesn’t require a super hot oven. I’d serve it with vanilla ice cream, peaches, berries, whipped cream, or just plain. Voila.
Note: I didn’t actually use 7Up, I used all natural Maine Root Lemon-Lime soda. It has a heavier taste than 7Up, but the flavors still make for a light, citrusy cake. Cook’s recommends finishing this with a glaze, but a) I’ve never made a successful glaze and b)I like that the cake isn’t overly sweet, so I went without.
Feast: O Ya, Potato Chips and People Watching
To call o ya a “sushi place” is to sell it incredibly short. Chef Tim Cushman’s menu is heavy on sashimi and nigiri, yes, and you will find hamachi, eel, and miso soup on the menu, but there are no spicy tuna rolls, seaweed salads, or sticky soy sauce bottles. Instead, you choose between sake – braised short ribs, duck tataki with foie gras, or Kumamoto oysters with watermelon pearls and cucumber mignonette. Try not to miss the Kikkoman.
Try not to miss the door either, relatively hidden down a small side street in Boston’s leather district. Just a block from Les Zygomates and Sorriso, the view from o ya’s counter is a dingy brick alley, but the restaurant is anything but shabby. And, as our waiter pointed out, there is a lot of reading involved in a meal here. The menu is tapas style, which for sushi translates to 2-3 bites on each plate, so you’ll have to wade through the long list of options to get your fill. Or, you could take the lazy way out and get the tasting menu. We were lazy.
O ya has two tasting menus, one promoted as sort of the American Express Black Card version (heavy on the Wagyu beef and truffles), and the other as a “greatest hits” of the existing menu. We chose option 2 – our menu is recreated at the link below, to the best of my recollection and with help from their online catalogue.
torched salmon
Each course arrived shortly after the next, but we were far from rushed. From our seats at the counter we watched the sushi chefs torch our salmon, arrange strings of miso on top of hamachi, and top fried oysters with squid ink foam. The quality of each ingredient was unparalleled, and I was particularly enthralled by the dressing on each bite. Each piece of nigiri had a dollop of wasabi hidden between the fish and the rice, and each slice of sashimi sat in a small puddle of ponzu, yuzu, or other brightly acidic sauce. With food this fine, you only need one bite.
Of our 15 courses, there was not one I wouldn’t recommend. But, I was surprised that the most memorable were not the fish, eel, or perfectly cooked beef. When I tell people about o ya I gush about the homemade La Ratte Potato Chip with Summer Truffle and the Warm Braised Shiitake Mushroom with Truffled Honey. Both had a combination of salty, sweet, and pungent that denotes the chef’s true understanding of flavor.
About halfway through dinner there was a lull in our service, but just when I was getting antsy I realized the waiter was giving us a break to digest and enjoy, and with good reason. Our last course, aged port-sake and Foie Gras with Balsamic Chocolate Glaze deserved to be enjoyed without the hindrance of a groaning belly.
potato chip nigiri
When I made our reservation for o ya, all I could snag was 6:15pm at the chef’s counter – no table vacancies, even months in advance. Knowing how many accolades the place has received (Best New Restaurant, Best Chef, Top Ten Sushi Restaurant in America, Best Restaurant in Boston, etc.), I wasn’t surprised that I needed to plan in advance, but I was suspicious of what the atmosphere would be like. Would the staff be pretentious and make me feel out of place (*cough* Craigie Street Bistro), or would they be welcoming and sincere? At o ya, the host, servers, and chefs were all kind, low key, and genuinely enthusiastic. Our fellow patrons, however, were not.
I was a bit taken aback when I sat down next to a duo who appeared to be getting engaged, or were at least celebrating some jewelry-heavy milestone. The gentleman presented not one but two ring-sized boxes, and the pair appraised the contents with the bored air of people so moneyed they could bleed Tiffany blue. On the other side of the bar sat two couples intent on out doing each other’s high-end food escapades. “Oh, we used to love Barbara’s restaurants,” said one woman, “but they’re getting so crowded.” The man from the other couple pouted: “We were just so disappointed in L’Espalier last week.” I didn’t have the heart to tell him that the “r” is silent in L’Espalier.
But despite the overly entitled diners (or maybe because of the excellent people watching), dinner at o ya was everything I hoped it would be. If we can get another reservation sometime this century, I will happily stare at a brick alley for hours, if only for one more bite of those truffled potato chips.
The Best Thing Since Sliced Bread 