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Month June 2008

Entries 5 Total

Watermelon Rind Pickles

Jun 30, ’08

Watermelon rind pickles are apparently a Southern thing. But I first had them at Fatty Crab, a Zak Pelaccio restaurant here in New York City devoted to Southeast Asian cuisine. I’ve been wanting to recreate their dish served with crispy pork belly at home, and the opportunity finally came when Cameron and I started planning our first Supper with Strangers.

Supper with Strangers is an urban supper club devoted to bringing together New York City’s food-loving populace. We think it’s a chance to celebrate the season’s flavors, meet others with equally good taste, and have them enjoy a fantastic, home-cooked meal with great people. We both love to cook and entertain, so we figured, why not create our very own supper club and meet new people in the process?

While we planned the first menu in a span of almost three weeks—that’s why the updates on this blog have been intermittent—we wanted to feature cool and refreshing dishes using summer ingredients. One watermelon appetizer idea brought us to featuring watermelon as the main ingredient for all our dishes, a la Iron Chef. After several tastings, we came up with a winning menu and consulted with Pour Wines for wine and beer pairings.

Welcome cocktail: Watermelon-Shiso Mojito

Amuse-bouche: Kebab of Watermelon, Bresaola, and Caper Berry
Vegetarian alternate: sheep’s milk cheese instead of bresaola

Appetizer: Chilled Thai-Spiced Watermelon Soup with Crab
Vegetarian alternate: sans the crab
Paired with: Francois Pinon Vouvray Tendre Cuvee Tradition, 2006, Loire Valley

Main dish: Fried Pork Belly with Pickled Watermelon Rinds
Vegetarian alternate: Roasted Golden Beet with Shiitake Mushrooms and Pickled Watermelon Rinds
Paired with: Ommegang Hennepin Farmhouse Saison Ale, Cooperstown, NY

Salad: Watermelon and Green Papaya Salad with Tequila Vinaigrette
Paired with: Salneval Albariño, 2007, Galicia, Spain

Dessert: Watermelon Cream Sorbet with Pirouettes
Served with coffee or mint tea

Ingredients:
watermelon rind, 4 quarts of 1-inch chunks (see directions for preparation)
2 cups white vinegar
4 cups white sugar
1 tbsp whole cloves
5 cinnamon sticks
2 star anise
1 tbsp juniper berries
a pinch of mustard seeds
2 cups of water

1. Slice open the watermelon your usual way. Separate the red flesh from the rind. (Eat the red flesh later!) Peel the green skin off the rinds. Chop rinds in smaller chunks.
2. Make the brine. In a large pot, combine all the ingredients except rind and cook over medium fire until sugar dissolves. Remove pot from heat and let completely cool.
3. Transfer watermelon rind chunks in a pickling jar. Pour in brine until all of the rinds are submerged. I put a small and heavy tea cup to weigh the rinds down inside the pickling jar. Store in the refrigerator for at least 2 weeks.

Related post/s:
Join us at Supper with Strangers once a month
Inaugural Supper with Strangers photos on Flickr
Crispy pork belly recipe

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Rhubarb Panna Cotta with Strawberries

Jun 23, ’08

Remember the rhubarb sauce I made a couple of weeks ago? I’ve stir-fried it with fish and braised pork belly with it and I still have half a tub leftover. I searched through my recipe archives and thought, well, I can make panna cotta with it, yeah? It’s a simple sauce with a subtle flavor so it should work. It did and it made for a nice summer dessert completed with delicately sliced sweet strawberries.

Ingredients:
1/2 cup whole milk
1 1/2 tsps unflavored powdered gelatin
1 1/2 cups heavy cream
1/4 cup of rhubarb sauce
1/4 cup sugar
a pinch salt
strawberries for garnish, sliced

1. Place the milk in a heavy, small saucepan. Sprinkle the gelatin over and let stand for 5 minutes to soften the gelatin. Stir over medium heat just until the gelatin dissolves, but the milk does not boil, about 2 minutes.
2. Add the cream, rhubarb sauce, sugar, and salt. Stir over low heat, until the sugar dissolves, about 3 more minutes. Remove from the heat and let cool slightly.
3. Pour the cream mixture into 2 martini glasses, dividing equally. Cover with Saran wrap and refrigerate. Chill until set, at least 6 hours and up to 2 days.
4. When ready to serve, top with strawberries.

Related post/s:
Make your own rhubarb sauce
Rhubarb crisp is one of my favorite desserts

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Fish Braised in Sundried Tomatoes

Jun 19, ’08

Anna sent me a pack of sundried tomatoes from her recent trip to Argentina so I went searching for recipes using them as the main ingredient. There were a lot of proven recipes for spreads and pastes, so I stuck with one of them and just used it on fish I bought for my weekly omakase bento at work. The heavy cream was rather random but I needed to dilute the tomatoes’ saltiness without losing the consistency of the braising sauce. It was also the only thing I had handy in the fridge. Toss with some basil chiffonade and serve with an unsalted orzo and you should be all set.

Any white fish will do here. Cod will be excellent, but a lower-priced Swai is good, too. And you know what? I spread the sundried tomato paste on a portobello mushroom and grilled that for the vegetarian in the group, and he liked it, too.

Ingredients:
4 fish fillets
a splash of heavy cream
a handful of sundried tomatoes, soaked in hot water for at least 15 minutes, patted dry with a paper towel
a handful of basil leaves
3 cloves of garlic
a splash of sherry vinegar
oil, salt, pepper

1. Make sundried tomato paste. Using a food processor, pulse tomatoes, garlic and basil, adding some oil until you reach the consistency of paste. Season with pepper. Transfer to a container.
2. Lightly salt the fish. (The tomatoes will add more saltiness.) Sprinkle some pepper, too. Using a spatula, spread some of the paste onto the fish.
3. Heat some oil in a large skillet. Add the tomato-covered fish and cook for about 3 minutes per side, uncovered. Lower the heat and add the heavy cream. Gently scrape off the bits and pieces under the fish, cover and steam for an extra 5 minutes. Uncover and transfer the fish to a plate.

Related post/s:
Fish using fresh tomatoes
Part of my Mother Hen project: omakase bento #12

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Aquavit

Jun 18, ’08

65 East 55th Street between Park and Madison Avenues
212/593.0287
about $90 each for six, with several drinks, with tacked on 20% tip
♥ ♥

I dragged five others to the Aquavit Cafe earlier this week to take advantage of Herring Week, the annual celebration for all things herring. I had such a fun time eating with new people who were down to eat herring prepared in different ways. This was my first time back at the restaurant after they moved a couple of years ago. The cafe is bigger and looks more like a hotel lobby restaurant. I didn’t get past the bar and to the main dining room, but I would bet that the waterfall is now gone. Chef Marcus Samuelsson now has a sushi restaurant and his name is mentioned in more food events around the city, but the Scandinavian spirit that he introduced to diners like me is still well and alive.

The herring buffet was situated along the entrance to the cafe. The two times we made the trip to serve ourselves, we had to watch out for the waiters and the busboys. But oh, we wanted herring and did we get some! There was the usual pickled herring, vinegar-y and lip-smackin’ good. There was smoked herring, flaky and perfect with a Whale’s Tale Ale. There were interesting and delicious combinations like herring with onions and carrots, herring in a light green sauce that we thought was made out of dill and herring with caviar. Then there were the odd ones that surprisingly worked: herring egg salad and herring paté. And ones that didn’t: herring with sweet tomato sauce and herring with curry.

The buffet wasn’t all herring, which was quite a relief after we’ve filled our empty stomachs with the almighty fish. I had smoked salmon topped with pickled cucumbers, roasted potatoes slathered with gravy, Swedish meatballs with lingonberry sauce and anchovy pizette with a cherry tomato. I skipped the bread and the greens to make more room for a second trip to the buffet. We forced ourselves to eat the included desserts, not because we wanted anything sweet but because we wanted something to cleanse our palates. The Arctic Circle was a goat cheese cylinder filled with passion fruit, topped with a tarty and refreshing sorbet of black currants. (I love me some tarty desserts!) Two in the group opted for the chocolate with several other ingredients I barely recall now.

It was a good time until we got our bill. Even though we chose to do the buffet, a 20% gratuity was automatically included because we were a group of six. We ended up paying almost $100 each including our drinks. Even though the bill was up to par with my usual night out with friends, I thought this was quite pricey considering we had to get up and serve ourselves.

I love herring, but maybe I’ll stick with the Formica tables in Grand Central Oyster Bar during Herring Week next year.

Related post/s:
My first vist to Aquavit
Make your own Ikea dish: Swedish meatballs with lingonberry sauce

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OctoDog’s Frankfurter Converter

Jun 3, ’08

When Jen first showed me the link to OctoDog, I squealed. I didn’t care if the toy was $16.95 apiece; I wanted one. A few weeks later, I squealed again when a box came in the mail and my red OctoDog was in it. I immediately wanted to try it, but to be honest, I don’t eat too many hot dogs at home. Off I went to the neighborhood grocery store where I spent several minutes in front of the frankfurter aisle trying to decipher which was long and big enough to fit in my OctoDog. From a quick glance, the OctoDog seems to be pretty thick. I knew that it wasn’t going to work for the skinny Sabrett hot dogs. I had to pick from what New York street vendors call sausages.

Back at home, I followed the easy instructions that came with the OctoDog. I took the OctoDog apart including the “eyes”. I then inserted the hot dog inside the “tentacles” and replaced the eyes which essentially held the hot dog in place. I pushed the hot dog in using the OctoDog base–this cuts the lower half of the hot dog into “tentacles”. I then pulled the base out and removed the “eyes” that held the hot dog in place. A little shake and the hot dog fell off the tentacle hold and voila! A hot dog with eight “arms”!

Why don’t you just go to their Web site and see the illustrated How-To? It sounds more appetizing without bothering with too many words.

I was thrilled to have made my own OctoDogs. I heated a small skillet with some oil, gently fried the hot dogs by rolling them in the hot oil. I served them with a couple of fried eggs and some fried rice for a Sunday breakfast, Filipino hotsilog (hot dog-siningag-itlog), or hot dog-fried rice-fried egg, style.

I don’t know any kid out there who needs convincing to eat a hot dog and I don’t know why any one would refuse to eat a dressed up hot dog with “legs”. At almost $20 including shipping and handling, it’s an unnecessary toy that’s fun to have in your kitchen for your child and your child at heart.

Related post/s:
Buy your own OctoDog!
It was timely that I had real baby octopus for a pasta dish I was cooking

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