At Escoffier’s Table: A Blog

Let’s Feed Ricky

Thu, 2 Feb 2012 11:03:07 -0600

Ricky Rubio is one of our newest Timberwolves. He’s also one of the brightest stars in the NBA. This photo is from last night’s shoot-around before the game. We were invited to sit on the bench during the warm up as part of the Season Ticket Holder experience.

While a fun experience, I had to worry a bit. He looks a little thin and pale, doesn’t he? I’m not sure he’s eating enough.

Technically, Rubio’s a rookie, although he’s played in Spain since he was 14 years old. He’s wicked, with a passing style that reminds me of my cousin Pete Maravich.

He’s also a Catalan from Barcelona. And homesick.

According to one interview, he misses his Grandmother’s cooking. That’s just sad, but understandable. It’s tough to live in another country, no matter who you are. The language is different. Your favorite television programs, grocery stores, coffee shops, and biking spots are gone.
There’s nothing to ground you. Even the water taste different. It’s a lonely feeling.

And let’s face it, Minneapolis and Barcelona don’t have a lot in common.

In winter, in Barcelona, you eat on terraces overlooking the brilliant blue Mediterranean sea. In Minnesota, you eat at Billy’s on Grand, overlooking the salt-filled parking lot, under the blue skies of butane heaters.

So if he’s anything like his fellow countrymen, Rubio longs for Arrós Negre (squid cooked in its own ink and mixed with rice, peas, red peppers, garlic and onion) or perhaps Gambes amb pollastre (shrimp, lobster, and chicken cooked in a sauce of almonds, garlic, herbs, and saffron) or maybe even a wonderful paella with a little bit of rabbit tossed in for good measure.

How could you not be homesick for that?

Catalan food is deeply spiced and highly aromatic. Lush. The colors are so vivid that the painter Goya extracted his negro de hueso pigment, “bone black,” from Serrano hambones baked until they turned a deep night umber.

Some of Spain’s finest dishes––and some of the world’s––come from Rubio’s hometown. In fact, the famed elBulli restaurant is Catalan. Recently closed to reopen as a gastronomic think-tank, it’s the Michelin 3-star birthplace of molecular gastronomy.

In Minneapolis, away from his beloved grandmother, Ricky’s probably eating pizza. When a boy leaves home, his love affair with pizza begins. And while we do have some pretty good pizza, amazing pizza, awesome pizza––a budding basketball superstar need more to survive.

Escoffier would want us to feed him. Chef knew that nothing makes a person more happy than a taste of home. He once grilled fresh sardines over grape branches for a diner who missed his mother’s cooking.

I’m sure he’d do the same for Rubio. And so, it’s up to us. We could keep it simple––his grandmother’s soup or maybe a decent paella. But we have to have him to dinner. After all, Rubio’s been a guest in our “house” for nearly a year. Isn’t it time we make him feel at home?

The famed Crema Catalina is below. It’s a lot like Creme Brulee, except it only takes about 10 minutes to assemble. Best of all, you get to use a blowtorch. If you were in Spain, you’d use a decorative hot poker.

Danger in cooking is always fun. Practice. You can bring the desert. And the wine. Maybe a bright Cava––sparkling wine is always nice with dessert.

more later...

Crema Catalina
2 cups milk
zest of one orange
cinnamon stick
pinch of salt
4 large egg yolks
1 1/2 cup sugar
1 tablespoon cornstarch
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Combine milk with orange zest, cinnamon stick, and salt. Bring to a boil over medium heat. Reduce. Simmer for about 3 minutes to infuse flavors. In a large bowl, beat the egg yolks with 3/4 cup of sugar and cornstarch until they are pale yellow. Remove the cinnamon and orange from the milk mixture. Add vanilla.

With the mixer running, slowly pour the warmed milk into the beaten eggs. Once incorporated, return the mixture to the saucepan and cook over medium heat until thick, whisking the entire time. (This should take about 5 minutes.) As soon as it’s thick, quickly remove from the heat. When set, pour into 4 ramekins or one large. Bring to room temp. and cover with plastic wrap. Refrigerate until cold, at least two hours, but not more than 24.

When ready to serve top with remaining sugar and blowtorch until caramelized. Or place under the broiler. Serve with a zest of orange rind for decoration, if desired.

English Muffins & Dining with Chef Zimmern

Mon, 30 Jan 2012 11:03:35 -0600

The other day we went to Little Szechuan for dinner and asked the waitress for a minute to look over the menu. As soon as she left, a fellow in the booth behind us replaced her.

"I'm going to graciously offer my experience as a tour guide,” he said. “I've been coming here since they opened. Let me tell you what to order."

Yikes.

He looked like that college professor who’d been shipwrecked on Gillian’s Island. However, in this case, he hadn’t been rescued. He was the kind of man that time forgot––John Lennon glasses and a well-worn cord jacket with leather patches on the elbows. He was, as I like to say, a tad dusty.

"We're fine, thanks,” my husband said.

It was date night, after all. We wanted to brave this adventure on our own.

Unfortunately, “no” was not the right answer. The Professor sat back down in a huff and began to loudly complain to the woman he was with. "People are so ungrateful. They'll get what they deserve. What snobs...etc."

You get the picture.

We quickly told the waitress that we wanted this order "to-go" and drank our water in silence. The place was nearly empty. Every now and then the Professor made another snide remark. It was tiresome. Finally, we got up and waited by the door for our food. We told our waitress. “You probably need the table,” I said and tipped her 20% on the bill.

I thought the entire matter was over, but it wasn’t. Our professor suddenly seemed livid. We watched with some degree of horror as he grabbed another waitress and demanded that she cancel our order because we left.

His date squirmed. "I don't think they left," she said.
She could see us by the door. So could he, but he still insisted.

"I saw them!" His voice cracked.

About now, I'm thinking, “People have been shot for less. What don't you get?" And, of course, I'm thinking this in an odd mix of Italian, French, and English because my brain is scrambled thanks to the Rosetta Stone course I’m taking.

The waitress was nearly in the kitchen when I caught her by the arm, "We just didn't want to sit at that booth any more."

She smiled. He was, after all, a regular.

The Professor saw me do this and looked as if he were about to pop. I gave him the "Don't Make Mrs. Kelby Come Over There And Speak To You" look––it always works on rabid dogs and fools–––and walked back to my laughing husband who said, “Never a dull moment with you.”

Once home with our bounty, we popped champagne and turned on the Travel Channel. Chef Andrew Zimmern was in Szechuan eating nearly the exact dish we’d ordered. He proceeded to explain the whys and hows of the cuisine. It was one of the finest dining experiences we had ever had.

Later, I wondered why we were much more comfortable with Chef Zimmern, the TV “tour guide”, instead of a flesh and blood “tour guide” who stood right in front of us offering his services. Can television replace real contact? Can facebook friends feel the same as real friends?

No. I don’t know. Maybe. Who cares?

At the core of the issue is the question, “What does it mean to be an educated diner?”

Our professor was going to tell us the right thing to order––the ‘best’ things––based on his likes and dislikes. On the show, Chef Zimmern helped us understand how Szechuan cuisine came about.

The pleasure of food is based in taste, yes, but also adventure. A meal can be more pleasurable if you understand its history and its significance. Perhaps the question, “What’s good?” should be replaced with “What’s interesting?”

Make your own adventure.

I also think it’s good to make your own English muffins. I’ve been testing a new hollandaise recipe and have discovered that store-bought muffins are pretty nasty. So here’s my gift to you.

This recipe is slightly more work than pancakes, but not much. The results are amazing. For an hour’s work of work you have 36 freezable muffins.

more later...   English Muffins

1 package of dry yeast or 2 1/4 teaspoons
1/4 cup of water (105-115)
1/8 teaspoon sugar
1/2 cup non-fat powdered milk
3 tablespoons unsalted butter at room temp
2 tablespoon sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup hot water (120-130)
1 large egg at room temperature
5-5 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, sifted
Cornmeal for work surface

In a small bowl, combine yeast, 1/8 teaspoon sugar and water to dissolve. Set aside.

In a large mixing bowl (hopefully attached to your KitchenAid) add the cup of hot water, powdered milk, sugar, salt, butter, and three cups of flour. Blend with hook (or hands) until sticky. Add dissolved yeast. Mix at medium speed for about two minutes. Add egg.

Turn off mixer and add flour at about 1/2 cup at a time until dough is no longer sticky. It should begin to pull away from the sides of the bowl.

When all the flour is incorporated, knead for 6 minutes with bread hook or about 8 minutes by hand. The dough should be elastic and smooth. You can add more flour if you need to, but not more than 3/4 cup. Place dough in a clean bowl, lightly oil, and cover with plastic wrap and clean towel. Set bowl in a warm spot (about 80 to 85 degrees) and let rise an hour, or until doubled.

When risen, punch the dough down and let it rest for 10 minutes. Sprinkle cornmeal on the counter or bread board and roll the dough until it’s about 1/4 inch thick. If it snaps back, let it rest for a while and come back to it. Cut into 3-inch rounds.

Put the rounds under plastic wrap and a towel and let rise again until doubled in size––about 30 minutes.

Heat the griddle to 400 degrees. Cook muffins two minutes on one side and two minutes on the other. Don’t burn. Keep in mind that while you need high heat to make these puff, if it’s too high they will burn. If they seem to be burning, turn it down.

After both sides have been browned for two minutes, lower the griddle to 350 degrees and cook for 6 minutes on each side. You can cover the muffins with a lid while cooking to speed the process.

When cooked for a total of 16 minutes, place on a rack to cool. Cool completely before toasting. Separate with the tines of a fork or hands. Never cut an English muffin––it ruins the nooks and crannies.

Passion. Food. TED

Sun, 22 Jan 2012 16:41:36 -0600

Apparently, in the Persian language, Rogan (روغن) means "oil" while Josh (جوش) means a great many things including "passionate." If you haven’t had this dish before, it’s a lush spicy lamb stew that was brought to Kashmir by the Mughals and for many years stayed in Kashmir, the epi-center of Hinduism, Buddhism and political turmoil.

Saffron, peppers, and I suspect the political climate give this dish its fragrant heat. Maybe that’s why I started thinking about Rogan Josh on Saturday while sitting at a TEDx Manhattan simulcast, “Change the Way You Eat.”

While I really thought the event did not tell us anything we didn’t already know, I enjoyed it. I couldn’t have liked Laurie David’s Dinner Makes a Difference presentation more. Still, I came away thinking, “Where’s our heat? Why aren’t we passionately working to solve these problems?” They are, after all, huge. If lies, bad science, greed and corruption ruin our health and food system, the future is bleak.

The TED speakers asked us to take action. Call congress. Protest. Don’t buy non-organic foods. But will any of this really help?

Maybe. Eventually. But I think the solution is easier and more interesting–––let’s get passionate about our food. Really passionate. Downright dirty.

Don’t just buy local. Be local.

When my immigrant family came to this country, they moved into the inner city of Toledo Ohio, to a Polish neighborhood called Kuszwanc.

We lived on the bus line, just a couple of miles from downtown, but always had a garden. The woman behind us, the telephone operator, raised the chickens that my Parisian mother traded tomatoes for. My Polish father owned the local garage and often fixed the buses of neighborhood gospel churches in exchange for catfish fish dinners and sweet potato pie. When we had too many pears on our backyard tree, which was every year, we would can them and trade for homemade bread or sausage. We also made pear wine, but that’s another story.

We had enough money to buy everything at the fancy grocery store on the “good side” of the tracks but we went to our local butcher, baker, chocolate shop and greengrocer. We knew where our food came from. It came from us.

My story is not so different than yours or your parents or great grandparents. Native people lived this way. Then pilgrims. Then immigrants. In some parts of America, it is still common to garden and barter––but we all need to get involved with our food. 1 in 4 children go hungry in this country. We need to find the passion to stop this. When we do, business and government will follow our lead. It’s supply-side economics at work.

Plant your roots deep.

If we build a community garden, we take control of our food. If we’re not skilled gardeners, maybe we buy seeds and the wood needed to create the garden boxes. Or offer to build the boxes or the irrigation system. Or maybe we trade our canning or cooking skills. Or maybe we offer to pay for the yearly insurance on the property. Or maybe we trade our venison, fish or chicken eggs for vegetables.

Or maybe we just buy our food at the farmer’s market or directly from farmers. Or, if we have a lot of money, why not buy farmland with friends and hire a farmer to tend it? The surplus could be donated to local schools and shelters for a tax write off.

And, while we’re at it, let’s get Angie Jolie and her Louis Vuitton carry-on to sprawl across a Roller-Tiller for the paparazzi.

Why not? Nothing is more sexy than cooking and growing your own food. Nothing is more sexy than living in a world where people are fed and happy and not desperate.
Food is good.

Open your door, your heart and your kitchen to the world and you will make change one plate at a time.

Let’s be passionate about food.

I’m planning my garden right now with seeds from the non-profit Seed Savers Exchange. I’m also making my way through last year’s bounty. My pumpkin stash is getting lower, but the meat seems sweeter. Maybe it’s because I don’t have to wonder where my pumpkins came from or what was done to them. I know.

Hopefully the heat of this Pumpkin Soup Rogan Josh will inspire passion. It’s velvety, sexy and very hot––and I’m just talking about the pumpkin.

more later...

Pumpkin Shrimp Soup Rogan Josh

2 Tbsp unsalted butter
2 Tbsp olive oil
4 cups of sweet onions, chopped
4 teaspoons minced garlic
3-4 tablespoons of Rogan Josh (We bought ours at Penzy’s)
*3 (15 oz) cans pumpkin or 6 cups of pureed roasted pumpkin (about 1.5 medium pumpkins. Freeze the rest)
3 cups of low sodium beef broth
1 can of lowfat coconut milk
1/2 cup brown sugar
Juice of one lime
1/2 cup lowfat plain Greek yogurt
3 ounces paper thin prosciutto
1 pound of shrimp (Not from Thailand. Gulf shrimp is lovely and sweet.)

1. Melt oil and butter in a 4-quart saucepan over medium-high heat. Add onions and garlic. Soften (about two minutes). Add Rogan Josh and brown sugar. Cook until caramel colored about 4 minutes more.
2. Add pumpkin, beef broth, lime juice, coconut milk, yogurt. Stir until well incorporated and then bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer for 20 minutes.
Please note that the beef broth brings out the umami of the dish (as Escoffier would say if he were Japanese.) Chicken will provide less flavor, as will vegetable broth.
1. Cool soup and blend with handstick blender or in a food processor.
2. At this stage I refrigerate overnight. This allows the flavors to marry without heat and that his the soup a cleaner taste. However, you can move ahead and serve the soup the same day you prepare it.
3. Reheat the soup to boiling and toss the shrimp in. Reduce to simmer until the shrimp turn pink. While the shrimp are cooking, place the prosciutto under the broiler to crisp. Once crisp, remove excess fat and cut into strips.
4. Pour hot soup into bowls and garnish with proscuitto.
Yield: Serves 8.
*To make pumpkin purée, cut a sugar pumpkin in half, scoop out the seeds and stringy stuff, lie face down on a tin-foil lined baking pan. Bake at 350°F until soft, about 45 min to an hour. Cool, scoop out the flesh.