December 2007
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Month December 2007

Entries 5 Total

Pressed Reuben Sandwiches

Dec 18, ’07 10:22 AM

What to do with still the remaining homemade corned beef in the fridge? Reuben sandwiches, of course! They were actually the reason why I made my own corned beef in the first place because I’ve been curious about how they are made ever since I tasted a really good version from Gettin’ Hungry, themorning deli on Hudson Street with the giant wooden lion inside. The origin of the Reuben sandwich is still being disputed, but it is essentially a grilled sandwich made with corned beef, Swiss cheese, sauerkraut and Russian dressing on rye bread.

I also don’t eat a lot of sandwiches besides the Vietnamese kind, but when I make them at home, I like them to be elaborate. But there are two things I don’t stock in the kitchen: ketchup and mayonnaise. It was snowing outside, but I made the trip to the grocery store anyway to pick them up. In the same aisle, I discovered horseradish cream sauce from Kraft. It looked like mayonnaise, but I guessed correctly, a touch of dried horseradish was included in the mix. Reuben sandwiches require a Russian dressing that looks like Thousand Island, but I figure, I can get away with this ready-made type especially after already spending five hours making my own corned beef the other day.

Combine the following to make Russian dressing if you don’t want to use ready-made horseradish cream sauce:
1/3 cup mayonnaise
1 1/2 tbsp ketchup
1 1/2 tsp prepared horseradish
1/2 tsp Worcestershire sauce
salt, pepper

Ingredients:
corned beef, shredded; thinly-sliced if not homemade
Swiss cheese slices
sauerkraut, excess water squeezed off using paper towels
8 slices rye bread
horseradish cream sauce
half a stick unsalted butter, softened in microwave for 15 seconds

1. Spread one side of each bread slice evenly with some butter. With buttered sides down, spread horseradish cream on four slices and with some corned beef, sauerkraut and equal portions of cheese. Top with remaining slices, buttered side up.
2. Place large skillet over high heat and melt a small knob of butter. Reduce heat to low and add sandwiches. Using an iron grill press, put on top of the sandwiches and press. Cook until browned and crisp on both sides, about 2 minutes a side. Transfer to a platter lined with parchment paper. Cut in half and serve.

Related post/s:
Homemade corned beef is so much better
Pressed taleggio cheese sandwich
Turkey bacon avocado portobello sandwich

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Bacaro

Dec 17, ’07 8:01 AM

136 Division Street between Ludlow and Orchard
212/941.5060
$50 each for five, with two bottles of wine, with tip
♥

I used to know someone who lived on Madison Street in the deep recesses of Chinatown five years ago, but I haven’t been back in the area since then. Before that, Good World on Orchard was the place to be among dot-comers. For the last four years, I’ve been working in and around SoHo and have grown to love Frank DeCarlo and John LaFemina’s Peasant on Elizabeth Street. Its downstairs space is one of the places I end up in when I don’t have a reservation nor a dinner plan.

When Bacaro started appearing in food blogs as DeCarlo’s latest project after splitting from LaFemina, I kept a note in my head to make it back to Division Street when I get the chance. That opportunity came a little earlier last week when five of us wanted to eat from small plates and share bottles of wine but had nowhere to go. I had to lend my cab driver my iPhone to show him where Division Street is located because he said he had never heard of it. I was dropped off in the corner of a very quiet and deserted street. If it weren’t for the few smoking outside, I would have thought my Google map was wrong.

At 7pm, the four in our party were at the bar waiting for a table. We witnessed as other groups were seated as soon as they came in. It became worrisome that once another group showed up, we’d have to leave to find another restaurant, unless we wanted to wait for another hour. The bartender was nice enough to seat just the four of us–he made a smaller group move to a smaller table near the door just to accommodate us–and let us order food and wine while we waited for our fifth.

We started with duck prosciutto and some pear slices. Salty and tougher than the prosciutto I’m used to, the pears were still a good match. The braised duck leg that was served when our party was complete fared better, although it was still on the salty side. I assumed the octopus would come in vinaigrette just like they have them in Peasant, but they were fried in batter like calamares, which I’m not a fan of. It was amusing to find lemon peels and yellow bell pepper covered in batter, too, but I just thought the dish didn’t belong with the rest of our food. I also thought the meatballs were going to be gigantic like they have them at ápizz, John LaFemina’s second venture but without DeCarlo, but they were so small I could have eaten twenty more of them. The polenta salad was the most interesting because it was topped with a small chunk of cod. At Bacaro, everything I thought was a salad did not come with any leaves. The cod whet our appetites and prepared us for the gnocchi cooked in brown butter with mushrooms and the pasta with anchovy sauce–one warm and hearty, the other difficult to split among five.

Related post/s:
Peasant was Frank DeCarlo and John LaFemina’s venture before they split to do ápizz (LaFemina) and Bacaro (DeCarlo)

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Homemade Corned Beef with Cabbage and Potatoes

Dec 14, ’07 12:06 PM

It’s feeling a lot like the holidays outside and all I’ve been drinking, besides wine, is Guinness draft. And what else matches with a full-bodied glass of Guinness? Corned beef, cabbage and potatoes! (Besides oysters, of course.) This recipe involves a lot of planning. In my case, I made sure I went straight home after work on the 10th day so that the brisket wasn’t going to sit in brine another day. But once you start cooking, it’s really a no-brainer. I set the timer of the stove an hour at a time once I started to slow-cook the brisket to remind me to check. After three hours, the vegetables took another half an hour.

If you can’t find ready-made pickling spices, you can easily combine the following and make your own:
2 cinnamon sticks, broken
1 tbsp mustard seeds
2 tsps black peppercorns
1 tsp whole cloves
1 tsp whole allspice
1 tsp powder ginger
4 dried bay leaves

Ingredients:
1 fresh beef brisket, about 4 pounds
1 small head of cabbage, cut in small wedges
6 medium red potatoes, halved
3 ribs celery, cut in 2-inch pieces
2 cups of baby carrots
2 large onions, cut in wedges
5 cloves garlic, minced
2 tbsps whole grain mustard
3 tablespoons pickling spices
1 1/2 cups kosher salt
1 cup granulated sugar

1. Using a large Dutch oven, make the corned beef brine. Combine about 10 cups of water, salt, sugar, mustard, spices, and 3 cloves minced garlic. Bring to a boil over high heat. Remove from heat and set aside to cool. When cool enough, add the brisket. If necessary, add more cold water to cover the beef. Using a heavy bowl, weigh the brisket down so it will stay submerged in the water. Cover the pan and refrigerate for up to 10 days in the refrigerator.
2. When ready to cook, discard the brine and rinse the brisket well with cold water. Return to the Dutch oven and cover with cold water. Add the celery, onions and the remaining garlic. Bring to a boil and skim off impurities. Reduce heat to medium-low, cover and simmer for 3 hours.
3. Add the potatoes, carrots and cabbage. Continue to cook in medium-low heat until vegetables are tender, about 30 minutes more.
4. To serve, remove corned beef from liquid and slice in small chunks. Add cabbage, potatoes and carrots on the side. Drizzle some of the liquid on top of the corned beef and all over vegetables.

Related post/s:
Cold weather also reminds me of oxtails and wine

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Smith’s

Dec 13, ’07 2:41 PM

79 MacDougal Street off Houston
212/260.0100
about $45 each for two, with tip
♥

I’ve been wanting to go to Smith’s since it opened, but every time I would remember to walk by, they always give me an estimated hour-long wait. One Monday night, I was able to get a table for two on short notice. The place was full, but when I asked our waitress if we can chill with our drinks first before ordering anything, she told us we can stay as long as we want because it wasn’t going to be a busy night. I was so glad to hear that, too, because I was losing faith with restaurant servers due to most recent experiences. Our waitress continued to be attentive and pleasant the entire night.

When we finally started to feel hungry, we ordered several small plates to share. I loved the squid, charred with lemon, olives and pancetta bits, and I thought it was a good match with the heavier, more substantial artichoke pasta with black truffles. A steamed egg with Gorgonzola and polenta was a sophisticated dish even though I feel like foams have come and gone. The Portuguese sardines were butterflied and were quite tasty with tomato confit, but oh, is that more foam? I loved how crunchy the fish was but the small bones were cumbersome in my mouth. One even pricked my gums and I had to excuse myself and go to the bathroom to pull it out.

Either we were getting more drunk as we sampled dish after dish, or that our choice of sparkling wine really matched everything we ordered. Even the roasted beets became more interesting–I love beets, don’t get me wrong–but with creamy horseradish and a nutty flavor, it was a nice complement to the corzetti pasta and earthy mushrooms.

I loved Smith’s for its location and coziness more than the food itself, but that strip off Houston is so unexciting otherwise I’d definitely come back to make sure it gets a share of my business.

Related post/s:
Foam and Alinea in Chicago
Another small space, but on the other side of the city

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Bun

Dec 10, ’07 12:01 AM

143 Grand Street off Lafayette
212/431.7999
about $45 for two, with tip
♥

Update, 2008: Michael Bao has left Bun

I can only imagine how hard it is to work as a waiter/waitress in a city teeming with restaurants, but for everybody’s sanity, find another job if you can’t even put up with a simple request from one of your customers. I eat out a lot and I’d like to think that I know what I want when I’m ready to eat. There are things I expect when I pay for my food and one of them is some kind of service from the restaurant’s staff. Now, I’m not talking about waiting on me hand and foot; I just want the menu as soon as I sit down, the food I’ve ordered after a reasonable wait, and my bill, preferably with the correct total, after you’ve cleared the last plate from my table. I could even understand if you don’t know an ingredient off the menu (the cute waiter at E.U. during its opening week who told us periwinkles are cured meat) or if you’ve forgotten today’s specials (the waitress who touted the lamb shoulder as chops), as long as you don’t act like an asshole afterwards and try to make me the bad person because of your mistake.

We went to Bun, Michael Bao’s new restaurant on Grand Street, to show our support for a new Asian restaurant opening in the midst of multi-million glass condo buildings coming up in SoHo. It wasn’t a particularly busy lunch hour and we were able to score the table near the door as soon as we walked in. My friend and I were the only Asian-looking customers inside. We couldn’t but help notice the lacquered red stools at the bar and the canvas Asian prints on the wall. The prices on the menu are obviously set to pay for the restaurant’s decor: $6 for a summer roll, $9 for a bowl of pho, $12 for a hot pot.

To start, my friend ordered one salmon roll served with anchovy sauce. The sauce reminded me of the Filipino bagoong from the north. The roll is simply a Vietnamese summer roll, only with salmon was used instead of shrimps. Berkshire pork is touted several times on the menu, so I opted for the vermicelli noodles, the restaurant’s namesake, with a few slices of them tossed with shrimps. We both ordered the pho for our main course, even though we knew our lunch tab was already running up to $40 without drinks.

The chicken pho was bland and we were surprised that it was peppered with pieces of chicken skin, complete with the small goose bumps. It’s just like eating at home, said my Chinese friend, but we wondered how the non-Asians in the restaurant felt upon seeing them in their soup. They do not taste bad, of course, but I know people who would be put off with boiled chicken skin in their dish, if not for the looks of it, the jiggly fat underneath. My bun was the day’s saving grace. I can’t make sure that the pork was indeed Berkshire pork since it’s not as distinctively sweet as a Niman Ranch pork, but the sweet and sour sauce had just the right Vietnamese flavor. At Xe Lua in Chinatown, I always order the beef bun when I’m not craving their pho.

It was only after the bun came that I realized I’ve ordered too much food. I got our waiter’s attention to ask him to cancel my beef pho. The order was already put in, but I’ve made a mistake, and I know it wouldn’t be too hard to accommodate my request. Instead of going back to the kitchen, our waiter tried to convince me that I should take the pho to go. He only stopped insisting when I told him that I’m not going to eat reheated pho back in the office.

When our bill came, the $9 for my canceled pho was still there. I tried to get our waiter’s attention again, but he kept looking away whenever he saw me looking. Fed up of waiting, I walked up to the bar, assumed the only guy behind it without chef’s white was the manager, and asked him to please take off the $9 off my bill because I’ve canceled that order earlier. When I returned to our table with the correct bill and we were getting ready to leave a tip, our waiter finally made an appearance and told us, I don’t have control over the computer to change your order or the bill. I nicely reminded him that I, too, don’t have that access and that was why I expected him to do his job.

We still left a 20% tip because we didn’t want the other waiters at Bun to think their own efforts are not appreciated. But I hope the restaurant owners realize that only one ugly feather can make an entire plume look bad.

Related post/s:
Xe Lua is a much better deal for Vietnamese without the attitude
I would even opt for Fr.Og if I had to spend money on Vietnamese food
Perfected combination of noodles, Berkshire pork and poached egg at Momofuku Noodle Bar

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