Posts by krista

Aug 3

Sunday Night Special: Quick-Fried Lamb & Pounded Eggplants with Green Peppers

Ok, I didn’t make this dinner until Tuesday and it’s now Thursday, but it was intended for Sunday night. And isn’t Sunday night really just a state of mind anyway? This weekend I got waylaid by a late lunch/early dinner at Sripraphai and it seemed silly to cook Chinese food just a few hours later.

The goal was to use at least part of a boneless lamb roast that we bought on a whim from Costco. Having no desire for a traditional British preparation (it’s hard not to think of the U.K. or Australia), Indian food seemed logical. Then I thought of Northern Chinese dishes using chiles, cumin and cilantro. That was definitely it.

There was only one such recipe in The Revolutionary Chinese Cookbook, quick fried lamb but it didn’t contain cumin. Beef with cumin, did, however. Because I’m a rule follower, I essentially used the lamb recipe and just added the earthy spice in the middle. I didn’t have angelica root and I’m not sure how it tastes exactly. Well, I’m not totally a rule follower because I persist in reprinting copyrighted recipes. I swear, I’ll stop soon.

Because I never learn from past mistakes, I kind of mangled this dish by overcrowding the wok. I’d envisioned these perfectly seared, spicy, oil-coated slices of meat and I ended up with boiled mutton. Well, practically. Too much meat produced too much liquid and my version became soupy and a little tough. Next time I’ll be more careful and make it spicier.

Quick-Fried Lamb
Xiao Chao Yang Rou

Ingredients
10 ounces lean boneless lamb
1 tablespoon Shaoxing wine
1 teaspoon light soy sauce
½ teaspoon dark soy sauce
¼ teaspoon salt, plus extra to taste
2 teaspoons cumin
2 fresh red chiles or ½ red pepper
2 ½ ounces cilantro or Chinese celery
2 teaspoons finely chopped fresh ginger
2 teaspoons finely chopped garlic
2 teaspoons dried chile flakes (optional)
1 tablespoon finely chopped Chinese angelica root (optional)
1 teaspoon sesame oil
3 tablespoons peanut oil for cooking

1. Cut the lamb across the grain into thin slices. Place the slices in a bowl, add the Shaoxing wine, soy sauces, and salt and mix well; set aside.

2. Cut the red chiles into thin slices; if using bell pepper, cut into small squares. Cut the cilantro stems or celery into 2-inch pieces, reserve some leaves for a garnish and set aside the other leaves for other uses.

3. Heat the wok over a high flame until smoke rises, then add the peanut oil and swirl around. Add the ginger, garlic, fresh chile or bell pepper, chile flakes, cumin and angelica root, if using, and stir-fry briefly until fragrant.

4. Add the lamb and continue stir-frying, adding salt to taste, if necessary. When the lamb is almost cooked, add the cilantro or celery, and stir a few times until barely cooked. Turn off the heat, stir in the sesame oil and serve, with cilantro leaf garnish, if desired.

I scoured the same cookbook for a quick vegetable dish that didn’t contain any hard to find ingredients. Sadly, that meant no Chinese chives, black beans, lotus root, purple perilla, fava beans, duck eggs or bamboo shoots. I landed on a recipe that used eggplant, green pepper and soy sauce, simple as that. Eggplant does tend to require an unseemly amount of oil to get silky. I skimped a bit, but either way the dish was nowhere near greasy and nothing like you’d get from take-out joint. I was tempted to substitute red peppers because green ones are low on my list of favorites, but the dry wok cooking managed to sweeten them up.

Pounded Eggplants with Green Peppers
Qing Jiao Lei Qie Zi

Ingredients
1 pound eggplants (preferably Chinese)
salt
5 ounces green bell peppers, thin-skinned if possible
light soy sauce
4 tablespoons peanut oil for cooking

1. Peel the eggplants and slice thickly. Sprinkle with salt, toss to coat evenly, and then set aside for 30 minutes

2. Meanwhile, cut the pepper in half, discard the seeds and stem and thinly slice; set aside.

3. When the eggplants are ready, rinse them to get rid of excess salt, and shake dry; set aside.

4. Stir-fry the peppers in a dry wok over a medium flame until soft and fragrant, pressing them against the sides of the wok; set aside.

5. Heat the oil in a wok over a medium flame. Add the eggplants and stir-fry for a good 10 minutes or so, until they are very tender but not colored. As they soften, mash them up with a wok scoop, until you have a sludgy paste that is about half the volume of the original eggplant slices.

6. Add the bell peppers and stir-fry until both ingredients are fragrant and well-mixed, seasoning with a little soy sauce to taste. Serve.

Recipes from “The Revolutionary Chinese Cookbook” by Fuchsia Dunlop. W.W. Norton & Company, 2007.

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Aug 2

Wakiya

Of course I know better than to get sucked into hype, but part of me (a tiny sliver buried deep inside) was curious what the Wakiya fuss was about. I hate scenes so I hemmed and hawed over bowing out of my reservation (I didn’t realize that obtaining one was such a big deal. I called, I got one. And 8:45 seemed like a perfectly sane dining time to me). Do I really want to pay good money to get treated like an untouchable?

But aging naïf that I am, I was genuinely interested in the cuisine. I realize food is hardly the point of a place like this (I’m currently planning a fall trip to Shanghai and don’t anticipate encountering much Wakiya-style fare) but what little I’ve read so far has focused more on service and style issues. I didn’t encounter much attitude and I actually expected the prices to be crazier (though yes, the portions are petite). We spent about $120 with four dishes and three drinks. No bargain, but hardly outrageous either.

I was a little bummed to see nary a C-lister. Just common folks to my uneducated gaze. Gawker saw Dennis Quaid a few nights ago (I saw him last night in Day After Tomorrow on cable. I didn’t want to—I was waiting for Damages to start). I was hoping for at least Randy Quaid or a lesser Arquette or Baldwin.

Soup dumplings. No complaints and the vinegar with ginger shreds was a fitting acidic touch. They instruct you to eat them from a small bowl but you really kind of need a big spoon with these messy blobs of dough.

Bang bang chicken. This is a cold dish of shredded chicken dressed with a sweet-hot sesame, soy and vinegar mixture. I could imagine some people thinking this was spicy, though it easily could’ve been amped up threefold.

Tso tsao pork. That’s sweet and sour pork to you. Supposedly the black vinegar makes it more refined. I think it was the tiny serving size that shouted upscale.

Soft shell crab with golden sand. To remain poetic yet maintain accuracy, I would’ve called it scarlet sand, as it the grit was orange-red, and frankly, tasted like crushed Lays BBQ chips. In other words, the sand was quite tasty. But the crumbs were panko, black beans and a few different dried chiles that I can’t recall. I think Aleppo was one variety.

XO omelet fried rice. We really didn’t really need this, though James thought it was the best dish. The egg-wrapped rice came at the end and was duly filling. I might’ve forgone it for a dessert.

Urine-drenched toilet seats were the least surprising thing of the evening. As I’ve discovered with various NYC jobs, the “classier” the caliber of ladyfolk, the filthier shared bathrooms will be. This was a unisex bathroom, but I only saw groups of girls jamming into the cramped space. I am supposed to be talking about food here, so I’ll spare you further gruesome anecdotes.

Wakiya * 2 Lexington Ave., New York, NY

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Aug 1

And You Thought Radish Roses Were Fancy

Radishes aren’t a loathe like melons or malta, but I could do without them in most circumstances. (Daikon is another story. A good story.) When they come with tacos I might take a nibble or two because I hate to waste. I kind of thought radishes were good for nothing until I heard about Noche de Rábanos a.k.a. Radish Night in Oaxaca. Not that I’ve witnessed it first hand, but it appears to be a freaktastic folk art blitz that takes place right before Christmas. I’ve always dug Chinese and Thai fruit and vegetable carving but these inedible sculptures are something else altogether.

Radish Night [Planeta]
La Noche de Rábanos [Aqui Oaxaca]
Radish Festival Photo Gallery [About.com]

Photo from Beverlita on Flickr

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Jul 31

Clemente’s Maryland Crabhouse

1/2 Convincing thirteen people to endure a lengthy B/Q ride (maybe the B line is the shit—Grub Street was all over it today) then walk a mile in high heat and humidity would seem like a tough sell, but I was lucky enough to coerce a crew out to Clemente’s Crabhouse in Sheepshead Bay on Saturday. I don’t normally do destination birthday parties or group dinners because trauma invariably ensues. Maybe the frozen margaritas, sea air and ‘90s jukebox hits (I thought I’d permanently blocked out the Spin Doctors) messed with my ability to judge, but I did feel better about hitting “the wrong side of my thirties” as one friend ominously remarked in a card.

Sure, Clemente’s can be a pain in the ass to get to, but the fun is being in completely non-Brooklyn feeling Brooklyn. The urge to buy a houseboat is not an unusual reaction after sitting on the pier for a few hours. Sprouting tan muscles, a moustache and donning a tank top and denim shorts might occur if you stay too long, though.

All-you-can-eat crabs were definitely in order since on my previous visit last year I chickened out and lobster rolled it. Minus the poor vegetarians forced to witness mass crustacean carnage, most diners opted for the same $29.95 deal. Massive metal bowls filled with both Old Bay and garlic and oil drenched crabs took over the paper-covered table. I’ll admit that I’m lame with meat extraction and it takes a lot of effort with little pay off. The crabs aren’t huge by any means. I doubt I went through more than ten, though I didn’t keep count.

After everyone seemed sated and dusk approached, there were still claws and bodies aplenty. It seemed like a waste but I couldn’t take anymore. That’s when James stepped up and went nuts. I swear, an hour after everyone else threw in the lobster bib, he was still cracking and picking like a machine. I started getting nervous that he might start turning red, sprouting claws and walking sideways. There’s no doubt that he got his money’s worth.

James's overflowing refuse bucket captured by Nao.

We really couldn’t call it an evening until the candle adorned, deep-fried Twinkie doused in ice cream made an appearance. I’m not one to indulge in party pics, in fact I keep humans out of the picture as much as possible, but lest you think my only friends are my laptop and TV, here you are. No, I’m not in any of them because I looked like a sweaty blob and my incessant rambling is more than enough.

Jul 28

Aquavit

Aquavit never would’ve occurred to me as a special occasion restaurant to choose but it was a welcome diversion from genres I’ve mildly bemoaned in the past. For a spell, it seemed like all surprises entailed manly/meaty or Latin American, all styles I enjoy, but not for every celebration.

Originally, I was tempted to say that the food wasn’t overwhelmingly Scandinavian. But I take that back. I probably shouldn’t be fit to judge anyway, considering my Swedish repertoire barely extends beyond Ikea meatballs and lingonberry sauce. As I started looking over my (overly dim and yellow) photos and tagging them in Flickr, it became apparent that Northern European components were definitely being employed, though the overall effect on a dish was frequently mitigated by a more familiar (avocado) or foreign (tandoori spicing) flavor.

The room was easily 80% full when we arrived, though you wouldn't guess it from this photo at meal's end. We eat slowly.

To generalize, the cuisine was very clean, sharp and in more than a few instances, bitter. That’s a profile I’m not naturally drawn to; it’s a cold shoulder. Bitter and sour are slow going while hot and sweet never fail to immediately win me over. It’s good to diversify.

Amuse of lettuce soup and something fishy.

I’d already downed a couple of gin and tonics at frozen-in-time Bill’s Gay Nineties, one block south, so not everyone would think a flight of three aquavits wise. I did, and chose saffron, cucumber and pear, vanilla and black pepper from a long list. I preferred the spice and fruit of the latter, cucumber was as you’d expect and saffron despite its golden color had little taste. These kept me occupied through the first few courses. At some point I switched over to a 2005 Weingut Meinhard Forstreiter Gruner Veltliner. Just a glass, though.

Another amuse. Clockwise from top right, pickled herring, tandoori salmon with what I swear was a dab of bbq sauce, oyster and something topped with roe that I can’t recall. This is when we noticed that they really love micro greens. Or green. Single miniscule leaves turned up throughout the meal.

I’ve never encountered a tasting menu presented in this manner. There were 14 dishes listed, which in hindsight sounds voluminous, even if they were only a few bites each. As it turned out, each diner gets seven, one all from the left column, the other from the right with no say in the matter. We were initially baffled when James was presented with a lobster roll (spring, not Maine style) with bacon and trout roe and I received yellowtail tuna, sea urchin, lime sauce and duck tongue.

Mine was like pure ocean. I felt a little guilty eating bird tongues like that’s the kind of callous opulence (though it’s not as if people are slaughtering ducks just for their tongues) that would cause PETA to threaten ripping out my own tongue. I have no idea what those black, slightly sweet wafers were made from but they tasted like candied seaweed.

Hot-smoked trout, salsify, apple-horseradish broth. This wasn’t mine. But all those flavors are way Scandinavian. I’m eating my words now.

Octopus, smoked avocado, lemon vinaigrette. As implied in the name, this was a smoky dish and the charred around the edges cephalopod added to that. The charcoal tastes were smoothed by the creamy avocado and tangy lemon.

Foie gras ganache, cured quail, raisin vinaigrette. This was the only dish where I was like, “that should’ve been mine.” Sweet, rich and meaty is my M.O. Luckily, it was too much for James and I got a few bites.

Beef tartar, mushrooms, salmon roe. Mine was the dead opposite. Literally cool, atop ice, raw and punctuated with grated horseradish. I would’ve loved this completely if there wasn’t quail and foie gras a few inches from me.

Short ribs and rib eye, asparagus, hop sauce (the unpictured companion was venison, green asparagus, bacon, horseradish dumplings). See what I mean about bitter? The slight bite from the hops did work, especially with the tender but compact brick of shredded short ribs.

Sorrel granite, rhubarb, yogurt foam. This was a palate cleanser all right. Triply sour but definitely sugared, as well. The yogurt gelled the ice and crunch. Vegetal granitas are the type of thing I would never make for myself but that I envision concocting for a dinner party.

Fourme d'ambert, apple, date bread.

Humboldt fog, blackcurrant, olive bread. Behold the microgreen. I was pleased that I got one of my favorite chevres instead of the blue (and I love blue cheese) and that it was ripe and runny. Cheese at my house rarely gets to that stage because I eat it too fast.

Floating island. This was complimentary and I’m not sure what all the ingredients were. The ice cream contained either cream cheese or yogurt and the sorbet seemed like raspberry. All three desserts came at once so there was a frenzy trying to sample everything before the chilled bits melted into nothingness.

Mint-chocolate mousse, orange sauce. Junior Mints and Peppermint Patties have always been my enemies. Sweet mint doesn’t do much for me. But the mint in the few bites of mousse I tried was very herbaceous and much better than similar things made with extract.

Chocolate cake, licorice, plum, chocolate stout sorbet. After the sweetness of the floating island, this mix came as a bit of a shock. The licorice and stout were anything but fluffy. I’m still not sure that I liked the dark, yes bitter, flavors. I can remember them vividly three days later, though. In fact, I’m getting the same sensation from a cup of strong black coffee as I type.

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Jul 27

The Trouble with Fennel Seeds & Couscous

I find it hard to believe that the nation’s still not ready for goat cheese (I knew there was no way Bonnie was going to win over high schoolers with breaded goat cheese on Monday’s Hell’s Kitchen). Which is why I find it strange that anyone would enjoy a handful of whole fennel seeds in their salad.
I never ever eat at Cosi and am not in the habit of spending eight bucks for a salad (though I’m currently coveting Starwich’s pricey citrus duck salad and debating whether or not to run out get it—heck, I’ve got a little birthday spending money burning a hole in my pocket) but it was Friday and I get loopy. I only chose it because it was the lowest fat of the three new low fat salads. And it’s certainly not a low fat meal if you eat the fluffy flat bread that comes on the side.

It tasted low fat, all right. It’s the kind of thing I’d make from Cooking Light and have trouble choking down the next night as leftovers. I liked the idea of tandoori chicken and pomegranate dressing. Those two components were fine. The lettuce was neutral. But toasted fennel seeds were foul. Maybe I was putting too much stock in the arugula-ification (MS Word doesn’t even recognize the word arugula) of America because I was hoping they meant fennel pollen. But they said seeds and that’s what they meant. It could be my own bias because I’m not licorice crazy but the anise flavor was completely overwhelming and the seeds kept getting stuck in my teeth. Sure, a little pinch of candy-coated seeds after an Indian meal is refreshing but you don’t necessarily want repeated mouthfuls. The toasted fennel seed and chicken salad nipped my Cosi experimentation right in the bud.

Ok, I gave in to the Starwich urge and they managed to mess up my plan. I had been looking forward to “tender braised duck, torn peppercress, frisee, shaved carrots, Israeli couscous with orange-cherry vinaigrette” and I almost got all that. I tempered my initial desire for a sandwich and went for a salad instead. At least the couscous would add a little heft (to my meal not my body, duh). But after paying my $9.95 and waiting, it turned out that they didn’t have any of the little starchy orbs. The cashier asked the little Mexican guy making the salad what he’d recommend as a substitution and he ended up adding cucumbers and oranges. Not bad really–I barely missed the couscous. There was some serious foliage tangled up in my plastic container, though. That peppercress is a tough customer and my plastic knife got a work out. It was certainly worth the extra two bucks to avoid fennel seed overload.

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Jul 25

Real Jeanius

Sally Brompton is useless. This “If Today is Your Birthday..” is as lamely generic as they come:

July 25, 2007 — Look back over the previous 12 months and accept everything that happened. Then turn your back on the past and start with a fresh account. Any day can be a new beginning but a birthday is special in that it is easier to draw a line, one that represents both an end and a start. Draw that line today.

I do like the part in the general leo horoscope about “Your blood pressure should improve as well.” No one needs a coronary on their birthday.

Obligatory annual birthday photo: this is 35. Don't worry, you won't have to see this mug again for another 365 days.

So, I wasn’t far off. I’ll be going to Aquavit tonight. Oddly, it was chosen in part because “I’d like the design.” Perhaps, but it strikes me as the type of place that’s intimidating in its stiffness (demeanor and pricing—there was hardly a bottle of wine under $100 on their website, which I find nerve-wracking). All I can recall about Aquavit was a woman I used to work with years ago at a culinary website saying, “the portions were aggressively small.” We’ll see what that Inner Chef is up to.

Not related: I do love the bizarrely flattering brown and aqua Target dress I bought this weekend. Though when you spend $34 (it wasn’t on sale in-store) on clothing, it’s tough to justify tripling the figure for a couple glasses of wine.

I’ve been a faux bois freak for a few years now. And my favorite (only?) blog dedicated to the woodsy pattern tipped me off to Martha Stewart’s new home collection at Macy’s. I already have woodgrain sheets, but I see a duvet and bath towels in my future.

I’m so, so happy to see that pants/jeans have crept back near the natural waistline (though, the high-waisted trend is illogically as unkind to curves as the whole tired low-rise debacle). I’ve been buying trousers and jeans a size large for like the past four years to compensate for the snug, hip-hugging fit. So, when I bought an Old Navy version (why pay $69 for the Gap’s rendition, never mind the $300+ category, when the ON has similar styles for $29?) Saturday, I was shocked to realize I’m now a size smaller. Not that I actually am a size smaller, but it’s nice to wear my real size again, large as it may be.

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Jul 25

Sunday Night Special: Red Snapper with Tomatoes and Cream

Yes, there should probably be a vegetable on the side rather than a hunk of French bread but that’s how I eat.

At least on the surface, it seems like the country has gone eco-crazy in 2007. And I’ve been feeling inadequate because I eat factory farmed meat and cheap produce. For me, the leap from grocery store to greenmarket is like getting manicures and paying to have your laundry done. Better taste and higher quality are appealing but I can’t get jazzed about local sourcing or even organic processes. Maybe in 2008.

Sunday night we stopped by Fairway and picked up red snapper, cream, tomatoes, red onions and chives of no provenance. I definitely would’ve preferred ripe heirloom tomatoes–it is the height of summer–but it’s not like there’s anyplace to impulsively purchase them at the end of the weekend in South Brooklyn.

We made do (don’t tell me it’s due) just fine and turned to last week’s Fast Food My Way episode for a very simple (it was genuinely fast where some of these recipes aren’t so swift, at least not in our kitchen) red snapper recipe. Jacques Pepin is James’s fetish (I just stumbled upon Jacques’s Playa del Carmen condo that he appears to be renting out and now James is all into that. It would be kind of crazy to go to the Yucatan and hang out at Jacques Pepin’s house when he’s not there, right?) and I think I ruined his fun by buying the companion book. He prefers starting and stopping recorded episodes while cooking. I actually like things spelled out; you can still improvise.

Red Snapper with Tomatoes and Cream
2 cups sliced red onions
2 teaspoons good olive oil
1/3 cup water
1 ½ cups diced (1-inch) tomato, from 1 large or 2 medium peeled and seeded tomatoes
4 red snapper fillets (each about 6 ounces)
¾ cup dry white wine
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon salt
½ cup heavy cream
¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
½ teaspoon potato starch dissolved in 1 tablespoon water
1 tablespoon chopped fresh chives

Put the onions and olive oil in a large skillet with the water. Cook over high heat for about 3 minutes, or until the liquid is gone and the onions are lightly browned. Add the diced tomato, sauté for 1 minute, then set aside and keep warm.

Arrange the fish fillets in one layer in another large skillet and add the wine and ½ teaspoon of the salt. Cover, bring to a boil, then reduce the heat and boil very gently for about 2 minutes, or until the fish is tender but not overcooked. (The timing will depend on the thickness of the fillets.)

Transfer the fish to a platter and set aside in a warm place. Add the cream to the liquid remaining in the skillet used to cook the fish and boil over high heat for a few minutes to reduce it to 1 cup. Add the remaining ½ teaspoon salt, pepper, and dissolved potato starch and mix well.

To serve, divide the warm red onion-tomato mixture among four plates and arrange a piece of fish on top. Coat with the cream sauce, sprinkle with the chives, and serve immediately.

Serves 4

Recipe from Jacques Pepin’s Fast Food My Way Houghton Mifflin, 2004

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Jul 24

Gift Horses

I like surprises. I never understood eager beaver kids who’d scout out their Christmas presents before they were wrapped. If I had a baby, which is highly unlikely, I wouldn’t want to know its sex until it was born. I hate it when people don’t take surprises seriously (what I think is a birthday present was left in its clearly marked shipping box on our dining room table all last week and drove me batty—and to add insult to injury, if I’m to believe the packaging, the color of the not-so-secret object isn’t really my first choice. Am I ungrateful or what?).

I do get antsy this time of year because I get wound up trying to deduce where my birthday dinner will be (my party is Saturday at Sheepshead Bay gem, Clemente’s, though it’s looking like rain will thwart my dockside dining plans). All I know as of last night is that it’s a restaurant above 14th Street, has a well-known chef, is upscale, has cuisine from the European continent but I can’t know the country because it would give it away (wha?) but that it’s not Italian, and there was uncertainty whether the restaurant was less than a year old.

Um, those are pretty useless clues. So, I’m racking my brain trying to come up with sparse European cuisines: Swedish, Portuguese, Greek (not really underrepresented but James might think it is)? Aquavit? Anthos? Can't think of a Portuguese other than Tintol and that doesn't seem right. I suspect Eastern Europe is out, at least I hope so because I don’t want to end up at the Russian Tea Room.

Second guessing James isn’t easy because his thought process is way different than mine and he’s not super up on dining trends and openings (me either, really, but I seem plugged in by comparison). I was all, “did you read about this restaurant or did someone tell you about it?” His coworkers are strangely foodie (mine not so much) so it wouldn’t necessarily by a bad thing if he got his idea from one of them. Last year he picked Cookshop, which I never would’ve guessed.

Despite saying that I enjoy surprises, I’m also a bit of a worrier and an obnoxious control freak so I always have pent up fear that I’ll end up someplace wretched. Is this what not looking a gift horse in the mouth is about?

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Jul 24

Green Around the Gills

Apparently, I had a little (they chopped it in half) eco-friendly round-up, “10 Best Websites to Get You Started Going Green” in Friday’s New York Post. It’s online but I didn’t see it (or any of the other eleven “green” articles on their site) in the paper so it’s a mystery to me when and if it ran. I do feel the need to mention it, regardless.

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Posts by krista

Sunday Night Special: Quick-Fried Lamb & Pounded Eggplants with Green Peppers

Wakiya

And You Thought Radish Roses Were Fancy

Clemente’s Maryland Crabhouse

Aquavit

The Trouble with Fennel Seeds & Couscous

Real Jeanius

Sunday Night Special: Red Snapper with Tomatoes and Cream

Gift Horses

Green Around the Gills

Featured

Occasional Instagramming

Yes, it’s come to this

My Other Blogs

What?

The Past Will Haunt You

Pigeonholing 101