STIR THE POTS

Fish tacos

Who doesn't like tacos ?  Especially fish tacos. But it's rare to find a good restaurant fish taco. They're usually sweaty from their over-wrapped tortillas and made from lesser quality tilapia or catfish. What's key is cooking method. Who wants a  batter fried  filet steaming between tortillas and condiments. You're left with a soggy mess which has been lost in translation.  Recently I got the book, Truly Mexican, a book from author/chef  Roberto Santibañez  of Brooklyn's Fonda. His book and cooking reflect contemporary Mexican  food. I used one of the recipes to make some fish tacos at home. The book was inspiring. I bought some exquisitely fresh  bonito, and used  the books  amazingly simple and delicious adobo recipe. Excellent  results, olé!

Halal Chicken

Last year, exactly in July, my boss asked me to prepare a dinner for some Diplomatic officials. It would need to be halal. Needing guidance, I tested some wonderful dishes from Persian chef Samin Nosrat. This recipe gave us perfect direction and delicious results. The left over trimmings of feet, tail, bones became the base of a gelatinous, bone broth of the highest order.

Beer Bread

During the pandemic, I ventured on foot to my former Long Island city neighborhood. This former industrial stretch of Queens is now a hipster neighborhood. The bad side? Rising rents. The good side, several breweries offering delicious beers including Fifth Hammer Brewing and Rockaway Brewing Company.

This discovery piqued my interest to see if either brewery would sell me any of their spent grains, great to use for baking bread for beer dough. It turned out that both offered me enough to make several bags. Now I just have to turn them into bread. 

 

 

 

Bread Share

With heightened attention being paid to bread baking in quarantine, I have made time to up my game by adapting more formulas, and trying to bake at a slower speed. Patience and study are not qualities that come easily to a always-pressured chef. Rushing to produce quick breads and expecting a perfect loaf seems like a politician's game, you get lousy results, from lots of waste to bad crumb and crust.

Often my brother chides me, tell me that I produce bread porn by posting endless photos of supposedly great loaves, never allowing anyone to actually taste them.  Well, he's wrong, as attested to by my neighbors, two butchers and a local grocer who asked if I had more! One of the butchers wives actually posted something about it on Facebook. Here's a quote: "My favorite baker sent me some bread...or at least I’d like to think so. Thank you so much, it’s amazing." 

It feels good to share a communal loaf. The breaking of bread is an act of sharing. Giving is what we do, especially now in this time.

Burger Buns

At work, I always dreamed of making home made buns. Burger buns. And not the average burger bones. Most restaurants serve challah or brioche styled burger buns. I wanted a better burger bun What's that means? It's freshly baked. It's not too soft but fluffy enough to absorb the wonderful juices of a well-made burger.  Recently, Simon Bowden, an English baker in NYC who posts on Instagram forwarded a recipe for a biga-version potato bun recipe. I adapted the recipe for sourdough. And then I put them to use with a batch of lamb burgers. Fantastic!

 

Zev Robinson

 

 

Zev Robinson is an artist and filmmaker who explores bread, food and wine. We have been talking to each other during the Pandemic via Zoom. He agreed to allow me to post one of our talks. 

 

 

 

 

 

Jerusalem Bagel

Four years ago I tried to make a batch of Jerusalem-style bagels. They were far from stellar. The other day, Lior Lev Secarz emailed me a recipe for these bagels on which he swore. He got them from chef Mike Salomonov, author of the restaurant and book known as Zahav. The recipe is fantastic. I adapted it for sourdough using a refreshed young levain, along with Bulgarian yogurt replacing the labneh as called for in the original formula. My neighbors got lucky with a batch and left me comments too, which made me feel good about sharing during this pandemic period.

"we couldn’t even bother to clean our counter!"

 

 

This is Solomonov's formula, yeasted. Sourdough takes more fermentation time, but not much! Yalla!

 

Ingredients

1 packet active dry yeast

3 tablespoons sugar

1¾ cups warm water

907 g bread flour

⅓ cup canola oil

⅓ cup labneh

1½ teaspoons kosher salt

1 tablespoon baking soda

2 large eggs

Sesame seeds, for sprinkling

 

Directions

• Combine the yeast, sugar, and 1½ cups of the water in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the dough hook. Let sit until foamy, about 5 minutes. Add the flour, oil, labneh, and salt and mix until the dough comes together. Cover the bowl and let rise at room temperature until it almost doubles in volume, 1 to 1½ hours. Portion the dough into 6 to 8 equally sized balls and place on a lightly floured large board. Cover with a kitchen towel and let rest at room temperature for 1 hour.

 

• Pat one piece of dough into a rough rectangle the size of your board, then roll it up, starting from one long end, pinching and deflating/degassing the dough as you roll. Pinch the seam to seal. Continue rolling the dough into a long rope using both hands, starting in the middle and moving outward to make it as even as possible (it should be about 1½ feet long). Bring the edges together to make a long oval and pinch to seal. Repeat with the remaining dough pieces. Let rise on the board for 1 hour. The dough will puff up a bit.

 

• Preheat the oven to 350°F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper. Spread out the baking soda in a small ovenproof dish and bake for 3 minutes. Remove from the oven and whisk with the eggs and the remaining ¼ cup water in a small bowl. After the dough ovals have risen, place them on the prepared baking sheets. Brush the tops with the egg wash, using all of it, and sprinkle liberally with sesame seeds. Bake until deep golden brown, 12 to 15 minutes.

 

 

 

Boeuf A'la Mode

Shopping at my local butcher I  got piece of marbled chicken steak aka  blade shoulder A prized bistro style cut for braising . With this particular cut  I learned with particular dish, its name boeuf aux carrotes (beef and carrots). The method and technique hasn't been lost, its lodged in my psyche and memorialized  in my palate. Still I was wondering about the historic origins and it's name and found some very interesting points of its creator François Pierre de La Varrenne. Writer of recipes and  a key chef during a period of enlightenment  in French cuisine. His own codifying, led to recipes, inscribed with rules and principles of taste. Varrenne suggested removing exotic spices that covered or masked dishes left behind from the middle ages, instead he preached the  use of  local product that were fresh, and meat prepared carefully highlighting the maximum taste. His summation in his book, " when eating cabbage soup, I want it to taste like cabbage."