Writing With My Mouth Full

Aquavit

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.

OctoDog’s Frankfurter Converter

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.

Rhubarb Sauce

The two Rs of spring–ramps and rhubarb–came and went but I was fast enough to get my yield in this year. With the ramps, I pickled and sautéed; with the rhubarb, I made dessert and this sauce. I was craving fish after an hour-long workout in the pool and I ended up taking home a whole branzino with me. (From Whole Foods, not the pool.) In the end, it was the wrong fish to match with this sauce because branzino is so rich that it doesn’t really need any help to taste good.

The next day, I served this rhubarb sauce with fried and breaded tilapia fillet and together, they made the perfect match. A little tangy and a little sweet, it gave life to an otherwise plain white fish.

Update: Cameron alerted me to a Jamie Oliver recipe using pork belly with rhubarb sauce. So I browned some cubed pork belly and braised them in rhubarb sauce for about 1 hour at 350º.

Ingredients:
6 pieces of rhubarb, chopped in half-inch pieces
a small knob of ginger, peeled, minced, chopped
1 small red onion, finely chopped
1/3 cup apple cider vinegar
1/2 cup sugar
1 cinnamon stick
a pinch of whole cloves
1 star anise
salt, pepper

1. Place rhubarb, 1/4 cup water and ginger in a small saucepan. Simmer for 5 minutes and set aside.
2. In another pan, combine sugar and cider vinegar with 2 cups water and bring to a rolling boil. Add the onion. Cook for 2 minutes. Drain to discard the onions. Remove cinnamon, cloves and anise. Add this mixture to the rhubarb. Season with salt and pepper.

Pork Chops with Guinness Beer

The pork chops from DeBragga.com glistened in the morning light coming through the kitchen. I couldn’t get over how beautiful the marbling was. Pork chops are easy to find but they’re never beautifully cut like these, almost like lamb.

I’ve cooked a lot of tried and true pork chop recipes for this Web site but I wanted to try something new for this batch. I used Mark Bittman’s ribs recipe using stout beer. That looked so good and I wanted to try it for pork. A little bit of browning and braising were all it took for the meat to fall apart from the bones. I even had to skip the roasting part and just served them straight from the Dutch oven. Golden brown on the outside but soft inside, they were the perfect pick me ups for a lazy weekend lunch.

Ingredients:
4 pork chops, seasoned with salt and pepper
1 bottle or can of Guinness, or any stout beer
3 cinnamon sticks
1 tsp of allspice
2 red chiles, crushed
1 small knob of ginger, peeled, minced
2 cloves of garlic, minced
oil, salt, pepper

1. Preheat oven to 350º. In the meantime, brown pork chops in a large Dutch oven with hot oil over medium heat, about 8 minutes per side. Remove chops and set aside. Discard oil except for 2 tbsps.
2. Return the pot over medium heat. Sauté garlic and ginger. Toast cinnamon sticks, chiles and allspice. Add the chops back in and pour in beer. Using a wooden spoon, scrape off the bits and pieces from the bottom of the pan.
3. When oven is ready, cover the pot and braise in the oven for 1 hour, turning the chops after 45 minutes. Serve chops on a plate with some of the beer sauce.

Searching for a Good Taco: El Barrio, East Harlem

East Harlem, the neighborhood bordered by 96th and 125th Streets between Fifth Avenue and the east river, is referred to as El Barrio because it has been a predominantly Puerto Rican enclave. It literally means “the neighborhood”. Some people would even say it goes all the way to 142nd because Dominicans and other Caribbean groups have assembled in that part of Manhattan. Mexicans have also moved in to take advantage of the still-affordable rents above 116th Street. But with the on and off plans of a giant Home Depot and a Wal-Mart on the east side to match the condos going up, young families driven by rising rents downtown have also called El Barrio home.

Today, an Old Navy, H&M and a Starbucks on 125th Street co-exist with the historic Apollo Theater while juice counters, fabric stores and chicharron shops are struggling to keep their businesses open. The future of El Barrio is iffy and we all just have to wait and see what the rezoning of Harlem brings.

Searching for a good taco in this side of Harlem–I live on the west side–was easier and less contentious than recent events in the news. I knew it as soon as I walked in Taco Mix, tip-toed and caught a glimpse of the big vat of pork simmering next to the grill. I thought I was going to need some of my friends to help me scour the many–and there are many–Mexican holes-in-the-wall in East Harlem, but after comparing several tacos from all four of the stores below, Taco Mix’s buche taco took the cake.

1. La Lomita Del Barrio, 209 East 116th Street, 212/289.8138

I stopped by La Lomita because they had beautiful fruits and vegetables for sale outside their store. I saw my first watermelon of the season, decided against buying and carrying such a heavy load, and instead sat at the tiled counter to eat chorizo and carnitas tacos. The chorizo was crushed and crumbled before the lady put it on the grill. I loved the sharpness of the chiles and the aroma of the cloves, but I would have rather eaten it as a sausage without the tortilla. The carnitas was just all right because some of the bigger chunks were a little dry. A lot of cilantro and onions helped me finish them off.

2. Michelle Deli & Grocery, 215 East 116th Street, 212/828.9097

Just next door was another deli with a tiled counter selling tacos. The tripe was not on the menu but I watched an older man devour a bowl of it while I waited for my order of beef tacos: cecina which is more jerky and therefore chewy, and suadero, or beef stew, which was a little on the dry side and needed some fat content. I sure wish I got the tripe stew instead of their tacos.

3. Cart run by two ladies off the corner of 116th and Second Avenue

I stopped by the cart covered in blue tarp off Second Avenue to ask the ladies what they were selling because the tortillas they were pressing looked like arepas. They were for tacos, they insisted, so I bought a chicken and a beef one. They didn’t hear my usual request of skipping the mayo-like white sauce, so I was forced to eat them like messy gyros. They were bigger and needed to be packed and taken at home to enjoy. Back at home, I realized that the tortillas were thicker and more dense. Though I like that combination for my cakes, it wasn’t the best tortilla for tacos.

4. Taco Mix, 234 East 116th Street, 212/831.8147

I’ve gone back to Taco Mix several times after my initial visit for this write-up. When I go, I always order the buche, or the pork belly, and the oreja, or the ears, for some texture. I’ve since tasted their carnitas, chorizo, al pastor and suadero tacos and must say that all their tacos are far more superior than those of the surrounding delis and stores.

When the lone table in the back is unoccupied, you can sit, eat in and watch the Mexican soap opera blaring from the TV screens. Young men walk in and out, order their dinner and stand over the condiments counter to eat swiftly, while the two guys who work the kitchen chit-chat behind all the meat-smelling smoke. Just another slice of life in Harlem some of us call home.

A nice rewarding bonus–$2.50 for a quarter pound of chicharron from Chuchifrito off Third Avenue: