El Malecon Restaurant

A beloved classic that stands as a salty, greasy, shiny symbol of the Dominican diaspora, El Malecon has become famous for their rotisserie chicken. [Do not confuse this with the word marecon, which has an entirely different meaning and is not a restaurant at all.] I happened to be in Washington Heights for some Center for an Urban Future research and I knew that I had to make a stop at this landmark. There were many, many options for Dominican food in that 'hood but this is the classic.

I am sorry to say that I was disappointed. There are two fundamental issues with roasting a chicken,
Number 1: Getting a crispy skin.
Number 2: How to get the white breast meat and the dark leg and thigh meat to be properly cooked.
Malecon's chicken was a tour de force in the first department, with a crisp, salty, spicy skin that crackled in my mouth. Unfortunately, while the leg and thigh were both delicious (I love meat on the bone) the breast was dry and bland. My preferred method at home involves an extremely long resting time to let that dark meat come up to temp, followed by a quick run under the broiler to reheat the bird and get that skin the way it ought to be.

In sum, next time I'm going to ignore the hype, and am going to follow my gut to "Elsa, La Reina Del Chicharron".

That magical animal

For my birthday last year several of my friends got together and surprised me with a year-long membership to the Bacon of the Month club. It was one of the nicest things anyone has ever done for me and without a doubt, an amazingly appropriate present.

So now I receive a package of artisanal bacon every month, and every time I see that familiar box sitting on the doorstep it brings an extra spring to my step. I haven't had to buy any bacon this entire time, and truth be told all that bacon is too much for two persons. We've had to throw some out - an outright travesty. Some of the bacon has been really good - I remember a maple-flavoured one which is probably my favourite to date. But there have been misses too - ene month I threw an entire package out after tasting a strip of the bacon. Yes, it was that bad.

The point is, to use up all that bacon requires some creative methods. I recently stopped eating meat for breakfast (probably not going to last, since I've been craving breakfast sausage like whoa). But I don't think there is anything that you cannot add to or top off with bacon. There really isn't. Bacon makes the whole world better. And even if you don't want any bacon in the final product, starting things off by rendering bacon fat in the pan is a great way to add a smoky, savoury accent to lots of dishes. I find it works particularly well in soups and sauces, or really any dish in which you have to build a good soffritto, or flavour base.

I made a beet salad the other day and topped it off with some bacon bits. The Times recently had an article in the Wellness section, listing the 11 best foods for you that you probably weren't eating, or eating enough of. Beets were #1, and frankly I don't understand why they aren't more popular. They're delicious! And colourful! What more do you want? Another of my favourite flavours - cinnamon - was also on the list. I love cinnamon. I try to sprinkle a healthy dash of it in my coffee every day if I can. Good times.

I made a lamb burger to eat with the salad but unfortunately I had no hamburger buns. I'm a huge fan of basting meats. I like to cook meat in a lot of fat (usually butter), and temper the fat with spices and other flavours (always garlic, and others as appropriate), then spoon the fat over the meat continually as it cooks. A simple thing, but something I find amateur cooks like myself do not do enough of. The result is a moister, more flavourful piece of meat. There really is a difference. In this case as in all other human endeavours - it's doing the little things and doing them well that separate success and failure.

Leaving Las Vegas

After several hectic weeks of travelling I finally had an entire week in DC, and resolved to make the most of it. The kitchen, much less the refrigerator, was down to its bare bones but I soon put that right with one of those trips to the supermarket.

I had not had a trip like that to the supermarket since the days when we lived in Grad Center. We did not have a car and our only access to a decent supermarket was the weekly trolley to Eastside MarketPlace. Every trip was like a new beginning, flush with possibility, and we threw things into the cart with reckless abandon. We were never ones for lists, or methods. It was all there for the taking, and it made us feel in control of our destiny.

On Monday I made dinner for a bunch of folks, including my oldest friends in DC. Amanda leaves on Friday for Kinshasa, and I wanted to see her and cook for her one last time. She loves scallops, so even though they were hopelessly out of season I had to make them for her. The fresh ones from Whole Foods were particularly large, and I paired them with a watercress coulis and grilled corn. Laura, who is vegetarian, was in the kitchen with me looking on as I seared them on my cast-iron pan. She quickly hurried out of my way - no doubt weirded out by my yelling and convulsing with joy as I flipped each scallop to reveal a deep, golden-brown sear.

For a main course we had grilled pork chops, and I made some brandied peaches as a topping. It was tart and savoury, and the pork chops were cooked quite well - with a crisp exterior but an even, juicy center. We drank a 2003 Silver Oak Cabernet Sauvignon (Alexander Valley), which I have absolutely adored in the past but was strangely subdued this time. The air conditioning chose that very moment to fail, which I cursed silently under my breath as I sweated through the meal, my face flush from standing in front of the grill. Still the flavour was enough to keep me happy, and even more than that, the satisfaction from having done good.

For dessert I tried to recreate Shanaz's panna cotta from several weeks back, but I did not use enough gelatin and it didn't set in time. We slurped down the semi-solid mixture, which was still delicious. I had flavoured it with lemon and vanilla and used goat's milk ricotta.

It was a little sad at the end when Amanda had to leave. Of the four of us from 1721 T now only Laura and I are left, and soon I, too, will be gone. I remember Jeff's departure and Sarah bawling her eyes out at the Townhouse Tavern. It was a lot of emotion to deal with and I felt strangely helpless. I suppose the way I am it is awfully easy to be hard-boiled about stuff, and I remember lots of times seeing people coming to tears and wondering if it really was worth it. But I did not question the value of those tears, and when Jeff left it was like the sun had come down on something.

Amanda leaving was not so dramatic because she is a sweet girl and always very cheery. She did not cry, and neither did I. It seemed hardly worth it. I kissed her goodbye one last time and rubbed her arm because it was all I could think to do. As she turned and walked away it did not quite hit me yet but later that night I felt that same emptiness I had felt when Jeff, and many others, had left.

I don't deal with goodbyes so well, I realise.

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A couple of days later I grilled again - this time a swordfish steak, which I did not do too much with. A little lemon, oregano, salt and pepper, and onto the grill it went.

It was Jose who taught me to cross-hatch whatever I grilled, and even now when it comes out perfectly I get a silly smile on my face.

I served it on a bed of bok choy, and had a nice cool beer. It had been a long day, and the making and eating of the dinner was just what I had needed.

Photo journal update

Colours, colours everywhere! How are there tomatoes of so many different colours? Certainly makes for a nice-looking salad.

Shanaz made this beautiful panna cotta when she visited the other weekend.

I made grilled salmon twice in two classic ways in the last three weeks - the first with a maple syrup and white wine vinegar glaze, and this is the second with a ginger and teriyaki sauce.

I paired the ginger-teriyaki salmon with a broccoli and shitake mushroom stirfry. It was the first home-cooked meal I had had all week and as I cleaned the last bits off my plate I felt curiously satisfied. Dishes be damned, I was going to sit and vegetate for a little while.

Franny and Frankie

In a recent burst of restrained extravagance I ate at two very fine "Italian" restaurants. I say restrained extravagance, because from a normal budgetary point of view I shouldn't even be leaving the house, much less eating good food; but sometimes you have have to go moderately buck-wild. These two Brooklyn restaurants are a breed of eatery that is vanishing all over Manhattan: delicious, well executed food, in a nice setting, with no main course for more than $17. Franny's at 295 Flatbush Ave. is just down the block from my house, this is the fourth time I've eaten there in two years, so I feel that I've come to know its strengths and weaknesses pretty well. However, it was my maiden voyage to Frankie's 457 Spuntino, in Carroll Gardens, a neighborhood about half an hour from my house and 10 minutes from my brother's summer sublet.

The focuses at Franny's are pasta and wood oven pizza, with a whole gang of crostini, salads and small appetizers filling out the menu. It's definitely a carbo-load, Atkins diets beware. Well actually, if you're on Atkins f-- you, eat some bread, damn it. And this is some very fine bread to eat. The pizza crust is nicely brown, with just the right amount of woodsmoke and char. The tomato sauce is judiciously administered and their toppings are heavenly. I've had various pizzas there, though I'm hard pressed to remember exactly what they were since the menu is often changing. One time I had a bowl of Buchot Mussels, then the tomato, buffalo mozzarella and basil pizza. Most recently we had the tomato, pecorino picante, and onion pizza, the tomato, buffalo mozzarella, and sausage pizza as well as the rigatoncini with pork sausage, dandelion greens and chilies. On another occasion we sampled the bucatini cacio e pepe. I have to say a few words about the two pastas I've tried: These are the best factory-made pasta preparations I've ever had outside of Italy. They are perfectly al dente, flavorful, and nicely seasoned.

One of the things that is pervasive throughout the Franny's experience is the quality of the ingredients, they just taste so damn good, even with so little done to them. The back of the menu lists all of the sustainable sources for their meats, produce and even electricity. These guys are really trying to live up to their ideals. Unfortunately, they whack you more than a little extra for the privilege of eating responsibly. Every time I eat there I feel like I've been mildly cheated. If they would just give me a little more... A good example of this is the pannacotta. I've made pannacotta, and it is incredibly simple. Vanilla (or other flavoring), cream, milk, sugar and gelatin. Franny's charges $8. Which would be fine, if it weren't the size of a postage stamp. When the waitress dropped it off I couldn't help but wonder "Where's the rest of it?" Yet for all that, it was a great dessert, extremely rich, delicate and well made.

Frankie's Spuntino is just the type of bare-bones luxury that I enjoy. Delicious crostini, good pasta and a delightfully drinkable bottle of white. This is the type restaurant everyone wishes they had just around the corner. I can't say I'm going to move to the neighborhood, but it certainly makes it more attractive. Most of the neighborhood seems to agree with me though, so one needs be prepared to wait more than a few minutes for a table.


Coming soon: the culinary options (delights?) of Bed-Stuy.
Featuring: What is a roti? Where's the best fried chicken in all the land? Is the Papaya Dog as dirty as it looks? and much, much more...

Children get older, I'm getting older too

When I was growing up, dinnertime was always marked by the frying of vegetables. It was always something we did a la minute, right before serving. And it made sense. By dinnertime, everything else was already either done or set along its way. Meats were resting, soups were simmering, seafood steaming gently in the pan. When you smelled the unmistakable fragrance of garlic, or fried onions, that meant that it was time to get your butt down to the dinner table. Vegetables were always served piping hot, the steam rising furiously against the dim yellow lighting of our dining room. To this day, I prefer cooking my vegetables. Maybe it gives me closure to preparing a meal. Maybe it brings back associations from my childhood. I don't know.

I made a stir-fry of bok choy, shitake mushrooms and red cherry peppers last night, just for old times' sake. While it was cooking, I got my camera and snapped away, trying to find the perfect mix of flash, shutter speed, aperture and ISO settings. As I am rapidly learning, food photography is so difficult because you only have a limited time to get the perfect shot, before your food starts to decline in appearance. This was the best I could muster while it was in the pan.

By request

Michael asked for the short ribs recipe from a previous post, so here it is:

Barolo Braised Beef Short Ribs

3 lbs. bone-in beef short ribs
1 carrot, coarsely chopped
1 onion, coarsely chopped
2 stalks celery, coarsely chopped
1 leek, coarsely chopped
4 cloves garlic, coarsely chopped
4 vine tomatoes
1 bottle Barolo or any other full-bodied red wine
1 cup chicken stock
2 strips pancetta or bacon
Paprika
Worcestershire sauce
Balsamic vinegar
Honey
Brown sugar (optional)
2 bay leaves
2 sprigs rosemary

Pre-heat the oven to 400F.

Mix olive oil, salt, pepper, 1 tsp Worcestershire sauce, 2 tsp balsamic vinegar, 1 tsp paprika, and coat the short ribs with the mixture. Set aside for 15-20 minutes.

Put the chopped vegetables in a roasting pan, drizzle with olive oil, salt and pepper and then roast in the oven for 20 minutes, turning regularly to avoid crisping of the top layer. Roasting helps bring out the flavour of the vegetables and creates a stronger base when you use them later in the stew.

Meanwhile, in a large pot, fry the pancetta or bacon till crispy, then remove. Brown the ribs in batches, removing when done.

Transfer the vegetables to the pot and sauté further till caramelized, about 3-4 minutes. Add a tablespoon of brown sugar to aid the process. You should be able to smell a sweetness to the vegetables if you poke your nose into the pan.

Add 2 cups wine and chicken stock, scraping up any brown bits at the bottom of the pan, and then bring mixture to a simmer. Add the bay leaves, rosemary, then the short ribs and the pancetta or bacon. If the short ribs are not entirely covered, add more wine to do so.

At this point you can slow cook the short ribs one of three ways. You can bring it to a simmer and keep it on the stovetop for 4-5 hours. You can cover the pot with tin foil and transfer to the oven, and cook at 350F for 4-5 hours. Or, you can transfer the stew to a crockpot and cook it on low for 8 hours. I have achieved the best results with the crockpot, but time may restrict your choices.

When the short ribs are done, remove from the stew and set aside for plating. Take the remaining mixture and pour it through a colander into a fat separator. Once you have isolated the braising liquid, put it into a saucepan and bring to a simmer on the stovetop. Add honey and reduce until the liquid is a nappé consistency. This means that you should be able to coat the back of a spoon with it.

To plate, serve short ribs with a heavy starch (rice or potatoes work best), drizzle with sauce and voila!

A bad workman blames his tools

I made a grilled chicken frisee salad last night, and wanted to dot the plate with the white-wine and rosemary sauce that I had made. Unfortunately I do not own a squeezy bottle. I did it with a spoon, and then for the second plate used a ziploc bag with the corner cut off. The picture you see below is the first attempt, with the spoon. It didn't get any better with the ziploc bag.

Sometimes I wish I had all the kitchen implements in the world. But then I remember that I would have to clean them all, and then I don't wish that so much any more.

Tasting Notes 5/31/2008

I recently read In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan - great read, by the way - and I've started making changes to my diet. I've never been a huge fan of processed food and ingredients, I prefer to make things from scratch with what Pollan refers to as "whole foods". So I've got that much going for me already. What I need to incorporate a whole lot more are leafy greens, and maybe stop cooking so much of the vegetables that I do eat. I'm also trying to eat more fruit, so wish me luck! Good fruit is hard to find in the city.

I think it's funny how Western chefs are uniformly fascinated by the flavour profiles of Asian foods and spices. As someone who grew up with easy access to an entire range of Asian foods, I often take them for granted. I once watched a segment on TV where the chef was waxing lyrical about star anise, and my first reaction was to scoff. Kaffir lime leaves as a "secret" ingredient? You've got to be kidding me. But now that I know much more about cooking and have developed a greater appreciation for food in general, my reintroduction to all things Asian has been bittersweet - pardon the pun. It's almost like a light went off and I feel I can taste the distinction between flavours much better now. Harnessing the knowledge of these flavours in the preparation of classical Western cuisine, though, has proven a lot more difficult. There is so much more that I do not know; so much more, from a culinary perspective, for me to rediscover about the foods that I grew up eating. But at the very least, I now know why they taste the way they do.

Maturation is a funny thing, eh. It doesn't always come easy, and it doesn't always come quickly, but in some form or another it comes to us all whether we expect it or not.

I was totally manipulated into making dinner this past Saturday but I guess I didn't have anything better to do, and we all have to eat, don't we? I tried to incorporate some form of "Asian influence" in my dishes but am sorry to report that it didn't come off quite the way I wanted it to. The food still came out tasting ok, but the Asian influence was muted and not used particularly well.

To start I made a watercress and frisee salad with avocado and parmigiano-reggiano - a pretty standard classical preparation. I made a soy, lime and ginger vinaigrette to go with it, which - apart from adding a tang to the dish - didn't really add much else.

I also made Barolo-braised shortribs, which I usually love, but this time added five spice powder and kaffir lime leaves. Unfortunately, I couldn't taste them in the final product because the wine overpowered everything. Also, I usually use celery in the braising liquid but did not have any handy this time round - and I could taste its absence. It was still pretty delicious, and I was particularly happy with the sauce. I had reduced the braising liquid further and added sugar and honey for a sweet note to round out the savoury, and I thought it worked remarkably well.

Dessert was a spectacular failure. I had planned to make strawberry napoleons but my custard did not solidify in time and I had bought the wrong kind of phyllo dough. When you go into battle you should always know your weapons and in this case I did not. I found out later that using the egg-whites along with the yolks in making custard helps the custard solidify. You learn something new every time, so I guess this failure was not for naught. Next time, I'm also using heavy cream instead of milk. Bah.