Taste Memories

Comfort in a Bowl

I'd wager that most people's hit list of rib-sticking foods does not include Brussels sprouts. Frankly, it should. I owe this extremely useful piece of knowledge to the folks at Maxine's, an absolute little gem of a restaurant in Girdwood, Alaska. My Mother-in-Law kindly took us there on our recent visit, on a night where the mercury dipped well below negative thirty. It was an evening for comfort and warmth, so I opted reflexively for the duck confit. It was a lovely rendition, but, truth be told, I was even more beguiled by the Brussels sprouts gratin it came with. Studded with bacon and veritably oozing with cream and cheese, this was admittedly not a dish for the faint of belly. And yet the grassy Brussels sprouts somehow kept the whole thing in check. I'm rather a sucker for austere characters in decadent garb, so I was totally charmed. I've been daydreaming about this ever since.

It was just the thing for that night, and it was just the thing tonight, too – especially since I got stuck in a snowstorm coming home from my first (exciting but rather hectic) day back at grad school. Of course, I could hardly duck back into Maxine's and beg them for a bowlful, but that's where a taste memory comes in handy: I was able to recreate the dish with great success my first time around. Next time around, I might add a little garlic to the onion during its last minute or so of cooking; I might also toss in some shrimp; and I might serve this over a fluffy bed of white rice instead of spaghetti. But there will be a next time. For, needless to say, this was just what I needed after a 7am start, a bunch of meetings, and a serious train delay: namely, comfort in a bowl.

 

Spaghetti with Caramelized Brussels Sprouts, Bacon and Cream

Ingredients:

6oz center-cut bacon, diced

1 onion, diced

16oz Brussels sprouts, peeled, washed, and halved

½ cup light cream

1 tsp Worcestershire sauce

A handful of parmesan cheese, grated

A handful of flat-leaf parsley, rough chopped

Black pepper

8oz spaghetti, to serve

 

Method:

Place a skillet over high heat, and sauté the bacon until it is golden and crispy (about 5 minutes).

Remove the bacon with a slotted spoon, and place on paper towels to drain. Reserve most of the fat, leaving about a teaspoon behind.

Lower the heat to medium, and sauté the onion until it is soft and golden (about 5 minutes). Set aside the onions.

Add the Brussels sprouts, cut-side down, and let them sit without stirring, until they are nicely caramelized (about 5 minutes).

Add the cream and Worcestershire sauce to the skillet, and simmer the mixture for a few minutes, or until the Brussels sprouts are sufficiently tender.

Remove the skillet from the heat, and stir in the parsley and a few good grinds of black pepper. Now add the spaghetti to let the noodles soak up a bit of the cream sauce. Serve immediately.

 

Serves 2, generously.

Old Faithful

To say that I've been in a cooking slump of late wouldn't be quite accurate, but I've hardly been bursting with culinary ideas, either. Venturing over black ice to get to the grocery store is not an appealing prospect at the moment, especially considering the uninspiring winter produce which I know awaits me. So I find myself making the same recipes time and time again, which are mostly the kinds of things I'd scarcely think to write about. But sometimes the most unprepossessing of dishes can be uncommonly satisfying and handy, which brings me to this little pasta sauce.

Got butter? Got an onion? A head of broccoli? Some kind of stock? Some kind of cream? A bit of cheese? And a packet of spaghetti? Then a fabulous dinner is but fifteen minutes away. What you'll end up with is a lush celadon-colored puree in which to swathe your pasta. The sauce is quite mild, but the broccoli lends just enough of a bracing edge here to keep things interesting. I like to add a sprinkling of red pepper flakes at the end, for color and zip and sizzle. I imagine some toasted breadcrumbs would also be fantastic in their place.

The other nice thing about this recipe is that, like most of those in my regular rotation, it's subject to myriad promising variations. You can add some garlic to the onion (for the last minute or so of its cooking time), or you can fry the onion in bacon fat. For that matter, some actual bacon in this is delicious too, although I'd go easy on the cream and cheese in that case, lest the dish become excessively rich. My favorite rendition of all involves adding some nice oily black olives to the sauce at the very end (after pureeing the broccoli). It's hard to go wrong with this, really. Humble it may be, but still too good not to pass along.

Broccoli pasta sauce

Ingredients:

1 tsp unsalted butter

1 onion, diced

½ tsp kosher salt

2 large heads broccoli, cut into florets

3 cups vegetable stock

¼ cup light cream

¼ cup parmesan cheese, grated

Spaghetti, to serve

 

Method:

Add the butter to a large pot over medium heat.

Sauté the onion with the salt until soft and golden (about five minutes).

Add the broccoli florets, and stir them around a bit.

Add the stock, and bring the mixture to a boil.

Boil the broccoli for 5 minutes or until the florets are soft.

Blend the soup thoroughly with a stick blender (or in an upright blender).

Stir in the cream and cheese, and taste for seasoning.

Serve over pasta.

Voting with my Mouth

As an Australian expat, I can't vote in this election. It's hard to feel so invested in a political event that you're unable to shape in any way. In lieu of voting, I decided to make a special lunch to eat while pointlessly refreshing this website, even though the first polls don't close for four hours. It is a salad featuring arugula, which I've made no secret of adoring on this blog (much as with its most recent unwitting proponent.)

In truth, I've been plotting making this since Fall began, and just haven't gotten around to it. The idea came to me while walking home one day, musing on spaghetti carbonara (as one does). In case you're not familiar, the dish is a mélange of eggs, bacon, cream, garlic, and cheese, served over pasta. What's not to love? Well, yes… in theory. But in practice, the dish feels gummy and heavy and cloying and altogether too much. It's a belly-ache in a bowl, quite frankly. So I wondered if I could retain the basic carbonara flavor palette while lightening the whole affair and introducing some contrast by using bitter, delicate arugula leaves in place of the spaghetti.

Mis en place: pancetta, arugula, garlic, bread, parmesan, eggs, fleur de sel, red wine vinegar.

I'm happy to report that the experiment was a smashing success. When you serve this, the crispy-edged, soft-bellied fried egg's yolk will ooze gently over the salad, wilting the tangy arugula, and enveloping the salty, chewy pancetta lardons. When the pile of arugula (rapidly) dwindles, the diner will discover a piece of garlicky bread at the bottom of the bowl, lightly moistened with an additional benediction of the now yolk-enriched salad dressing. I can't recommend this enough for brunch, lunch, or supper.

Arugula Carbonara

Ingredients:

A large handfuls of baby arugula

1 egg

3oz thick-cut pancetta (about ½ inch thick, if possible)

1 clove of garlic

1-2 pieces of good, crusty bread

Parmesan cheese

 

For the dressing:

1 ½ tbsp good red wine vinegar

1 tbsp good extra virgin olive oil

A good grinding of fresh black pepper

A tiny pinch of good salt

 

Method:

Cut the pancetta into lardons (about ½ inch cubes).

Place a large skillet over high heat, and fry the lardons until they are crisp and golden (about 10 minutes).

Meanwhile, rub the bread with the cut clove of garlic, and toast.

Remove the pancetta lardons from the skillet with a slotted spoon, and drain well on paper towels.

Now turn the heat down to medium, and mince the leftover garlic clove.

Add the eggs and the garlic to the skillet, and let them fry in the bacon fat.

Remove the garlic after a minute or so; add it to the dressing ingredients, and whisk to combine. Adjust the dressing for seasoning and acidity.

In a small bowl, toss the arugula with the dressing.

When the fried egg's white is set but the yolk is still runny, you're ready to serve.

To serve, layer the toast, dressed arugula, lardons and fried egg in a clean, shallow bowl. Shave a few curls of parmesan cheese over the top, and serve immediately.

Serves 1, but multiply as desired.

Legacy

There is an unspoken rule in my family. Whenever someone is sick, sad, or otherwise in need of solace, it is incumbent on us to spend the afternoon making our special bolognaise sauce for them. The recipe is not a family secret, exactly, but it has been perfected by my Mother and Father for the duration of their married life (over twenty-five years now). It is rich, comforting, and deeply satisfying, and is by far the best bolognaise I have ever tasted. A whiff of it bubbling on the stove takes me right back to the weekend afternoons of my childhood, since that was often when Mum or Dad would cook up a batch.

We'd eat it over spaghetti in the evening, and the sauce would swathe the noodles with its sticky, savoury, meaty juices. As a child, I would make spaghetti sandwiches out of it, preferably on soft white bread lavished with butter. It was what Dad made for me after my horse threw me off right in the middle of a dressage test when I was twelve; it was what Mum brought to me when I was nineteen, living alone, and struggling to find time to cook for myself during a particularly gruelling exam period; it was what I served to my exhausted parents and sister when they got off the plane all the way from Australia last year. No matter how inauthentic or how unfashionable it might be, this is the recipe in my repertoire that I treasure the most.

Spaghetti Bolognaise

 

Ingredients:

 

1 tbsp olive oil

2 large onions, finely chopped

1 lb baby carrots, finely diced (I like to do this by hand, so some little carrots pieces remain visible in the finished sauce)

1 head celery, finely chopped

1 tsp kosher salt

6 cloves garlic, smashed

1 lb uncured unsmoked streaky bacon, finely diced

5lb ground beef (about 90% fat)

2 * 28 oz cans crushed tomatoes

1 * 28 oz can diced tomatoes

12oz can tomato paste

2 cups red wine

6 bay leaves

1 bunch curly parsley

1 large handful basil, cut into thin chiffonade strips

 

To serve:

spaghetti

parmesan

butter and lemon zest for the pasta (optional)

 

Method:

 

Add the olive oil to a large, heavy-bottomed Dutch oven (with at least a 7-quart capacity) over medium-high heat.

 

Add the onions, celery, and carrots, and the kosher salt. Let the soffrito soften but not brown for about 10 minutes, and then add the garlic for a few seconds, before turning off the heat.

 

Meanwhile, fry the bacon in a skillet over high heat, until it is quite crispy (about 10 minutes).

 

Drain the fat from the skillet (you can leave a little of it if you want the sauce to have a more pronounced bacon flavor, but I get rid of it all), and add some of the beef to it (about 1/3 of it).

 

Brown the beef in 3 - 4 batches over high heat, mashing it with a large fork to break up any clumps. This step is hugely important - nobody likes lumpy bolognaise. I also use a potato masher at this stage to help declump, which is effective although unorthodox.

 

Then, add the bacon and browned beef to the soffrito, and stir in the tomatoes, wine, and bay leaves. Bring the mixture up to a slow boil, and simmer, covered, for at least 2 hours (preferably longer). Stir it occasionally, and add a little stock mixture or water if it looks dry. You should taste it and adjust the seasoning about halfway through the cooking too.

 

Next, uncover the Dutch oven and let any small pockets of liquid in the bolognaise evaporate. The sauce should be extremely thick and the ingredients well-integrated, at which point you can take it off the heat and start making the spaghetti.

 

While the spaghetti cooks, finely chop the parsley in a food processor (or by hand). Add the parsley and the basil to the sauce, and give it a final taste for seasoning.

 

I like to dress the cooked spaghetti with a knob of butter and a little lemon zest (although I suspect my Father, very much the traditionalist, would not approve) before topping it with a generous amount of bolognaise sauce. In my family, we serve the pasta and sauce unmixed, since this leaves the individual diner to adjust the proportions of their meal to suit their tastes. But do as you will.

 

This makes an enormous quantity, about 5 quarts. Feel free to reduce the amount, but I prefer to make it in bulk because it freezes incredibly well and is extremely versatile. It is delicious over any kind of pasta, in lasagne or pasta bakes, over mashed potatoes, grilled eggplant, baked potatoes, or even in subs. 

Cultural and Culinary Stereotypes: A Case Study

I’ve had Mexican food exactly twice in my life. In all fairness, I’ve only lived in Melbourne, Australia (where there is very little Mexican food) and Boston (where there is very little good Mexican food, or so I hear). All the same, I remain hugely ignorant on the subject of Mexican cuisine, much to my chagrin. So what am I doing posting this vaguely Mexican-looking recipe here?

This dish, I confess, represents my stereotype of Mexican food – the mental paradigm which I wish to alter and ultimately displace. For, much like Americans who invariably associate Australian culture with Crocodile Dundee and Steve Irwin, I invariably associate Mexican food with cilantro, lime, avocado, and black beans. In truth, the former stereotype irks me no end. There’s only so many grim smiles in response to the tired old ‘that’s not a knife, this is a knife’ chestnut that one’s cheek muscles can successfully pull off. Moreover, as someone who studies and teaches moral philosophy, I can assure you that there are few comparisons less flattering or conducive to one's would-be scholarly authority than the comparison with Steve Irwin (R.I.P.). It's hard to hold forth on Plato after one's students have inquired as to one's crocodile-hunting credentials. No wonder my accent is undergoing a seismic shift.

 

It is my hope that the consumption of this dish will set me free to go in search of authentic and interesting Mexican food, thus exorcising a (doubtless inaccurate) culinary stereotype. But what a tasty exorcism it was, and how often can you say that?

Pulled Pork Salad

 

Ingredients:

 

For the pulled pork: (adapted from this recipe)

1.5 lb pork tenderloin

½ cup red wine vinegar

¼ cup water

2 tbsp chipotles in adobo

2 tbsp agave nectar

2 tsp kosher salt

1 tsp mapuche spice

A pinch of red pepper flakes

 

For the avocado crème:

1 avocado

2 tbsp sour cream (I used light, which was fine)

Juice from 1 lime

A pinch of salt

For the salad:

1 punnet cherry tomatoes, halved

1 cucumber, peeled and sliced (preferably with a mandolin)

A large handful of cilantro, finely chopped

3 scallions, finely sliced

1 can black beans, drained and thoroughly rinsed

Juice from 1 lime

 

Method:

 

First, make the pulled pork. To do this, cut the pork tenderloin into large (about 2 inch) chunks. Then, combine the remaining ingredients for the pulled pork in a Dutch oven over high heat, and bring the mixture to a boil, stirring to combine.

 

Add the pork pieces, cover, and turn down the heat to low. Simmer for about 1 hour, until the pork is very tender.

 

Meanwhile, make the avocado crème by mashing the avocado flesh with the remaining ingredients, and adjusting for seasoning and acidity.

 

When the pork is done, shred it with two forks, and return it to the cooking liquid to moisten it.

 

Combine all the salad ingredients in a large bowl. Top with the pulled pork, and the avocado crème.

 

Serves 4 as a main.

Seared Scallops with Mint Pesto

 

One of my fiancé Daniel’s myriad charms is his asymmetrical attitude towards gift-giving. Whenever I get him a present, he looks pleased and grateful, but turns slightly pink with embarrassment. However, when it comes to giving gifts to others, he’s in his element. He was so excited to give me my birthday present this year that he ended up asking me to open it the evening beforehand. He was taut with anticipation as I tore off the ribbons and wrapping. I didn’t take off the sapphire earrings he had bought me to match my engagement ring until about a week afterwards. (Are you nauseous yet?)

 

Daniel also loves surprising me. In fact, I have to be careful: if I casually mention that I might like to own a certain item someday, that item is rather likely to turn up at our house a few days later. This is how I came, a few months ago, to own a sparkling red KitchenAid. Luckily, I was able to repay Daniel for his kindness with batches of cookies, muffins, blueberry crumb bars, and blondies (made with valrhona milk chocolate buttons, walnuts, and a nip of our favorite Sctoch, the Talisker 18). I guess what I’m saying is that we spoil each other, in our different ways: also, that I feel terribly lucky. (OK, now I know you're nauseous.)

 

But lest this post dissolve into an unadultered mush-fest, let me tell you about the latest gift he’s gotten me: a stone mortar and pestle (pictured above, at its christening). I have a teeny-tiny dinky one already, but I’ve wanted a big, sturdy, hefty one for the longest time. What can I say? I grew up watching Jamie Oliver, who pulverized just about everything in a mortar on his BBC cooking show.

 

I particularly remember Jamie frequently opining that pesto made with a mortar and pestle is more fragrant than pesto made in a food processor, since more of the herb’s fragrant oils are released in the process of pounding and grinding. I wasn't sure whether or not that was true, but I couldn’t resist enlisting the newest addition to our kitchen to help test out the theory. And I have to say, I think Jamie is right: the mint pesto I made today was delicious, unusually so. Moreover, the pleasure of grinding the herbs while inhaling their scent far exceeds that derivable from pushing a button.

 

I paired this pesto with some seared scallops, and I thought they went beautifully together – from both an aesthetic and culinary point of view.

 

Ingredients:

 

1 tsp safflower or peanut oil

1lb scallops

Good salt

 

For the pesto:

2 cups mint leaves, packed fairly tightly

¼ cup salted, roasted cashews

1 lime, juiced

2 tbsp good extra virgin olive oil

 

Method:

 

Place a large skillet over medium-high heat, and slick it with the safflower or peanut oil.

 

Add the scallops, and give them a good sprinkling of salt. Now, please, let them sit – pushing them around the pan will prevent them from caramelizing properly.

 

Give the scallops a minute or two on each side, until they are cooked through (this will vary considerably, depending on their size).

 

Meanwhile, pound half the mint leaves and cashews together in a mortar. When they are ground to a fine paste, add the remaining mint leaves and cashews. Then, stir in the lime juice and olive oil. (You can also make the pesto by simply blending all the ingredients together in a food processor. But where’s the fun in that?)

 

Either way, taste the pesto, and adjust for seasoning and acidity (I didn’t add any salt, because of the saltiness of the cashews. You mileage may vary, as they say. But do be sure to add some salt if you started with unsalted cashews).

 

Serves 2 famished lovebirds.

 

 

Taste Memories

One of the many traits my Mother and I share is a passion for food. We had a recent email exchange about some superb madeleines my Mother enjoyed recently at Vue de Monde, a fine French restaurant in Melbourne, my hometown. She described them beautifully (which is unsurprising – she’s a writer) as “shaped like a small shell, with a taste sublimely subtle. They came with a kind of tiny mound of honey and a similarly shaped one of vanilla icecream.” She wrote that she “now understands why the madeleine became a part of world literature.”

I recalled in my reply that I myself had some sublime madeleines, flecked with lemon zest, at Cafe Boulud in New York last October (we celebrated our anniversary there). They were sent out, gratis, after dessert. As I told my Mother, I still think about those madeleines from time to time. However, I also felt obliged to inform her that not everyone is as pro-madeleine as the two of us (or Proust). In a 1959 article that appeared in The New Yorker, the ever-arch gourmant A.J. Liebling wrote:

“The Proust madeleine phenomenon is now as firmly established in folklore as Newton's apple or Watt’s steam kettle. The man ate a tea biscuit, the taste evoked memories, he wrote a book. This is capable of expression by the formula TMB, for Taste > Memory > Book... The quantity of brandy in a madeleine would not furnish a grat with an alcohol rub. In light of what Proust wrote with so mild a stimulus, it is the world's loss that he did not have a heartier appetite. On a dozen Gardiners Island oysters, a bowl of clam chowder, a peck of steamers, some bay scallops, three sauteed soft-shelled crabs, a few ears of fresh-picked corn, a thin swordfish steak of generous area, a pair of lobsters, and a Long Island duck, he might have written a masterpiece.”

As predicted, my Mother found this excerpt quite amusing. She also ventured that “the true test of good food is whether one ‘still thinks about it from time to time.’”

I found myself in wholehearted agreement. I thought about making some madeleines to celebrate the discovery of this small but important truth, but then remembered that – alas, alack – I do not presently own a madeleine tin. And then, possibly due to extant nostalgia for Melbourne, I found myself reminiscing about another wonderful meal that I had back there a few years ago.

It was at a venerable Lebanese restaurant – Abla’s – that is deservedly something of a Melbourne institution. I went there for a family birthday – whose I can no longer recall. Everything we ate was delicious, but the best thing of all was some simple chicken skewers, marinated in lemon, garlic, olive oil and coriander. If I saw the recipe in a magazine, I’d probably have shrugged and thumbed past it. But despite its straightforwardness, it was really divine: the chicken unspeakably tender, the flavours bold but clean.

So I recreated the dish last night. I think it was fairly close to the original, and it was almost as delicious. 

 

Chicken Skewers with Lemon, Garlic, and Coriander

 

Ingredients:

 

2lb chicken breasts, cut into small pieces

2 lemons, juiced*

4 cloves garlic, minced**

1 handful of coriander, finely chopped

1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

1 tsp kosher salt

wooden skewers, for threading

 

Method:

 

Combine the lemon juice, garlic, coriander, oil and salt.

 

Marinate the chicken in the lemon juice mixture for at least 12 hours, or preferably overnight.

 

Thread the chicken onto the skewers, and broil until the chicken is cooked through.

 

* To maximize the amount of juice the lemons yield, I microwave them for 30 seconds or so, and then give them a few vigorous squeezes in the palm of my hand. They spurt forth an impressive amount of juice after this abrasive treatment.

 

** I don’t use a garlic press for this, or for anything else for that matter. Indeed, according to my favourite food writer, Elizabeth David, “garlic presses are utterly useless.” Harsh words, perhaps, but she's right - pressed garlic tastes acrid and vile. So I just smash the cloves with the back of a heavy knife, and then chop them finely.

 

A bit of context: I served this with some Greek yoghurt laced with coriander and a squeeze of lemon juice, and a delicious side-dish of sautéed leeks and summer squash (recipe forthcoming).