Exploring my inner Irish

A. let me borrow a few Irish cookbooks, so I decided to explore my (imagined) inner Irish – or just a little Irish cooking – over spring break.  I made some Irish stew and soda bread for dinner one night. I figured it was a classic combination that would make a good introduction to Irish food.  

Does this look gray?

Irish stew is made with lamb, but the cut of lamb the recipe required is one not readily available on this side of the pond – or at least in the grocery stores where I shop.  In addition, the cookbooks were published in Ireland, so along with trying to find “giggot” lamb chops, I was also converting some metric measurements to pounds and cups.  The stew turned out okay, I think, although I had nothing to judge it against as I hadn’t had proper Irish stew before. Later A. asked me if it looked gray, which was reassuring because once I thought about it, it sort of did.  Although at the time, I though it an “interesting” color, paler than any stew I’ve ever made.  It also tasted about how it looked with flavor as about as strong its color, which wasn’t much.  I’m not say it was bad or tasteless, but for someone who was brought up eating hot, sour, and spicy foods, those things it was not – obviously. Instead, the dish was about simple seasonings – salt, pepper, and some fresh herbs. I used three times as much flat-leaf parsley, hence all the green flecks clinging to the carrots, potatoes, and lamb.

Next time I need to mark the cross deeper so it shows.

I enjoyed the soda bread more.  There’s just something about fresh baked bread of any sort.  It’s good in a soul satisfying way.  It’s a simple pleasure – bread warm from the oven slathered with quality butter – that speaks of hearth and home.  Soda bread is quick and easy to make, so I’ll be make more of it in the future.  Maybe I’ll have it with my next bowl of homemade soup – a classic combination in my book.

These two recipe came from the Avoca Café Cookbook if you’re interested to looking for them.

Day tripping|eating in Santa Barbara – La Super Rica

Sometimes you just gotta get away, even if it’s just for a day.  

School is starting up for me again on Monday and don’t feel I’ve had any sort of break this one week in between quarters.  I needed to take desperate measures to think I’ve had some sort of vacation before I go back to the daily grind of student life.  (Yes, I’m suffering from a bit of burnout.  <Sigh.>)  So, I cleared one day out of the week–made no appointments and ran no errands–for a day trip, get away, desperate momentary break way from my regular life.  

Santa Barbara is just close enough to Los Angeles that you can do that–hop in your car and escape for a day.  It’s a nice drive up the coast on the 101, especially when the traffic is cooperating, as it was for me on Thursday.  I didn’t make any plans for when I was there, save one thing–go to La Super Rica for tacos. G. clued me into this local taco “joint” beloved by many, including many of her friends here in LA.  

Those who know me, know I have limited experience with Mexican food of any kind.  I often say as a bit of a joke, but it’s also true, that I didn’t know tacos were soft ’til I came to LA.  So if I was to be honest, I would have to say my Mexican palate is really underdeveloped; although I enjoy Mexican dishes, my taste run very mainstream.  My excuse is that I grew up in Maryland and for the longest time the only Mexican restaurant around was Plata Grande. (I don’t think they’re around anymore.)  While my family went there a fair amount and I liked it as a child, I would hardly call it authentic.  My LA friends have tried to educate me–reform my palate–but don’t think I’m progressing as much as they would like.  My favorite Mexican meal is still enchiladas, ‘though I’m becoming fond of burritos, especially the scallop burrito at Señor Fish.  I enjoy tacos, but I don’t seek them out like so many who are true lovers of the (Mexican food) form.  

But I like to think I know a taco of quality and good taste when see one, and La Super Rica tacos were might fine.  Whether they are “the best” as so many claim, I can’t say ’cause this is only maybe the third taco stand I’ve been to in my life.  But if I were to make a future trip to Santa Barbara, I would think of stopping by there again.  Everything was wonderfully fresh and tasted homemade.  

Biting into a warm, handmade tortilla grilled moments before is even something I can appreciate and savor. The tenderness in the corn meal that only hands steeped in tradition can impart are techniques not taught in cookbooks, but passed from one generation of (home) cook to the next.  It makes all the difference in the world and explains why tacos are soft.

 

La Super Rica

622 N. Milpas St, Santa Barbara

Phone: (805) 963-494o

Hours: Mon-Sun 11am-9pm, Wed Close

Dining in on the Westside

There’s just sometime about cooking dinner for others that melts away my stresses in life (for a moment) like few other activities can do.  It’s the quiet work in the kitchen that culminates with warmth and good cheer around a table with friends that does wonders to smooth out the frazzled nerves and unsettled soul.  I don’t do it often enough with my school schedule, but when I do, I realize my life could probably be in better balance if I did.  

My first weekend of a short break, I stepped into the kitchen, fired up the stove and turned on the oven to make a pasta dish and fruit crumble to bring over to friends on the Westside for a long, leisurely Sat. supper. Also on the menu were a simple arugula salad and melon and prosciutto for an appetizer, but it was the talk around the table that completed the meal with a nice bottle of French Burgundy that sealed the deal.

Four days in Denver

Since returning to graduate school, I find myself traveling more frequently, but to cities where I never really get beyond the hotel I stay.  My trip to Denver, sadly, was no exception.  I spent four days at the Grand Hyatt and hardly got out its doors, ‘though there was some consolation that the Grand Hyatt is nice—the nicest hotel I’ve been for a conference, actually  My room was spacious, the service was consistently friendly, and the food was actually pretty good.  For my first dinner on the first night, the fish wasn’t over cooked and the chicken wasn’t dry, which I find are the two prevailing weaknesses in hotel dinning.  And most of my meals were taken on the top floor of the hotel, so there were some nice views, both day and night, to accompany the food.  I took some pictures, but they don’t do justice to the Rocky Mountains in the distance.

I never made it inside the Denver Art Museum as I had hoped, but I did stand around it after attending an event at the Denver Public Library and took a few pictures of its facade.  It’s a striking museum and I would have liked to seen its inside, too.

My last day, I paused to have lunch with G. in the hotel restaurant, or the 1876 Restaurant as it’s called, before dashing off to catch an early afternoon flight back to Los Angeles.  The restaurant had a “Quick Fire Lunch” where you could choice one item from three lists, which were roughly an appetizer, some sort of soup or salad, and a type of sandwich, plus a little desert thrown in for good measure.  It was basically an American take on the Japanese Bento (Box) Lunch and for thirteen dollars, I couldn’t resist.  I also wondered if they got the name and idea from Top Chef–the Quick Fire Challenge–or was it on the menu before the TV show.  Although I thought of the connection then, I didn’t care enough to ask our server.  Instead, G. and I were engaged in a pretty intense conversation pertaining to my studies and her work, which are related.  G. lives in Chicago, so I rarely see her; and when I do it’s at conferences where she busier than me.  I was glad to have some personal time with her and having a fun, snack-y lunch was more of a bonus.

(top left) potato and mushroom soup, (top right) peanut butter mousse tart, (bottom left) duck quesadilla, (bottom right) reuben

The sky glowed for a moment above the Denver Art Museum

Steamed dumpling

sweet, warm comfort on a plate

Steamed deserts, or “pudding” as people on the other side of the pond say, aren’t something I do, but I became intrigued by them after a discussion with A.  Puddings were a bit of a tradition for her growing up; and she was kind enough to passed along a couple family recipes that I worked into some of my special meals over the past couple weeks with my own variations of fruit fillings.

For Christmas dinner, it was blackberries and apples with a dash of cinnamon and a generous tablespoon of sugar.  Then I tried fresh cranberries and apples with a little cinnamon and heaping tablespoons of orange marmalade and sugar to sweeten the mix for a nice dinner early in the new year.

apple and cranberry dumpling fresh from its water bath, all lumpy, bumpy

I like what steaming does to a typical pastry crust.  It lightens it and sort of fluffs it up, making it wonderfully tender.  The dumpling is more delicate than if one were to bake it in the oven as a rustic pie or turnover.  It’s also a dessert you can have cooking in the background as you eat dinner, since it takes 1 1/2 to 2 hours to steam.  Then it’s ready for the dramatic turning out on the plate when you’re finished with the main course; and presenting it all warm and cozy at the table makes a lovely  final flourish to your meal, as well.

apple and cranberry dumpling turned out on a plate

Christmas dinner

Blue plate's Christmas dinner plate

I don’t have many Christmas traditions, although I do find myself cooking and baking more, and for more people, during the holidays like many others. However, I have developed the habit of making prime rib for Christmas dinner over the past few years, which I suppose is a “tradition” of sorts since it has become my yearly practice.  This year’s prime rib had a horseradish and herb crust–I don’t keep to the same recipe every year–and was tasty as usual.  But my theory for prime rib is that if you get a fine cut of beef from a butcher (or store) you trust to give you quality and you don’t overcook the meat, which for me means medium-more or less, then you’re pretty much golden in that department.

The real standout for this Christmas meal was the mashed potatoes for which I dropped of my usual plain mashed spuds with as much butter and cream as my conscious can muster and made something that required fennel and crème fraîche.  Or to be specific, it was “Yukon Gold and Fennel Purée with Rosemary butter”–a recipe title that leaves nothing to the imagination.  But what its name lacked in creativity, it more than made up with for in the end product.  The smashed tubers were truly divine–wonderfully lush and creamy on the tongue.  The fennel added another layer of flavor that hinted at something more than fluffy starchiness; the rosemary gave it depth; and the crème fraîche brought it all together for a silky smooth texture.

I’ve not roasted carrots before either, but now I think I prefer them as such.  The carrots were sweet in a way that was better than boiled, which is my least favorite way to eat them so that I don’t.  I didn’t follow any recipe for the green beans, per say. I steamed them and hit them with salt, fresh ground pepper, and lemon juice when I dumped them in the bowl.

Dinner came a little earlier in the afternoon this year, so that we could catch a movie later in the evening.  I didn’t realize just how many people go to the movies on Christmas Day–another tradition for some, I suppose.  I got our tickets in the morning, so I our seats were waiting for us.  By that time, I was happy to sit in the dark for two hours and let my food digest.

Gingersnap cookies

Nothing says the holidays like gingersnap cookies–I’m only in the mood for them this time of the year.   My favorite recipe is from a cookie book with a very long title, Rosie’s Bakery Chocolate-packed, Jam-filled, Butter-rich, No-Holds-Barred Cookie Book by Judy Rosenberg.  I’ve been using it for years.  The cookie’s official name is “Molasses Ginger Cookies”.  I play long and loose with the spice mix, dumping heaping spoonfuls of the measurements and omitting the allspice, which I don’t bother to keep in my cabinet.  But the rest of the recipe works wonderfully and yields a lovely cookie that is both firm and crisp on the edges and chewy in the center just as its description promises.

INGREDIENTS

2 cups all-purpose flour • 1 teaspoon baking soda • 1 tablespoon ground ginger • 2 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon • 3/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg • 3/4 teaspoon ground cloves • 1/2 teaspoon ground allspice • 3/2 teaspoon salt • 12 tablespoons unsalted butter (at room temperature) • 1 cup granulated sugar • 1/4 dark brown sugar (lightly packed) • 1/4 cup dark molasses • 1 large egg

Preheat oven to 375º F. Grease baking sheets.

Sift all the dry ingredients in a small bowl.  Mix butter and sugars in another bowl ’til light and fluffy.  Add molasses, mix/blend.  Add egg, mix/blend.  Add flour mixture and mix/blend ’til dough is smooth.

Drop tablespoons of dough, 2 inches apart on baking sheets.  Bake 15 to 16 minutes, ’til slightly soft.  Cool on rack.

Christmas Eve Cranberry Crostata

It always a little risky bringing a dessert that you haven’t made before to a dinner party.  It’s most unsettling is not being sure how it tastes ’til you’re eating it with everyone else at the table.  That’s my biggest concern, delivering something to please people’s palates, vs. actually making the “thing”, itself, for the first time.  But, I just couldn’t resist throwing caution to the wind when I saw this Cranberry Almond Crostata recipe on epicurious.com.

Cranberry filling

I love cranberries–fresh cranberries.  More than any other food item, they are why I look forward to the holiday season.  Dried cranberries are good too, but you can get them year-round, so they’re not as special to me.  But fresh cranberries <sigh!> – pure cooking, baking, and eating joy.  It’s their tartness that I’m so fond of–the wonderful pucker they produce.

I did modify the recipe and fudged a few things.  I didn’t bother measuring 10 oz. of cranberry and poured the whole 12 oz. bag in to the pot with the rest of the ingredients for the filling.  Following a tip from one of the recipe reviewers on epicurious.com, I used store-bought almond meal (from Trader Joe’s) instead of grinding my own–a real time saver.  I also sacrificed another egg for the “wash”, as oppose to taking a tablespoon from one egg in the pastry dough.   Finally, I inverted amounts of the vanilla and almond extracts.  I don’t think my changes had any significant effects on the tart. If I were to make it again, I would do away with the vanilla extract all together and experiment with doubling the almond meal, subtracting a little flour, to try to intensify the almond flavor of the crust.

Overall, I think the tart went over well.  <sigh of relief!>  Serendipitously, it kept up Italian theme that seemed to happening with the dinner.  Our appetizers included fresh figs wrapped in prosciutto and the entrée was a hearty Pasta Fagioli that did wonders warming me up after our walk back from the movie theater.  Yes, people do walk in LA, although it is the rare occasion.   I was never much for the cold when I lived on the East Coast and now my blood has thinned even more in LA.  And  C. and J., who had me over for Christmas Eve, helped themselves to second pieces, so that was a good sign–the crostata is a keeper.

Indian dinner in Old Town

Saag Aloo (front), Lamb Pasanda (back)

J. is one of the first friends I made in Los Angeles.  Like me, she isn’t from LA, but came out here for graduate school and as remained in the area ever since.  She’s also a fan of Indian food and I can always count on her to suggest a “new” Indian restaurant that she’s discovered and I should try.  When we got together a few days ago for dinner and a holiday gift exchange, it was Mezbaan in Old Town Pasadena that was her pick.

Mezbaan is a cozy restaurant a little off the main drag of Old Town that can easily be missed if one doesn’t think to walk more than back-and-forth on Colorado Ave.  It has a fairly expansive menu for a small restaurant, including dishes I had not seen elsewhere.  Their selection went beyond Chicken tikka masala and Tandori chicken that seem de rigueur of most Indian restaurant to include Lamb Pasanda, which was the one Hyderabadi specialities we ordered, along with Kashmiri pilau and Saag Aloo.

In case one isn’t familiar (and I wasn’t ’til I looked it up), Hyderabadi cuisine is “a blend of Mughlai and Persian cuisines”, according to Wikipedia.   From the little I know after my quick search, it seems to have a long and storied history that I would like to explore more through reading and eating–’though eating seems the more likely course at this point in my life.  I really enjoyed the Lamb Pasanda–something that could be my “go to” dish, if I became a regular customer.  It was rich and flavorful, without being heavy.  The Kashmiri pilau was interesting.  It had diced tomatoes and pineapples, which I didn’t mind although the description omitted those key ingredients.  They  gave the dish a springtime feel and a light, fresh taste.

On Fri. and Sat. nights, the restaurant has live Indian music to accompany one’s dining experience.  It plays very much in the background and if I hadn’t seen the musicians walk in I might have not known to listen for it.  There’s a lunch buffet during the week and a Champagne brunch on Sundays for those who are looking for value when eating out–and who isn’t nowadays.

Mezbaan Indian Cuisine
80 North Fair Oaks Ave.
Pasadena, California   91103

Christmas cookie crisis of sorts

For the past several years, I’ve baked cookies to give to family and friends for the holidays.  And in the last year, I’ve settled on biscotti as my Christmas cookie of choice for everyone.  Part of the reason is that it’s already a dry cookie, so it doesn’t really get stale if it’s left about waiting to be given, delivered, or eaten.  It just works well that way, so I use its nature to my advantage.  I also use one biscotti recipe in particular that I got from epicurious.com–Holiday Biscotti with Cranberries and Pistachios, Bon Appétit, December 2003.

This year was not meant to be different from last-  I pulled out the recipe the day after I finished my last final paper for the quarter and went to my local Trader Joe’s to pick-up the ingredients I’d need, very specifically the dried cranberries and raw, unsalted pistachios.  But there was a problem, a crisis of sorts, that I encountered.  TJ’s didn’t have any raw, unsalted pistachios; and to make matters worst, they weren’t going to have any, anytime soon as far as they could tell.  Since I inquired, they checked their inventory, as well as their purchase orders, and told me there was a note from their supplier that the stock was out and they didn’t know when it would be re-supplied.  Not good for me.

I over the course of two more days, I drove around to various other groceries store in my area looking for raw, unsalted pistachios, which to my surprise seemed to be a rare commodity.  I never did find the pistachios I was looking for, although  there were plenty of other kinds of pistachios–dry roasted, unsalted in shell; dry roasted, salted in shell; roasted pieces, unsalted, roasted whole pistachios, salted etc….  The variations that I couldn’t use seemed endless.

Defeated in my search and with Christmas approaching, I needed to make a decision.  Use another biscotti recipe? But cranberries are so festive for the season; they just say the holidays.  Bake something else all together to give?  But biscotti work so well for the reason I discussed above.  Use a different nut?  Could I; should I; would it be okay.

Well, I won’t keep you in suspense–I used a different nut.  I went back to my local TJ’s and got sliced raw almonds–no short supply of those.  I still think the recipe is better with pistachios, if only for cosmetic reasons ’cause they’re green, which go with the red cranberries and white chocolate for the Winter season.  But, alas, what can you when even the nuts won’t work with you.