Fatty Friday Issue #9: Tapas, Not Topless!

I discovered tapas in college.   I remember my first time, at Sala, then a very hot, new restaurant on the Bowery.  What a meal!  Low lights, the heavy smell of all the flavorful dishes, from crusty bread with salty manchego and cured ham to spicy, perfectly greasy chorizo to garlicky shrimp--all washed down with strong, sweet sangria (to be honest, I still feel like this place has some of the best sangria I've found outside of Spain).  It was like a festival in my mouth and everybody was invited!  

The next day I recounted the evening to my college boyfriend, a very "meat and taters" guy, at least when we first met.   His eyes lit up with sheer delight when I told him my friends and I had gone to a tapas bar the night before.  "REALLY?!" he asked.  After the questions got weird and my responses didn't match up to what he was hoping for we realized that we were both talking about different things: he was thinking "topless" and I, well, you know.  It was one of the funnier conversations that we remembered throughout our almost five years together.  Now, of course, I am clear to enunciate the word "tapas" when describing a particular dish to friends, just to avoid awkward conversations.  What I do on my own time is my business, damnit! 

So this week's issue of Fatty Friday is devoted to some of my favorite small plates, finger foods or gli stuzzicchini (as the Italians call them)--Tapas!  Keep your eyes peeled and your mouths watering.  More to come... 

Fatty Friday Issue #8: (continued)

I got it bad, folks! That's right, I got pizza on the brain! So, I wanted to go back to last week's post for a moment to give you all a chance to simmer in the joy of pizza just a little bit more. And some of the best places to cultivate tasty pizza ingredients are salumerias (aka Italian delis). So, if you have the time, I suggest you visit one of the better salumerias in New York City: Dave and Tony's.

This little, family-owned and -run gem is located in Astoria (yes, Queens) on 30th Avenue near 34th Street. When I visited, Ralph - very nice guy - let me try a few cheeses for my pizza (gotta love free samples). I ended up buying their fresh mozzarella and a chunk of primo sale*, a sweet, mild, pecorino-like cheese that originated in Sicily. Ralph recommended it for grating on top of the pizza - and it was amazing!

So amazing, in fact, that I made some more pizzas with my guy later on in the week. Here is one of his delectable creations. Yum!

Three cheese (home made ricotta, primo sale, fresh mozzarella) with baby portabello mushrooms

I promise this week's issue will not be about more pizza. I can't promise that it won't involve some sort of dough, though. Dough=love.

*Warning: It's addictive!

Fatty Friday Issue #8: The Joy of Pizza

Warm, crusty, cheesy, saucy: all adjectives that can be used to describe one of my favorite foods.  Yes, this issue of Fatty Friday is devoted to pizza!  

It doesn't get much better, does it, when you've got that hot slice in your hand, dripping gooey cheese, sweet 'n salty sauce, and rich, flavorful, tomato-laced olive oil down the back of your hand?  There is something about the food that evokes such joy in everyone.  "Pizza party!"  Who doesn't want in on that?!  I certainly can't ever pass up an invitation like that.

So, today, I decided to whip up a few pies in my new free time.  It was fun!

Wanna make your own?!  First step is the dough. I used Jamie Oliver's recipe from The Naked Chef Takes Off.  

Ingredients:

three packets of active yeast

1 tbsp honey

a little over 2 cups of water

6 cups of all-purpose flour

1 tbsp salt

First dissolve three packets of yeast in a little over one cup of water.  Add the honey and stir briefly.  Let the mixture dissolve for about 10 minutes.  Then add the flour and the salt and begin mixing (I used a mixer).  Slowly add the other cup of water until the dough is a gooey glob.  Now knead it like it owes you money.  Cover with a towel in a cool, dry space and let the dough sit for about an hour.  Repeat this beating/setting aside ritual two more times.  It helps the dough to get wonderfully soft and airy.  And it's a fun way to let out your frustration.  It should look like this once its ready:

While the dough is rising triumphantly, gather together your ingredients for the pies.  One special ingredient I used was ricotta.

Ricotta is relatively easy to make. I use Ricki's kit, from cheesemaking.com.  The kit comes complete with cheese cloth and a cheese thermometer, in addition to all the other materials.  All you need is a gallon of milk, a tsp of cheese salt, a tsp of citric acid (this helps to curdle the milk and separate the curds from the whey).  Let the milk and the other ingredients boil on low/medium heat until it reaches 195 degrees.

Now move the pot to a cool, dry place for about 5-10 minutes, where the curds will finish breaking free from the whey.  Once the separation is complete, pour the chunky liquid into a colander lined with cheese cloth and hang it to drain in the cheese cloth.  Try hanging it from the faucet head.  Let the cheese sack hang as long as you like, depending on how thick or thin you like your ricotta.  I prefer mine at a medium consistency, which takes about half an hour.

Finally, make the sauce.  

Ingredients:

large handful of basil

four or five garlic cloves

half an onion

pinch of salt and coarse black pepper

One 28 oz can of crushed tomatoes (I use Sclafani)

olive oil

1 tsp sugar

Blend the basil, garlic, onion, salt, and coarse black pepper together in a food processor.  Add the blended mixture to a bowl of the crushed tomatoes.  Drizzle with olive oil and add the sugar.  I was very anti-sugar until I learned that it helps the sauce to thicken and caramelize when cooked.  Now? Only love.

Your toppings are complete!  What now? First, set the oven to 475 degrees.  Now go find your dough, break it into four or five balls and roll out on a surface sprinkled with flour and corn meal (the corn meal helps to keep the dough from sticking to the cooking surface - either a pizza stone or a baking sheet - once in the oven).  It should look like this:

 

Next, top with sauce:

and add your ingredients, like

radicchio, arugula, mozzarella and sauce

hot sausage, basil, mozzarella, and sauce

figs, ricotta, honey, and cinnamon

Bake each pie for about 12-15 minutes in a 475 degree oven.  If you follow these instructions you should have a soft, doughy, saucy, cheesy pie in no time.  Enjoy!

Quiche Me, Dahling! (or Kale, Beet and Bacon Pie)

For a little over a year I've been eyeing my copy of "1080 Recipes" by Simone and Ines Ortega (Phaidon Press. NY. 2007).  

Believe it or not, but 1080 recipes makes for one big book.  Needless to say, I had no idea where to start.  I mean, there's a whole section devoted to frying eggs!  So, I put it on the bookshelf and occasionally leafed through the tome to look at the pretty illustrations or the mouthwatering photos of baked eggs, fried squid or orange sponge cake - to name a few.  But last night I decided to make a quiche and referenced a recipe from the book for inspiration.

To start, I boiled two medium sized beets, sauteed some kale in olive oil with garlic, salt and pepper and fried up some bacon.  Once the beets were boiled I peeled them and sliced them on the thin side.  

I forgot to take a photo of the bacon...here's some bacon to ease your mind:

From http://blogchef.net/category/how-to/

For the dough, I mostly used the Ortegas' recipe: 

1 3/4 c. all purpose flour

8 tbsps (i.e., one stick) butter cut into cubes (the book suggests 6 1/2, but isn't butter always better?!)

1 egg yolk

2 tbsps heavy cream (my addition)

1 tbsp sunflower oil (I used vegetable oil since I had it in the house)

salt

1 1/4 c water

This is pretty much your typical dough.  Sift the flour, add the butter, salt and other emollient liquids (egg, oil) until the flour resembles crumbly sand.  Then slowly add the water until you've got yourself a mound of dough.  I used a mixer, but you can use your hands if you like. Most bakers will tell you to let the dough sit in a cool spot for 20 minutes.  But I won't because I'm impatient.  That and I can't really taste a difference when I let it sit and when I don't.

Briefly cook the dough before adding the filling. First roll it out, place it in a pie pan and trim any excess dough.  You can also crimp the edges for a pretty look. Then, line the dough with the thinly sliced beets and some fried bacon crumbles. Set your oven to 350 degrees and bake for 20 minutes.  

Now for the filling:

4 eggs

1 c. heavy cream

3/4 c. milk

salt

sauteed kale with garlic

Once you remove the dough from the oven, preheat the oven to 425.  Now, beat the eggs, cream, milk, and salt.  Add the kale to the pie pan and pour the egg mixture over the top. Garnish with the remaining beet slices.  Bake the pie in the 425 degree oven for 20 minutes.  After that, lower the heat to 350 and bake until the egg is cooked and the crust is golden brown about 15-20 minutes more.

Then eat and enjoy!

Fatty Friday Issue #7: Holiday Edition or My Excuse to Eat Lamb All Weekend

Enter the holiday weekend and, with it, the excuse to eat like you are planning a long-term relationship with elastic waistbands. Easter doesn't signify a religious event for me so much as it means good food and lots of it.

To begin, my dude and I went for some Egyptian in my nabe on Friday night.  Mombar on Steinway Street between 25th and 28th Avenues is a unique spot not only for the amazing food but also for the friendly and, almost-literally, hands-on service.  We started with some feteer, a form of pastry, sort of a half-breed between pizza and croissant dough, and a dipping sauce called za'atar.  Yum...

From there we moved on to a plate of mixed mezze: hummus, babaganoush and ful.  Most folks are familiar with the two former spreads, but ful was new to me.  It is a fragrant, savory paste made from fava beans.  

Yay!

Then, we inhaled an entree of aromatic lamb tagine with meat so delicate it almost melted in my mouth.  I forgot to take a photo because my brain shut down while I was eating.  Just trust me: it was good and would be worth the trek to Queens from Manhattan or wherever you live.

Next on the train to new pantsville was a spectacular batch of pancakes we whipped up for Saturday brunch.  Since you gots to have bacon with pancakes, I saved the fat for frying the batter.  At the same time, I sauteed pears in thick, soft french butter and brown sugar which we then added to a rich pancake batter (in addition to milk I added about two tablespoons of heavy cream).  Some of the combinations we tried (and loved!) were pear/blueberry and pear/dark chocolate.  The bacon fat infused every pancake with a sweet/salty flavor that highlighted the pear, blueberry and chocolate.  Droool...

 

Yes, it was a bougie afternoon.

Then, Easter Sunday brought more meat than even this lady could handle.  In Cobble Hill I inhaled a lamb asado, which was tender and smokey--all-around luscious--and various other delectable sides, including marinated cucumbers, an impressive array of cheeses (the gouda is haunting my dreams) and a strawberry rhubarb pie that made my toes curl a little.  From there we went on to Little Neck for more lamb, my mother's ham (with a pineapple-dried cherry glaze) and an impressive dish of grilled radicchio and endive in aged balsamic vinaigrette.    

It was a lot of food, but somebody had to eat it, you know?  So, I took one - no, several - for the team this weekend.  And you know what?  I'd do it again. :)

Fatty Friday Issue #6: Moisture Problems?

From http://img349.imageshack.us/img349/2001/cake04ce3.jpg

Hi folks!  I'm a little late with this week's issue of Fatty Friday.  I had too much fun this past weekend and didn't have one spare minute to write.  Now I'm back and ready to introduce this week's topic:  cake flour vs. all-purpose flour.

My brother's birthday was this Sunday and, as a gift, I baked him a cake.  However, I used a new recipe and found that a recurring problem continues: the cake was tasty but dry.  This was frustrating, to say the least.  So I did some investigating, starting with two primary sources - Mom and Grandma.  What did I learn from Mama Dukes and G-Ma?  Something that I'm embarrassed to admit I've never even put much thought into: use cake flour.

Can it be that simple?  Apparently, yes.  According to Mom and Grandma (from a long line of terrific lady bakers), cake flour has a lighter consistency and bakes up fluffier, moister cakes.  My Mom's carrot cake IS the best on earth but I've never paid attention to what type of flour she uses.

Just to be sure, I went home and did some research to find out if Mom was right.  Turns out that there is a difference between cake flour and all-purpose.  All-purpose is a heavier flour, perfect for sturdy baked goods, like breads and some cookies.  Whereas cake flour is lighter with almost 6-8% less protein.   But you don't have to go out and buy cake flour all the time, friends!  Try this recipe in a pinch!

My project over the next few days will be to recreate that cake (or make some cupcakes) with cake flour (or the substitute).  More to come!

More Bread or How I Gained 25 lbs in One Week

So, the honey wheat cardamom bread was delish.  Sweet and satisfying.  I wanted more, though; another notch in my bread-y belt.  So, I present to you lemon rosemary olive oil loaf.  

My apartment smells amazing right now, to say the least.  And I'm eating bread like it's going out of style.

I used pretty much the same recipe as last time, except I left out the whole wheat flour, honey and sugar and used extra virgin olive oil in place of vegetable oil.  Also, I included the leaves of about three rosemary stalks and the grated rind of one lemon.

Finally, I allowed the bread to prove twice (one hour the first round and about 45 minutes the second).  Yes, this took a little time, but I kept myself busy.  The result?  A fluffy, savory, flavorful loaf that tastes outstanding drizzled with olive oil.  I would serve this bread warm along with a lovely roast chicken.  Like this one that my friend N made a few weeks ago.  

 

Yum!