you had me at "cheese"

"Molten cheese" may just be the best word pairing in the English language. I'm gonna have to make fondue. Soon.

A Good Appetite: A Little Nostalgia, a Long Fork and Lots of Cheese
January 23, 2008
By MELISSA CLARK

ONE chilly afternoon, my mother dropped by with a small shopping bag filled with fondue forks.

“I thought you might find a use for these,” she said before rushing out the door.

But wait, I called after her, what happened to the fondue pot?

“Oh, I used it to plant an amaryllis,” she said.

I think she meant for me to use the forks for tasks like removing the last olive from a tall, narrow jar, or spearing a stray cherry tomato that had rolled onto the oven floor.

But I had another idea. Why not make fondue?

Although I hadn’t made fondue since graduate school, when I lived with a friend and her parents’ vintage fondue pot, I remembered the recipe being as simple as a toasted cheese sandwich, but more satisfying. After all, be it an oozing wedge of baked Camembert, the puddles of mozzarella atop a pizza, or a bubbling Welsh rabbit, few foods are as compelling as melted cheese.

But did fondue always have to be the centerpiece of what inevitably comes off as an I Love the ’70s theme party? What if I wanted to make fondue for two? Would we have to wear bell-bottoms?

And, most pressingly, could I substitute another pot for the one currently housing my mother’s flowering plant?

I called Terrance Brennan, the chef at Artisanal, where fondue is on the menu year-round. He was reassuring. “You can use any pot for fondue, as long as you eat it fast enough, before it gets cold and hard,” he told me.

I told him I doubted that would be a problem. Besides, a heavy, enamel-lined cast-iron pot, like the ones at Artisanal, would retain heat far longer than my mother’s lightweight fondue pot, giving me plenty of time to devour a fittingly gluttonous portion before the melted cheese lost its allure.

Mr. Brennan assured me that almost any cheese could work in a fondue. After all, fondue isn’t one particular recipe. I’ve seen it on menus to describe any number of preparations, including a lush blanket coating snails at Anthos and a thick sauce for apple salad at One Sixtyblue in Chicago.

As long as it is primarily made from copious quantities of melted cheese (the word fondue comes from the French fondre, to melt), then, at least to me, it qualifies.

But I did want to start with something fairly classic, so I searched my shelves for a Swiss cookbook. I eventually came across a chapter on Switzerland in a 1970 Time-Life Foods of the World cookbook titled “A Quintet of Cuisines,” a wide-ranging farrago that juxtaposed chapters on Bulgaria, Poland and all of North Africa.

Its fondue recipe called for an equal amount of Gruyère cheese, for its depth of flavor, and Emmenthaler, for its supple texture; a shot of kirsch, for its cherry aroma and alcoholic oomph; and a little garlic, for bite.

The recipe came with a warning: do not drink any cold beverages with fondue, or the cheese will ball up and wreak havoc on your intestines.

The information sounded suspect. So I called my Swiss informant in New York, Ralf Kuettel. At his restaurant, Trestle on Tenth, one can order pizokel, traditional Swiss dumplings, and any of 10 Swiss wines, but conspicuously not fondue. “I’m trying to avoid the stereotype,” he explained.

And what about that ban on cold liquids?

“That’s what people always say, but then, most people drink fairly cold white wine with fondue, so it’s a dish that’s full of contradictions,” he said, adding that he never encountered any intestinal distress from the combination.

He approved of the recipe, though. So that night I made it in my trusty cast-iron Dutch oven. It took all of 15 minutes, and emerged as magnificently creamy, smooth and velvety as custard, but with a funky, deep flavor that dazzlingly enriched anything I dunked in the pot: bread cubes, apple slices, clementine sections, nuggets of salami, pretzels, tofu. It was even marvelous spooned onto a romaine lettuce salad in place of dressing.

When the cheese started to cool and congeal, which took a good 30 minutes, all I did was stick it back on the stove, stirring until runny.

Although I had gobbled the better part of a fondue dish meant for four, days later I was ready for another. A friend was coming to dinner, and I couldn’t think of a simpler or more inviting dish to serve on a winter night.

This time I used a good extra-sharp Cheddar cheese and stirred in a little Irish whiskey in place of the kirsch. We devoured it in minutes, and my friend didn’t even notice the absence of a Sterno can beneath the pot.

When the pot was nearly empty, I put it on the stove to brown the thin layer of cheese that remained. It became as crisp and salty as a potato chip. Called la religieuse, according to my multi-culti sourcebook, it made an appropriately miraculous finale. My friend was unduly awed by my culinary prowess; I never mentioned that fondue was one of the easiest company dishes I’d made.

After those accolades, I realized that most people are charmed by a vat of gushing, aromatic cheese. Fondue became my go-to dinner party hors d’oeuvre, and I tried to concoct every possible combination.

I played with whatever was left over in the cheese drawer, and it was all divine. I used a port wine once instead of a white to make a delectable, shockingly purple rendition. Beer, dry red wine and cream also worked as the liquid component. I gleefully tossed in herbs and extra garlic, fennel seeds and cumin, caramelized onions, chipotle chilies, chopped pickle.

Remembering that I once dined on an extraordinary Stilton and Sauternes fondue at Artisanal, I made a variation with Passito di Pantelleria and Gorgonzola. I even reached out to fondue’s molten sisters and whipped up a chorizo-laden queso fundido and an elegant white-truffle-oil-suffused fonduta with a good, pungent fontina. It seemed I couldn’t fail.

Until the day I did. I watched, horrified, as a mass of gorgeously nutty, aged Gouda seized and curdled into a stringy, unappetizing mass. What had gone wrong? I phoned the cheese maven Max McCalman, an author of books on cheese and a consultant to Artisanal.

He wasn’t surprised. Crumbly, dry cheeses don’t melt as readily as smooth, semifirm ones, he said. But, he added, a little bit of acid, like a high acid wine or lemon juice, will do wonders in smoothing out intractable curds.

So I gave Gouda another try, this time using a two-year-old chunk (the first one had been aged for three years) and a bright, high acid wine. I also threw in some caraway seeds because I love few things more than melted Gouda on rye.

Yet again, the fondue gods were on my side. It was bubbling perfection: rich, pungent, resinous from the caraway and buttery from the runny cheese.

As I was lapping up the last few drops, my mother called. Her amaryllis died. Did I want the fondue pot?

I thought about it for a minute, then declined. I had everything I needed already here.

save the good stuff for drinking

Cooking with wine (the essentials):

1. The cheap stuff is just fine.
2. Beware wines with tannins, as they will affect the flavor of the dish.
3. Don't use a sweet wine when the recipe calls for a dry wine.

It Boils Down to This: Cheap Wine Works Fine

By JULIA MOSKIN

Published: March 21, 2007

IN the beginning, there was cooking wine.

And Americans cooked with it, and said it was good.

Then, out of the darkness, came a voice.

Said Julia Child: “If you do not have a good wine to use, it is far better to omit it, for a poor one can spoil a simple dish and utterly debase a noble one.”

And so we came to a new gospel: Never cook with a wine you wouldn’t drink.

For my generation of home cooks, this line now has the unshakable ring of a commandment. It was the first thing out of the mouth of every expert I interviewed on the subject.

But it is not always helpful in the kitchen. For one thing, short of a wine that is spoiled by age, heat or a compromised cork, there are few that I categorically would not drink. (Although a cooking wine, which is spiked with salt and sometimes preservatives, has never touched my braising pot.)

And once a drinkable wine has been procured, trying to figure out whether it is the best one for a particular recipe can seem impossible. How much of the wine’s subtler qualities will linger in the finished dish? How much of the fruit flavor? Does it matter whether the wine is old or young, inexpensive or pricey, tannic or soft?

Two weeks ago I set out to cook with some particularly unappealing wines and promised to taste the results with an open mind. Then I went to the other extreme, cooking with wines that I love (and that are not necessarily cheap) to see how they would hold up in the saucepan.

After cooking four dishes with at least three different wines, I can say that cooking is a great equalizer.

I whisked several beurre blancs — the classic white wine and butter emulsion — pouring in a New Zealand sauvignon blanc with a perfume of Club Med piña coladas, an overly sweet German riesling and a California chardonnay so oaky it tasted as if it had been aged in a box of No. 2 pencils.

Although the wines themselves were unpleasant, all the finished sauces tasted just the way they should have: of butter and shallots, with a gentle rasp of acidity from the wine to emphasize the richness. There were minor variations — the riesling version was slightly sweet — but all of them were much tastier than I had expected.

Next I braised duck legs in a nonvintage $5.99 tawny port that reminded me of long-abandoned Halloween candy, with hints of Skittles and off-brand caramels. Then I cooked a second batch of duck legs in a 20-year-old tawny port deliciously scented with walnuts, leather and honey. Again, the difference was barely discernible: both pots were dominated by the recipe’s other ingredients: dried cherries, black pepper, coriander seed and the duck itself.

Wincing a little, I boiled a 2003 premier cru Sauternes from Château Suduiraut (“The vineyard is right next door to Yquem,” the saleswoman assured me), then baked it into an egg-and-cream custard to see whether its delicate citrusy, floral notes would survive the onslaught. They did, but the custard I made with a $5.99 moscato from Paso Robles, Calif., was just as fragrant.

Over all, wines that I would have poured down the drain rather than sip from a glass were improved by the cooking process, revealing qualities that were neutral at worst and delightful at best. On the other hand, wines of complexity and finesse were flattened by cooking — or, worse, concentrated by it, taking on big, cartoonish qualities that made them less than appetizing.

It wasn’t that the finished dishes were identical — in fact, they did have surprisingly distinct flavors — but the wonderful wines and the awful ones produced equally tasty food, especially if the wine was cooked for more than a few minutes.

The final test was a three-way blind tasting of risotto al Barolo, the Piedmontese specialty in which rice is simmered until creamy and tender in Barolo and stock, then whipped with butter and parmigiano. Barolo, made entirely from the nebbiolo grape, is a legendary Italian wine; by law, it must be aged for at least three years to soften its aggressive tannins and to transform it into the smooth aristocrat that fetches top dollar on the international wine market.

I made the dish three times in one morning: first with a 2000 Barolo ($69.95), next with a 2005 dolcetto d’Alba ($22.95), and finally with a jack-of-all-wines, a Charles Shaw cabernet sauvignon affectionately known to Trader Joe’s shoppers as Two-Buck Chuck. (Introduced at $1.99, the price is up to $2.99 at the Manhattan store.)

Although the Barolo was rich and complex to drink, of the seven members of the Dining section staff who tasted the risottos, no one liked the Barolo-infused version best. “Least flavorful,” “sharp edges” and “sour,” they said.

The winner, by a vote of 4-to-3, was the Charles Shaw wine, which was the youngest and grapiest in the glass: the tasters said the wine’s fruit “stood up well to the cheese” and made the dish rounder. “It’s the best of both worlds,” one taster said, citing the astringency of the Barolo version and the overripe alcoholic perfume of the dolcetto. The young, fruity upstart beat the Old World classic by a mile.

“I’m not surprised,” said Molly Stevens, a cooking teacher in Vermont whose book “All About Braising” (W. W. Norton, 2005) called for wine in almost every recipe.

“If it had been short ribs, you probably wouldn’t have been able to taste the difference when the dish was done, because meat and wine work together differently,” she said.

This might explain how the chef Mario Batali got away with pouring an inexpensive California merlot into the beef with Barolo served at Babbo, as Bill Buford observed in “Heat” (Knopf, 2006), his account of his work at the restaurant.

In an e-mail message, Mr. Batali said he preferred to cook with Barolo when he would be drinking Barolo, saying that “the resulting comparison of the raw, uncooked wine and the muted, deeper and reduced flavor of the wine in the finished dish ... allows more of the entire spectrum of specific grape flavor, a dance on the ballroom of the diner’s palate.” (He did not dispute Mr. Buford’s assertion, however.)

Mark Ladner, the executive chef at Del Posto, Mr. Batali’s restaurant on the fringe of the meatpacking district, sees several hundred dollars’ worth of aged Barolo stirred into its version of the risotto, a signature dish, every week.

“My brain tells me it should matter,” he said, “but once a wine is cooked I’m not sure how much even a discerning palate can tell.

“When I make the dish at home, I use a dolcetto d’Alba — a simpler wine from the same region — and honestly I like it even better.”

The difference between Barolo and dolcetto does reveal one hard rule of cooking with wine: watch out for tannins. Found in grape skins and seeds, tannins are bitter-tasting plant compounds that can give red wine and tea some desirable tartness but become unpleasantly astringent when cooked. (Barolo, young Bordeaux and northern Rhônes are examples of very tannic wines.)

“I wouldn’t cook with Barolo even if I could afford it,” said Bob Millman, a longtime wine buyer for Morrell & Co. in Manhattan.

“Tannins are what get you into trouble in cooking,” Ms. Stevens said, because they are accentuated and concentrated by heat. “For reds, err soft,” she said, and choose a wine with a smooth finish.

Are there any other hard rules for choosing wine for cooking? One: don’t be afraid of cheap wine. In 1961, when Mrs. Child handed down her edict in “Mastering the Art of French Cooking,” decent wines at the very low end of the price scale were almost impossible to find in the United States.

Now, inexpensive wines flow from all over the world: a $6 bottle is often a pleasant surprise (though sometimes, still, unredeemable plonk).

“Often customers come in looking for an inexpensive wine to cook with, and when I steer them to our $5.99 and $6.99 Portuguese wines, which are perfectly good for most dishes, they are uncomfortable with it,” said Gregory dal Piaz, a salesman who specializes in wine and food pairings at Astor Wines and Spirits in SoHo. “They think it is just too cheap.”

At the other end of the price scale, the experts agree that it is wasteful, even outrageous, to cook with old, fine and expensive wines.

“Let’s take the most horrifying example, a Romanée-Conti, among the most subtle and aristocratic wines on the planet,” Mr. Millman said. “There is no way that its complexity and finesse will be expressed if you cook it, even for a minute. The essential flavors that make it a Romanée-Conti will be lost.”

Ms. Stevens said that she divides the vast and bewildering universe of wine into Tuesday night bottles and Saturday night bottles, and that she cheerfully cooks with whatever Tuesday wine happens to be open.

“I really resent opening a bottle just because a recipe calls for a quarter cup of something,” she said, “but the acidity of wine in cooking really is irreplaceable. You can’t just leave it out or sub in another liquid.”

Plain dry vermouth, she said, which lasts indefinitely, is her standby white for cooking. (This was also Mrs. Child’s solution. Red vermouth, however, cannot be used in recipes calling for red wine; it’s too sweet.)

Before these cooking sessions, I would have been suspicious of a recipe that casually called for “Sauternes or another dessert wine,” as Nigella Lawson’s custard recipe does. I still would not swap in a sugary ruby port for drier tawny, or pour Manischewitz into a coq au vin — sweet wines and dry should be kept in their places.

But beyond that, cooking with wine is just that — cooking — and wine is only one of the ingredients that give a finished dish its flavor. Aromatics, spices, herbs, sugar and especially meat and fat tend to erase the distinct flavors of wine.

Mr. Millman, the wine buyer, maintains that cooking with wines that have the same terroir as the food produces the best-tasting results, but Mr. Ladner, the chef, isn’t so sure.

“In my head,” he said, “it tastes better and I like it more, but I wouldn’t like to put it to the test. I like the romance of cooking with wines of the region. That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.”

spaghetti al limone

Leo and I love this bright, creamy sauce. We've served it with panko-breaded chicken and also with sauteed shrimp. It is a new favorite in our home.  

I've modified the original portions, because I found the Cook's Illustrated one a bit oily for my liking.  I've used unsalted butter and little more cream in the recipe and been pleased with the results.  Because it is winter here and there is no decent affordable fresh basil, I've omitted it so far.  I plan to add it in the summer when I've got Italian basil growing in my herb garden.

Spaghetti with Lemon and Olive Oil (Al limone) 
Note: Let the dish rest briefly before serving so the flavors develop and the sauce thickens.

Table salt
1 lb spaghetti
1 TSBP extra-virgin olive oil, plus more for serving
1 medium shallot, minced (about 3 TBSP)
1/3 cup heavy cream (the original recipe called for 1/4 cup)
3 TBSP unsalted butter (the original recipe used extra virgin olive oil and no butter)
2 tsp finely grated lemon zest and 1/4 cup juice from 3 lemons
1 oz finely grated Parmesan cheese (about 1/2 cup), plus more for serving
Ground black pepper
2 TBSP shredded basil leaves

1.  Bring 4 quarts water to boil in large Dutch oven over high heat. Add 1 TBSP salt and pasta to boiling water; cook, stirring frequently, until al dente. Reserve 1 3/4 cups cooking water, drain pasta into colander, and set aside. 
2. Heat 1 TBSP oil in now-empty Dutch oven over medium heat until shimmering.  Add shallot and 1/2 tsp salt; cook until shallot is softened, about 2 minutes.  Whisk 1 1/2 cups of reserved pasta cooking water and cream into pot; bring to simmer and cook for 2 minutes. Remove pot from heat, return pasta, and stir until coated.  Stir in remaining 3 TBSP butter, lemon zest, lemon juice, cheese, and 1/2 tsp pepper.
3. Cover and let stand 2 minutes, tossing frequently and adjusting consistency with remaining 1/4 cup reserved pasta water, if necessary.  Stir in basil and season with salt and pepper to taste.  Serve, drizzling individual portions with oil and sprinkling with cheese.

Adapted from Cooks Illustrated, January and February 2011

zucchini bread

My friend Audra made this the other day and it was the right mix of spicy and sweet. She served it with softened salted butter, and it was a great complement to the other flavors.
It is a Paula Deen recipe, and because Paula's the queen of butter, I did a double-take when I saw that she used oil in the recipe. Being a butter fascist myself when it comes to baking, I substituted unsalted butter for the oil. I also omitted the nuts and added the zest of half a lemon.

Ingredients

3 1/4 cups all-purpose flour (or 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour and 1 cup whole wheat pastry flour)
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
3 cups sugar
1 cup unsalted butter, melted and cooled (it works just as well with 1/2 cup butter and 1/2 cup applesauce)
4 eggs, beaten
1/3 cup water
2 cups grated zucchini
1 teaspoon lemon juice
zest of half a lemon
1 cup chopped walnuts or pecans

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. In a large bowl, combine flour, salt, nutmeg, baking soda, cinnamon and sugar. In a separate bowl, combine oil, eggs, water, zucchini and lemon juice. Mix wet ingredients into dry, add nuts and fold in. Bake in 2 standard loaf pans, sprayed with nonstick spray, for 1 hour, or until a tester comes out clean. Alternately, bake in 5 mini loaf pans for about 45 minutes.

Thanks to Audra N for sharing this Paula Deen recipe with me.

can't-fail parisian piecrust

Can't-fail Parisian piecrust
Marlena Spieler
Sunday, August 23, 2009

Remember T-shirts emblazoned with the slogan "My sister (or parents, grandma, best friend, whoever) went to Paris and all I got was this lousy T-shirt"? But sometimes a T-shirt is just what you need; it might not be lavish, but it is a gift.

A gift means that someone was thinking of you while he was far away, thinking of you enough to buy a little something even with a bad exchange rate, thinking of you enough to stash it into a suitcase when every ounce of luggage matters. It might be just a T-shirt, but it is also a way to share a bit of the trip with you.

I thought about this because I just went to Paris, and I've brought you back a gift. You can't wear it. It took up no space whatsoever in my suitcase. But it's so wonderful, I can hardly wait to give it to you - in fact, I'm giving it to you right now because of the delicious onslaught of summery goodness that is in markets and gardens at this very minute. You'll probably want to keep it close through autumn, winter and spring, too.

My gift is the recipe for a pastry crust. It's delicious, easy, totally unthreatening. It's a crust you can whip up without thinking, a crust that will never let you down.

With such a great crust under your belt, so to speak, you can face summer with a smile, thinking of berries, peaches, nectarines and figs. Then you're ready for autumn, when persimmons, grapes, cranberries and pomegranates come into their own. You'll face the holiday baking season with confidence, with its cornucopia of pumpkin, apples, pears and nuts.

In winter, when all is gray, you'll have a delicate, buttery crust for showcasing oranges, limes and irresistible Meyer lemons. Then, it's spring, with that first pink rhubarb that's always a challenge to use. Take my advice: Make a tart.

I learned to make the crust from Paule Caillat, owner and operator of Promenades Gourmandes, which offers cooking classes and food walking tours in Paris. (For information, go to promenadesgourmandes.com.)

The Caillat crust is utterly and endlessly forgiving. It will not let you down. You can't overwork it - any bits that get scraggly can just be tossed back into the mixture.

No worries about chilling the dough or keeping your hands cool, and no worries about rolling the dough on a cool surface, because you don't roll it out at all - you just press it into a pan and bake it. You don't even need to add beans or baking weights - just prick it a bit. It obediently sets itself down, ready for the luscious fruit of any season.

The Sweet Caillat Crust

Makes one 9-inch single layer tart crust

* 6 tablespoons unsalted butter
* 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
* 3 tablespoons water
* -- Pinch salt
* 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
* 4 tablespoons sugar

Instructions: Preheat over to 400°. Place the butter, oil, water and salt in a small saucepan and heat on high just until the butter melts and bubbles form around the edge; a slight browning will result in a slightly nutty flavor, which is delicious. You can also heat the mixture in a microwave. Set aside for a few minutes to cool.

With an electric mixer or wooden spoon, add 1 cup of the flour and all the sugar to the butter mixture; beat together, slowly adding more flour until the mixture forms a ball, then add more flour until the mixture doesn't stick to the sides of bowl or pan.

Turn dough out into a 9-inch pie pan or tart pan with a removable bottom, and press it into an even layer over the bottom and sides.

To bake completely, bake for 10-15 minutes, or until crust is golden; watch the edges so that they do not burn.

To par-bake (for accompanying tart recipe), bake 5-8 minutes, or until crust is just firm.

Remove from oven and cool, then fill as desired.
The Tart that Takes You Through the Year

Serves 8-10

You can use almost any fruit - stone fruit, berries, figs, grapes, persimmons, apples, pears, citrus, and so on. Watch the juiciness of the fruit, and adjust accordingly. The amount of sugar also depends on the sweetness of the fruit, but the more sugar the juicier the fruit will become. Also keep an eye on the tart as it bakes; tent it if it starts to overbrown.

* 1 par-baked Sweet Calliat Crust (see recipe)
* 1 cup ground almonds or hazelnuts
* 1/2 cup sugar
* 3 cups sliced nectarines and blackberries, or other fruit (see above)
* -- About 2 tablespoons butter, cut in small pieces
* -- About 1 tablespoon almond extract, Amaretto, lemon juice, framboise or anisette
* 3 tablespoons jam
* 1 tablespoon water or lemon juice

Instructions: Place the par-baked crust, still in its pan, on the counter. Preheat oven to 400°.

Combine ground almonds and 1/4 cup sugar and sprinkle into the bottom of the tart crust. Arrange the nectarines and berries in the tart shell. Sprinkle with another 1/4 cup or so sugar, or to taste. Dot the top with butter, and sprinkle with almond extract or other moistener. Bake for about 30 minutes, or until edges of crust are golden light brown and fruit is tender; watch carefully.

Combine jam and water or lemon juice in a small saucepan and heat through. Brush over top of baked tart. Let cool, then cut into wedges to serve.

Per serving: 309 calories, 3 g protein, 40 g carbohydrate, 16 g fat (6 g saturated), 25 mg cholesterol, 5 mg sodium, 2 g fiber.

Wine pairing: Ground almonds provide a nuttiness that complements the fruit. To match, try a botrytized white dessert wine.

Marlena Spieler is a freelance food writer and cookbook author. E-mail her at food@sfchronicle.com or go to her Web site, marlenaspieler.com.

This article appeared on page K - 3 of the San Francisco Chronicle

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/08/21/FDJS1990BM.DTL#recipe2#ixzz0PjS8y14u

forget the tofu

I'm happily an omnivore and a self-described butter fascist (if you're going to bother baking, don't give me margarine or crisco — give me butter!)

But my colleague Lorena has made some very, very tasty ginger cookies and pumpkin muffins that turned out to be vegan. They also turned out to be Moskowitz's recipes. In the end, if it's tasty, then I'm down.

Strict Vegan Ethics, Frosted With Hedonism
By JULIA MOSKIN
Published: January 24, 2007

ISA CHANDRA MOSKOWITZ, a vegan chef, does not particularly like to talk about tofu. Ditto seitan, tempeh and nutritional yeast.

“I think vegan cooks need to learn to cook vegetables first,” she said last week during a cupcake-baking marathon. “Then maybe they can be allowed to move on to meat substitutes.”

Ms. Moskowitz, 34, was born in Coney Island Hospital, lives in Brooklyn, and is a typically impatient and opinionated New Yorker. She can’t stand how slowly most cooks peel garlic, makes relentless fun of Rachael Ray and rolls her eyes at the mention of California hippies.

But as a vegan and a follower of punk music since age 14, she is also part of a culinary movement that helped turn the chaotic energy of punk culture of the 1970s and 1980s into a progressive political force.

“Punk taught me to question everything,” Ms. Moskowitz said. “Of course, in my case that means questioning how to make a Hostess cupcake without eggs, butter or cream.”

The charm of Ms. Moskowitz — in person, in her cookbooks and on her public-access television cooking show, the Post-Punk Kitchen (theppk.com/shows/) — is that she makes even the deprivations of veganism and the rage of punk seem like fun. Like feminism that embraces makeup and miniskirts — the frivolous bits — Ms. Moskowitz’s veganism embraces chocolate, white flour, confectioners’ sugar, and food coloring.

Wearing a black “Made Out of Babies” T-shirt (it’s a friend’s band) above a red-and-white checked apron, she bent maternally over a batch of strawberry cupcakes. “Don’t you just want to pinch their little cupcake cheeks,” she said.

But can a cupcake be cute and punk at the same time? In the early days of punk, bands like the Sex Pistols were notorious for nihilism, anarchism and epic consumption of drugs and alcohol — none of which would seem to lead to tofu and chamomile tea. But as punk became more political (and as bands self-destructed) in the 1990s, many punks adopted a more profoundly rebellious stance: against drugs, against alcohol and against the whole habit of mindless consumption.

“It was about purifying the movement, about being poison-free,” said Ted Leo, of Ted Leo and the Pharmacists, who led the band Chisel in the 1990s. He became vegetarian in 1988 and has been vegan since 1998. Many punks became vegetarian to protest corporate and government control of the food supply. Veganism takes vegetarianism farther into cruelty-free territory by avoiding anything produced by animals: milk, cheese, eggs, honey, etc.

“I would love to live in a world where I knew the eggs came from happy chickens,” Ms. Moskowitz said. “But in Brooklyn? That’s not going to happen.

“Besides, eggs are the big lie in baking. All the books say they provide structure, but that’s kind of crap.”

At 16, Ms. Moskowitz dropped out of the High School of Music and Art in New York to follow bands, live in squats in the East Village and cook for social justice.

“I learned knife skills by cooking for Food not Bombs,” she said, referring to the activist group that protests corporate and government food policy. “But I also learned to love Julia Child and Martha Stewart. Vegan food can and must be pretty,” she said, pounding a fist on the butcher-block counter.

Ms. Moskowitz’s kitchen, like punk music itself, has a strong do-it-yourself aesthetic. Her husband, a carpenter, builds more shelves when the ingredients threaten to take over, the oven needs frequent coaxing to get up to temperature, and if Fizzle the cat wants to sit on top of the refrigerator, the cupcakes must move over and make room.

“Here is the hideous curdled face of vegan baking,” Ms. Moskowitz said, gesturing to a bowl of soy milk mixed with vegetable oil and cider vinegar. Baking, she said, has long been the final frontier for vegan cooks.

Her second cookbook, “Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World,” was published by Marlowe and Company last fall. Her first, “Vegan With a Vengeance” (Marlowe, 2005), has sold more than 50,000 copies.

“Omnivores” — that’s meat-and-dairy eaters — “can’t imagine baking without eggs and butter,” she said. “But we use cider vinegar instead of buttermilk for tenderizing, and really good shortening for the fat, and the rest just happens.” Nonhydrogenated shortening and margarine produced by Earthbalance and full-fat soy milk from Silk are her baking staples.

From them, instead of lumpy, penitential scones and muffins (the usual vegan baked goods) Ms. Moskowitz and her co-author Terry Hope Romero produce insanely fetching cupcakes with mousse fillings, butter cream frostings, chocolate ganache icings and sprinkles galore.

Ms. Moskowitz says that she has received passionate e-mail messages not only from vegans but also from parents of children allergic to eggs or dairy products, who are thrilled to find vegan baked goods that are not made with whole-wheat flour and egg substitutes and that actually taste good.

The next book by the two women, to be published in the fall, will be “the long-awaited vegan Joy of Cooking,” Ms. Moskowitz said. “Vegan food is everywhere.”

In the recipes below, North African spices lighten a rich vegetable stew with a peanut base; sweet butternut squash stands in perfectly for the sweet shrimp in an otherwise traditional Vietnamese spring roll.

Ms. Moskowitz and Ms. Romero both have been vegetarian since age 16, and vegan for almost that long. “It’s kind of like being gay, in that vegans tend to remember an ‘aha’ moment in adolescence or childhood,” Ms. Moskowitz said. “It happens when you realize that the lambs or chickens on your plate are the same as the ones at the petting zoo.”

It is also like being gay in that, 20 years ago, the notion of a vegetarian teenager was far more alien than it is today.

“People used to throw chicken nuggets at me in the cafeteria,” said Ms. Romero, who grew up in Plainville, Conn.

The number of adult vegetarians has remained steady at 2 to 3 percent, the Vegetarian Resource Group has found in 10 years of regular polling. But American teenagers have been taking up vegetarianism in growing numbers.

In a 2005 Harris Interactive poll for the group, 10 percent of girls ages 13 to 18 said they “never” ate meat, poultry or seafood.

In a 2006 poll of 100,000 college students by the food service giant Aramark, 30 percent of all students said that it was “very important” to them to have vegetarian food options on campus, up from 26 percent in 2004.

But punk vegans like Ms. Moskowitz and Mr. Leo acknowledge that they are still far outside the mainstream, and that the label “vegan” — unlike “vegetarian” — can still inspire a strong negative reaction.

“Any time you confront a deeply ingrained societal norm, people are going to get upset,” Mr. Leo said.

Ms. Moskowitz agreed that the vegan movement is in need of a public-relations overhaul. “I can’t say there’s no self-righteousness in the movement, and also, a lot of the food is awful.”

She said vegans should stop whining about what they can and can’t eat, and start cooking. “When someone invites you to dinner, bring something delicious, and share it,” she said.

This peaceable approach — smoothing frosting over the rough edges of rage — might be the key to Ms. Moskowitz’s appeal.

“You can’t stay angry forever,” she said. “Either as a punk or as a vegan.”

Recipe: Devil’s Food Cupcakes With Fluffy White Filling and Chocolate Icing (January 24, 2007)
Recipe: Spicy Peanut Stew With Ginger and Tomato (January 24, 2007)
Recipe: Butternut Squash Rice Paper Rolls (January 24, 2007)

whiskey tango meatballs

When I told Leo that I needed to buy some grape jelly and chili sauce for the meatballs I was taking to his brother's party, he looked revolted. His voice was incredulous when he asked if I was sure that was the recipe. I told him I'd google it.

 He didn't think his family would try them if they knew the recipe, but I assured him that my colleague had said they were always a hit at parties and that they would be eaten and appreciated.

As predicted, they were a smash. I got stopped several times by guests, asking for more meatballs.

2 12 oz jars Heinz chili sauce
1 32 oz jar grape jelly
1 bag meatballs (about 80 in a bag)

Put chili sauce and jelly in a large pot, stir well. Add frozen meatballs; heat on low until meatballs have thawed and then simmer for 2 hours.

Via cooks.com

quinoa, corn, and tomato salad with chive-infused olive oil

Leo and I have made this several times and always love it. The chives and limes make for a light, refreshing taste. The corn and tomatoes are beautiful and flavorful in this salad.

Use the leftover chive oil as a dressing or on grilled fish or vegetables. Garnish with whole fresh chives, if desired.

Ingredients
1 1/2 cups water (or broth)
1 cup uncooked quinoa
1 cup fresh corn kernels (about 2 ears) or frozen corn (we use Trader Joe's frozen roasted corn)
1 cup cherry tomatoes, halved
1/4 cup finely chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
2 tablespoons Chive-Infused Oil (recipe below) 2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
2 tablespoons white wine vinegar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 garlic clove, minced

Preparation
Combine 1 1/2 cups water and quinoa in a medium saucepan; bring to a boil. Cover, reduce heat, and simmer 10 minutes or until liquid is absorbed. Remove from heat; let stand 10 minutes. Fluff with a fork.

Combine quinoa, corn, tomatoes, and parsley in a medium bowl. Combine Chive-Infused Oil and remaining ingredients, stirring with a whisk. Drizzle over salad; toss well to coat. Let stand 10 minutes before serving.

Yield
6 servings (serving size: 2/3 cup)

Nutritional Information
CALORIES 179(34% from fat); FAT 6.7g (sat 0.7g,mono 4.1g,poly 1.3g); PROTEIN 5.2g; CHOLESTEROL 0.0mg; CALCIUM 20mg; SODIUM 145mg; FIBER 2.4g; IRON 2.2mg; CARBOHYDRATE 26.1g

Lia Huber, Cooking Light, AUGUST 2007

Chive-infused Oil Recipe
3/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
1/2 cup (1-inch) slices fresh chives
1/2 teaspoon salt

Preparation
Place all ingredients in a blender; pulse 6 times or until chives are very finely minced. Strain mixture through a fine sieve into a bowl, and discard solids. Store in refrigerator in an airtight container for up to 2 weeks.
Yield
3/4 cup (serving size: 1 1/2 teaspoons)
Nutritional Information
CALORIES 63(100% from fat); FAT 7g (sat 1g,mono 5.4g,poly 0.6g); PROTEIN 0.0g; CHOLESTEROL 0.0mg; CALCIUM 0.0mg; SODIUM 49mg; FIBER 0.0g; IRON 0.0mg; CARBOHYDRATE 0.0g

creamy corn empanadas

We make a few kinds of empanadas, but these are most people's favorite.

The filling is adapted from Alton Brown's Better Than Grannie's Creamed Corn recipe. I use La Salteña's wrappers (para hornear) and this is an easy, crowdpleasing recipe.

Directions:

1. Make filling and let it cool
   
2. Line 1 cookie sheet with parchment paper (in case of blowouts)
   
3. Fill wrappers, fluting the edges or using a fork to seal them well
4. Paint with a beaten egg yolk (for color)
   
5. Bake at 350 for 25 minutes or until golden brown

Creamy Corn Filling
Prep Time:10 min
Cook Time: 12 min
Yield: 3 cups

Ingredients
1/2 onion, diced
1 TBSP butter
2 pinches kosher salt
2 cups frozen organic corn
1 TBSP sugar
1/4 tsp turmeric
2 TBSP yellow cornmeal
1 TBSP corn flour or all-purpose flour (to thicken it so that it doesn't ooze out)
1 cup heavy cream
Fresh ground black pepper

In a saucepan over medium heat, sweat the onion in butter and salt until translucent, about 3 minutes. Add the corn and cook over medium high for about 5 minutes. Sprinkle the corn with the sugar and turmeric and stir constantly for about 2 minutes. Sprinkle the cornmeal and flour on the corn, using a whisk to combine well. Add the heavy cream and cook until the corn has softened, about 2 to 3 minutes. Season with freshly ground black pepper.

light and fluffy pancakes

Leo made breakfast for me yesterday, so today I returned the favor. He wanted pancakes, so I consulted "The New Best Recipe" (his Christmas gift to me) and made these. He made the bacon and squeezed some blood oranges and voila! breakfast was served.

I have to say that these are, without a doubt, the best "plain jane" pancakes I've ever eaten.

2 cups buttermilk OR 1TBSP juice from 1 lemon + 2 cups milk
2 cups (10 oz) unbleached all-purpose flour
3 1/2 TBSP sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 large egg
3 TBSP unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly
1-2 tsp vegetable oil

1. Whisk the lemon juice and milk together in a medium bowl or large measuring cup; set aside to thicken while preparing the other ingredients. Whisk the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a medium bowl to combine.
2. Whisk the egg and melted butter into the milk until combined. Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients; pour in the milk mixture and whisk very gently until just combined (a few lumps should remain). Do not overmix.
3. Heat a 12-inch skillet over medium heat for 3 to 5 minutes; add 1 tsp oil and brush to coat the skillet bottom evenly. Test skillet heat by dropping 1 TBSP (a half-dollar sized amount of batter) into the skillet. Flip it after 1 minute of cooking. If it turns golden brown, your pan is perfect. If it's still pale, the pan's not hot enough. If the pancake is dark brown and/ or has light spots from where bubbles were, the pan's too hot. Adjust accordingly.
   
4. Pour 1/4 cup batter onto 3 spots on the skillet. Cook the pancakes until large bubbles begin to appear, 1 1/2 to 2 minutes. Using a thin, wide spatula, flip the pancakes and cook until golden brown on the second side, 1 to 1 1/2 minutes longer. Repeat with the remaining batter, using the remaining oil only if necessary. Serve immediately.

Makes about sixteen 4-inch pancakes. Serves 4 to 6.
Adapted from The New Best Recipe

5-minute chocolate cake in a mug

We finally made this tonight. It was fun to watch it rise, rise, rise to what seemed an impossibly tall (and unsustainable) height a few inches above the top of the mug and *instantly* drop when the microwave stopped.

This is a great recipe for kids to watch. There are very few crumbs in this cake. It holds together quite well.

Ingredients
4 TBSP flour
4 TBSP sugar
4 TBSP cocoa powder
1 egg, beaten
3 TBSP milk
3 TBSP oil
3 TBSP chocolate chips (optional)
A small splash of vanilla extract
1 large coffee mug

Preparation

1. Add dry ingredients to mug, and mix well.
   
2. Beat the egg in a small bowl, then pour in the milk, oil, and vanilla extract and mix well.
3. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients in the mug. Mix thoroughly.
   
4. Add the chocolate chips and mix slightly.
5. Put your mug in the microwave and cook for 3 minutes at 1000 watts.
   

The cake will rise over the top of the mug, but don't be alarmed!
Allow to cool a little, and tip out onto a plate if desired.
Eat! (This can serve 2 if you want to feel slightly more virtuous.)

Why is this the most dangerous cake recipe in the world? Because now we are all only 5 minutes away from chocolate cake at any time of the day or night!

Via Laura

turkey meat loaf with sun-dried tomatoes

Due to a slight purchasing miscalculation, Leo and I ended up with way too much ground turkey. The solution? MEATLOAF!!!

The only problem was having to take sides in the crucial tomato v. milk meatloaf debate. You think gay marriage is divisive? Pshaw. Thanks to sundried tomatoes, we can straddle the fence and reach out to moderates on both sides, just like Obama and McCain do in real life. Except we follow through on our promises.

We served this with an awesome orzo, zucchini, and mystery summer squash side dish (recipe provided in separate post) and James' patented Area-51 corn. We'd share the recipe for that one, but then James would have to kill the lot of us.

Ingredients
1.25 pounds ground turkey
1 onion, chopped
1 cup toasted breadcrumbs
1 egg, beaten to blend
1/2 cup toasted pine nuts
12 sun-dried tomatoes in oil, drained, chopped
1/3 cup milk
2 teaspoons chopped fresh rosemary or 1/2 teaspoon dried, crumbled
2 teaspoons chopped fresh oregano or 1/2 teaspoon dried, crumbled
Salt and pepper to taste

Preparation
Preheat oven to 375°F.
Combine all ingredients in large bowl.
Season with salt and pepper and mix well.
Transfer mixture to 8 1/2x 4 1/2-inch loaf pan.
Bake until loaf pulls away from sides of pan and top is golden brown, about 50 minutes.
Serves 6
Via Epicurious

lime cilantro sweet potatoes

I hate cilantro. (It tastes like soap.)

That's why I almost vetoed this recipe when Leo presented several sweet potato recipes earlier today. That would've been criminal, because it's officially my new favorite sweet potato recipe.

I loved this dish — the lime and chili offset the sweetness of the potatoes and were actually refreshing and light on a hot summer night.

Lime Cilantro Sweet Potatoes
Active time: 15 min
Start to finish: 40 min
Makes 4 servings.

Ingredients
2 lb sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into 3/4-inch pieces
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon cayenne
1/2 teaspoon finely grated fresh lime zest
1 tablespoon fresh lime juice
1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro

Preparation
Put oven rack in lower third of oven and preheat oven to 425°F.

Toss sweet potatoes with 2 tablespoons oil and 1/4 teaspoon salt in a shallow baking pan. Arrange potatoes in 1 layer and roast, stirring halfway through roasting, until tender, about 25 minutes total. Stir together cayenne, zest, and remaining 1/2 teaspoon salt in a small bowl. Whisk together lime juice and remaining tablespoon oil in a medium bowl, then add potatoes. Sprinkle with cayenne mixture and cilantro, stirring gently to combine.

Gourmet, May 2004
Via epicurious.com

brined chicken

We brined some leg quarters before grilling them last weekend using this recipe and technique and loved the result.

Ingredients
1 gallon cold water
1 cup kosher salt
1/2 cup sugar
optional added spices, herbs, chopped onion, garlic, celery, etc.

Preparation

1. Bring 1/2 gallon of the water, the salt and sugar to boil, stirring until both are completely dissolved. Remove from heat, add flavorings, cover and allow to cool completely. Add the remaining 1/2 gallon of water. Refrigerate to below 40F before adding chicken.
2. You can cut the recipe in half, or double it as needed, depending on how much chicken you'll be brining. Make enough so the chicken is completely covered in the brining container. If you brine in sealable plastic bag, you'll need less brine than if brining in a bowl.
3. To keep the chicken submerged, place a heavy plate, or a flat-bottomed bowl filled with some water over the chicken in the brine container.
   

Keep the brine and chicken COLD during brining, between 36-40F. If there's room, place the brining chicken in the fridge. If not, brine in an insulated cooler, and place a sealed bag of ice in the brine with the chicken. Don't put loose ice in the brine...when it melts, the brine will be diluted and it won't do its job.

How Long to Brine Chicken
Use the following brining time chart for chicken as a guide. Adjust within the brining times to achieve more or less salty flavor.

Whole Chicken --4 to 8 hours
Half Chicken --3 to 6 hours
Bone-in Skin-on Breasts --1 to 2 hours
Boneless Skinless Breasts --30 to 60 minutes
Legs, Thighs, Skin-on --45 to 90 minutes
Legs, Thighs, Skinless --30 to 45 minutes

Always brine in a non-reactive container. Glass, porcelain, crockery, plastic and stainless steel are all OK. Aluminum, copper and wood are not.

After brining, rinse the chicken well in cold, running water. Pat dry with a clean towel.

Now that the chicken is brined, it's ready to be seasoned with your favorite dry rub and smoked or grilled. Brined chicken usually takes less time to cook.

lemon bars

I made these lemon bars last week and they were a hit. I modified the recipe, using half all-purpose flour and half cake flour. I made the thinner lemon layer and think that I will go for the thick one next time around.

Lemon Bars
Adapted from The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook

These are bold and tart lemon bars, ones I feel are best in smaller doses than Ina Garten suggests. I’ve made a few changes to the recipe–increased the salt in the crust, reduced the sugar in the lemon filling and an encouragement to grease your pan, as mine were all but cemented into their non-stick pan. For those of you who like the 1:1 crust to lemon layer ratio, use the second option.

For the crust:
1/2 pound unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 cups flour
1/8 teaspoon kosher salt

For the full-size lemon layer:
6 extra-large eggs at room temperature
2 1/2 cups granulated sugar
2 tablespoons grated lemon zest (4 to 6 lemons)
1 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice
1 cup flour

Confectioners’ sugar, for dusting

[Or] for a thinner lemon layer:

4 extra-large eggs at room temperature
1 2/3 cups granulated sugar
1 tablespoon + 1 teaspoon grated lemon zest (3 to 4 lemons)
2/3 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice
2/3 cup flour

Confectioners’ sugar, for dusting

Preheat the oven to 350°F and grease a 9 by 13 by 2-inch baking sheet.

For the crust, cream the butter and sugar until light in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Combine the flour and salt and, with the mixer on low, add to the butter until just mixed. Dump the dough onto a well-floured board and gather into a ball. Flatten the dough with floured hands and press it into the greased baking sheet, building up a 1/2-inch edge on all sides. Chill.

Bake the crust for 15 to 20 minutes, until very lightly browned. Let cool on a wire rack. Leave the oven on.

For the lemon layer, whisk together the eggs, sugar, lemon zest, lemon juice, and flour. Pour over the crust and bake for 30 to 35 minutes (less if you are using the thinner topping), or about five minutes beyond the point where the filling is set. Let cool to room temperature.

Cut into triangles and dust with confectioners’ sugar.

Adapted from Smitten Kitchen

leaving a bad taste in my mouth

When it comes to super-premium ice cream, I've seen the light. Leo converted me — I now worship at the church of Häagen-Dazs for its flavor, mouth-feel, simplicity, and overall ingredient quality.

Imagine our horror when we saw this ad on the back cover of the latest Saveur, for the new Mayan Chocolate flavor. I only found one other negative comment about the ad online.

The ad headline reads "cortez invaded for it ..." And the accompanying blurb says: "In 1520, Cortez arrived in Latin America and captured the world's original recipe for chocolate. Mayan chocolate. Fortunately, you'll find it a bit easier to get your hands on this coveted chocolate and cinnamon delicacy."

It's unfortunate, as the ignorance/ arrogance of the ad would have turned me off to the product itself. (I tried some before I saw the Cortez ad and can confirm that it is delicious. And I fed some to Leo this weekend and he's still outraged at the ad, but agrees that the ice cream is awesome.) Fortunately, the ad agency has changed the ad to this one:

Headline: "gift from the gods"
Blurb: The world's very first recipe for chocolate. Over 2,000 years ago, it was a Mayan offering to the gods. And now, we're offering the chocolate and cinnamon delicacy to you."

So I'm uncertain if the Häagen-Dazs ad agency, Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, changed the campaign because they realized that pithy statements about genocide might not be the right sales strategy or if they just wanted the initial punch to get attention: "Advertising 101 today says you have to do something obnoxious in the first ... 10 seconds of an ad" says Jeff Goodby.

More (unrelated) ice-cream backlash:
Ben & Jerry’s new flavor "Black & Tan" intended to emulate the appearance of Guinness Irish stout. It offended some who still associate the name with the two-tone uniforms worn by the notorious regiment of British soldiers recruited to serve in Ireland after WWI who committed a number of atrocities against the Irish.

A few other facts I learned whilst trolling for info about this:
Häagen-Dazs is owned by Dreyers. Example #598 of my point that soon, the whole world will be owned by five corporations.

Goodby, Silverstein & Partners is one of the premier names in advertising with a long heritage of cutting-edge and effective creative work. Perhaps best known for the "Got Milk" campaign, the agency also works for blue chip brands such as Hewlett-Packard, Anheuser-Busch, Netflix, Foster Farms, Adobe, and Saturn. Co-chairmen Rich Silverstein and Jeff Goodby worked together at Ogilvy & Mather before forming their own company in 1983; it operates today as a subsidiary of advertising services conglomerate Omnicom Group.

coconut macaroons

These are Nolan's favorite macaroons. Scott asked for the recipe while still chewing his first bite. Ben liked them so much that he wasn't willing to share them with anyone except me. I thought Eric was going to rip my arm off when I took the last one a few years ago. And yes, my female friends also like them very much.

8 large (8 oz) egg whites
2 1/2 cups (17.5 oz) sugar
1/2 tsp salt
2 TBSP honey
5 cups (11.25 oz) unsweetened, shredded dried coconut. Do not substitute sweet supermarket coconut.
1/2 cup (2.5 oz) all purpose flour
1 tsp vanilla extract
4 oz semisweet or bittersweet chocolate, chopped (optional)

In a large saucepan with a heavy bottom, warm the egg whites, sugar, salt, and honey, stirring over medium heat. When the whites are warm to the touch, add the coconut, flour, and vanilla. Continue cooking over medium heat, stirring constantly until the mixture is slightly dry and the bottom has just begun to sizzle and scorch. The mixture should be very thick. Cool. Chill until cold. (You can refrigerate this up to one week before using it.)

Position two oven racks in the center and upper part of the oven. Preheat the oven to 350F.

Form the mixture into 1-1/2 inch mounds with your fingers and space them evenly on parchment-lined baking sheets. Bake for 18 to 20 minutes, rotating the baking sheets and switching racks midway through baking so the macaroons brown evenly. Cool.

Melt the chocolate in a clean, dry bowl set over barely simmering water. When the chocolate is almost completely melted, remove the bowl from the heat and stir until it is fully melted.

• Holding each cookie by the top, dip the bottom in the chocolate, removing any excess by scraping the bottom against the rim of the chocolate bowl. Set the cookies on the plastic-lined baking sheet with the chocolate side down.
• Drizzle tops with chocolate.

Refrigerate until the chocolate has hardened (about 10 minutes), and serve.
Makes 30 macaroons.

Note: These freeze very well. Don't double-pan when baking them. Temper the chocolate by keeping it under 90F to prevent it from blooming later.
Recipe from Cindy Mushet

creamy tomato balsamic soup

Inspired by my soup days post, Susan A. sent me this recipe for her (current) favorite tomato soup. When it ceases to be 88 degrees outside, I'll have to make a pot. Until then, this recipe's for those of you in colder climates, where heating one's oven to 500 degrees actually sounds like a good idea.

Creamy Tomato Balsamic Soup
1 cup less-sodium beef broth, divided
1 tablespoon brown sugar
3 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
1 tablespoon low-sodium soy sauce
1 cup coarsely chopped onion
5 garlic cloves
2 (28-ounce) cans whole tomatoes, drained
Cooking spray
3/4 cup half-and-half
Cracked black pepper (optional)

Preheat oven to 500°.
Combine 1/2 cup of broth, sugar, vinegar, and soy sauce in a small bowl. Place onion, garlic, and tomatoes in a 13 x 9-inch baking pan coated with cooking spray. Pour broth mixture over tomato mixture. Bake at 500° for 50 minutes or until vegetables are lightly browned.
Place tomato mixture in a blender. Add remaining 1/2 cup broth and half-and-half, and process until smooth. Strain mixture through a sieve into a bowl; discard solids [ignore this step if you like]. Garnish with cracked black pepper, if desired.

Yield: 4 servings (serving size: about 1/2 cup)

CALORIES 120 (35% from fat); FAT 4.7g (sat 3g,mono 1.5g,poly 0.1g); PROTEIN 3.8g; CHOLESTEROL 23mg; CALCIUM 120mg; SODIUM 452mg; FIBER 1.7g; IRON 1.7mg; CARBOHYDRATE 14.9g
Cooking Light, OCTOBER 2005

food 2.0: chefs as chemists

This is mad cool.

Slices of eel are served with puffed yuzu, inspired by airy puffed snacks like Cheez Doodles, left. Framed by a reverse comma of tomato lettuce and powdered onions, beef tongue is accompanied by small pieces of lettuce and a high-tech version of fried mayonnaise.
Tony Cenicola/The New York Times

Food 2.0: Chefs as Chemists
By KENNETH CHANG
Published: November 6, 2007

In September, talking to an audience of chefs from around the world, Wylie Dufresne of WD-50 on the Lower East Side of Manhattan waxed enthusiastic about a type of ingredient he has been adding to his restaurant’s dishes.

Multimedia: Nouvelle Chimie Slide Show

Not organic Waygu beef or newfound exotic spices or eye of newt and toe of frog, but hydrocolloid gums — obscure starches and proteins usually relegated to the lower reaches of ingredient labels on products like Twinkies. These substances are helping Mr. Dufresne make eye-opening (and critically acclaimed) creations like fried mayonnaise and a foie gras that can be tied into a knot.

Chefs are using science not only to better understand their cooking, but also to create new ways of cooking. Elsewhere, chefs have played with lasers and liquid nitrogen. Restaurant kitchens are sometimes outfitted with equipment adapted from scientific laboratories. And then there are hydrocolloids that come in white bottles like chemicals.

Xanthan gum, for instance, a slime fermented by the bacteria Xanthomonas campestris and then dried, is used in bottled salad dressing to slow the settling of the spice particles and keep water and oil from separating. Xanthan and other hydrocolloids are now part of the tool kit of high-end chefs.

“These ingredients are finding more and more of a footing in the traditional, free-standing restaurant,” said Mr. Dufresne (pronounced doo-FRAYN) at the Starchefs International Chefs Congress in New York.

He noted that the hydrocolloids he uses came from natural sources and often had a long history in the cooking of other cultures.

“In our ongoing search of working with hydrocolloids, we’re always trying to find interesting and new things and new applications,” said Mr. Dufresne, who at times sounded as if he were talking to chemists rather than chefs.

And rightly so. Cooking is chemistry, after all, and in recent decades scientists have given much closer scrutiny to the transformations that occur when foodstuffs are heated. That has debunked some longstanding myths. Searing meat does not seal in juices, for example, but high heat does induce chemical reactions among the proteins that make it tastier. The experimentation with hydrocolloids represents a rare crossover between the culinary arts and food science, two fields that at first glance would seem to be closely related but which have been almost separate. Food science arose in the 20th century as food companies looked for ways to make their products survive the trek to the supermarket and remain palatable. The long list of ingredients on a frozen dinner represents the work of food scientists in ensuring shelf life and approximating the taste of fresh-cooked food.

“Ten years ago, or maybe a little more than that, no chef in a serious restaurant would be caught dead using these ingredients,” said Harold McGee, author of “On Food and Cooking” (Scribner, 2004) and the “Curious Cook” column, which appears in the Dining section of The New York Times. “Because they were industrial stabilizers for the most part.”

Then a few chefs like Ferran Adrià in Spain and Heston Blumenthal in England started experimenting. “They asked what can you do with these ingredients that you can’t do with other ingredients,” Mr. McGee said.

Despite its imposing name, a hydrocolloid is a simple thing. A colloid is a suspension of particles within some substance. A hydrocolloid is a suspension of particles in water where the particles are molecules that bind to water and to one another. The particles slow the flow of the liquid or stop it entirely, solidifying into a gel.

Cornstarch used as a thickener is a hydrocolloid. So is plain flour. But the properties of hydrocolloids differ widely, depending on their molecular structure and affinity for water.

Today, Grant Achatz, chef of Alinea in Chicago, uses agar-agar, which is a hydrocolloid made from seaweed that is best known for growing bacteria in petri dishes, and gelatin, a more familiar hydrocolloid made from collagen in meat, to make transparent sheets that he drapes over hot foods. For a dish made of a confit of beef short ribs, he wanted to add a taste of beer so he draped a veil flavored with Guinness on top — “a thin, flavorful glaze that ensured the diner would get some beer flavor in every bit of the dish,” Mr. Achatz said. Plain gelatin would simply melt, and ruin the effect.

Even chefs far from the avant-garde use hydrocolloids. David Kinch, the chef of Manresa Restaurant in Los Gatos, Calif., known for ultra-fresh and ultra-local ingredients, makes purees of vegetables. To keep water from leaking out, he adds a touch of xanthan gum.

One of the dishes Mr. Dufresne presented in his Starchefs talk was what he called “knot foie,” a result of experimentation combining xanthan gum with konjac flour, made from a tuber long used in Japanese cooking.

“We’ve had konjac flour in the kitchen for a long time, and we just hadn’t used it,” Mr. Dufresne said. “We realized, after reading, that it has a really interesting synergy with xanthan gum. It makes a kind of funky, strange gel on its own, but in conjunction with xanthan gum, which on its own won’t make a gel but is just a thickener, it makes a really interesting, very elastic product.”

He continued: “So we thought, well what could we take that normally wouldn’t behave like that but would be really interesting. And almost instantly, we came up with the idea of foie gras.”

One wall of the WD-50 kitchen, with metal shelves filled with white bottles of hydrocolloids, looks almost like a pharmacy. Mr. Dufresne’s reading material includes “Water-Soluble Polymer Applications in Foods” and “Hydrocolloid Applications: Gum Technology in the Food and Other Industries.”

Like scientists, Mr. Dufresne and his staff experiment, recording their observations and findings in notebooks. Using butter — much cheaper than foie gras — they began a series of trials in May to determine the ideal proportion of konjac to xanthan, which turned out to be 70 percent konjac, 30 percent xanthan in a 0.65 percent concentration.

“It’s a recipe,” Mr. Dufresne said.

In addition to flexible butter, Mr. Dufresne also has a recipe for a butter that does not melt in an oven. (That innovation has yet to find a place on his menu.) The latest experiments are how to make deep-fried hollandaise sauce, which he hopes to wrap into a variation of eggs benedict.

To make a flexible foie, a foie gras terrine is melted into liquefied fat, the xanthan and konjac are mixed in, and then a small amount of water and an egg yolk, which helps keep everything evenly suspended in the liquid, are blended in. The mixture is spread on a sheet, chilled, cut into strands and tied into knots. Hence, knot foie.

In the question-and-answer session, one person asked why Mr. Dufresne went to the trouble of making a foie gras terrine, a process that takes half a day of chilling, when the next step was melting it into a liquid.

“We were trying to be true and honest to that aspect of French cooking,” Mr. Dufresne replied. He paused before adding, “And do something kind of crazy with it.”

pollo al ajillo

It doesn't get much better than this traditional tapas dish. Leo and I have a new favorite recipe for pollo al ajillo. We used skinless, boneless chicken thighs and loved this dish. Make sure you've got some good bread on hand to sop up the juices -- they are delicious.

Spanish Garlic Chicken
by Joyce Goldstein
Tapas: Sensational Small Plates from Spain

Yield: Serves 4
ingredients
4 boneless, skinless chicken thighs, cut into 1 1/2-inch pieces, or 12 chicken wings, tips removed
Sweet paprika
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

1/3 cup olive oil
6 cloves garlic, crushed, plus 2 cloves, minced
3 fresh thyme sprigs
2 bay leaves
1/2 cup fino or manzanilla sherry
1/2 cup chicken broth
Chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley for garnish
preparation

Rub the chicken with paprika, salt, and pepper and set aside at room temperature for at least 1 hour or preferably in the refrigerator at least 8 hours or overnight.

Preheat the oven to 400°F.

In a large sauté pan, heat the oil over medium heat. Add the crushed garlic and cook, stirring, until softened but not colored, 2 minutes. Add the chicken pieces and fry, turning as needed, until golden on both sides, 5 to 8 minutes. You want them nicely colored on the outside but not cooked through. Using a slotted spoon, transfer to paper towels to drain briefly, and then arrange the pieces in a cazuela or baking dish large enough to hold them in a single layer.

Remove the crushed garlic from the oil and discard. Return the pan to low heat. Add the minced garlic and cook briefly. Add the thyme, bay leaves, sherry, and broth, raise the heat to high, and bring to a boil. Remove from the heat and pour over the chicken.

Bake the chicken until cooked through, 25 to 30 minutes. Remove from the oven and discard the bay leaves and thyme. If the pan juices are thin, transfer to a small saucepan and cook over medium high heat until reduced, and then return to the cazuela. Sprinkle with the parsley and serve at once.

Variation:

You also can complete the cooking on the stove top. Sauté the minced garlic as directed, return the chicken to the pan, add the sherry and broth, and simmer, uncovered, until most of the liquid has evaporated and the chicken is tender, 15 to 20 minutes.