Writing With My Mouth Full

recent posts

    • Tabbouleh

      I loved reading Diana Abu-Jaber’s The Language of Baklava. Not only did I read about how it was like to grow up with a Jordanian father and an American mother, I also learned how to cook some of her family’s dishes.

      Ingredients:
      1 cup of fine bulgur wheat, soaked in water for about an hour and drained
      1 bunch of flat-leaf parsley, finely chopped
      2 medium cucumbers, peeled and diced
      3 medium tomatoes, diced
      juice of 1 small lemon
      salt, pepper, olive oil

      1. In a large bowl, mix everything together and let sit in the fridge for an hour or two to marinate.

      Related post/s:
      The Language of Baklava at Amazon.com

    • Asparagus Soup

      I love how rich the green of this soup is. If your guest is adamant about eating soup with meat, brown some bacon and chop to smaller pieces. Add the bacon at the same time you garnish the soup with the asparagus tips.

      Ingredients:
      vegetable stock
      1 bunch of asparagus, chopped, reserving the tips
      1 leek, white parts only, chopped
      1 medium red onion, roughly chopped
      half a bunch of flat-leaf parsley, roughly chopped
      half a stick of butter
      grated lemon peel
      salt, pepper

      1. Melt butter in a large soup pot. Sauté garlic and onions. Add leeks and cook until soft, about 3 minutes. Add the asparagus stems, onion and parsley with salt and pepper. Add vegetable stock and bring to a boil. Then simmer until asparagus is tender, about 5 minutes.
      2. Purée mixture using a blender, in batches if necessary. Return soup to pot and thin with more stock if desired.
      3. In a separate pot, boil some water and cook asparagus tips for about 2 minutes with some salt. Use as garnish for soup.

      Related post/s:
      Vegetable stock

    • Vegetable Stock

      Vegetable stock? Even the biggest carnivore would want a simple soup without meat.

      Ingredients:
      leeks, greens only, roughly chopped
      carrot, peeled and chopped
      celery stalk, chopped
      parsley branches
      bay leaf
      salt and olive oil

      1. Sauté leeks in a stock pot with hot olive oil. Add and lightly brown the rest of the ingredients. Add enough water and bring to a boil.
      2. Simmer under low fire for a couple of hours until stock is reduced to about half. Strain into containers. Let cool before freezing to store for future use.

      Related post/s:
      Asparagus Soup

    • Chicken Tagine with Vegetables and Preserved Lemon

      This is the boy’s favorite dish among the many I try to cook for him. Rachel cooked this dish for her husband and it passed his test–he’s Moroccan. Serve this with crusty bread and even a Korean man would be impressed.

      Ingredients:
      6 chicken drumsticks and thighs, skin removed
      half a bag of baby carrots
      4 baby potatoes, quartered
      3 large red onions, finely chopped
      1 tsp powdered ginger
      1/4 tsp turmeric
      1 bunch of flat-leaf parsley, finely chopped
      chicken stock
      1 tomato, to be grated over tagine
      1 preserved lemon, cut into strips, pulp removed
      juice from 1 lemon
      1 cup green peas
      salt, pepper, olive oil

      1. Over high heat, add olive oil and cook the chicken until golden brown on both sides.
      2. Add the onions, ginger, turmeric and black pepper. Add enough chicken stock to cover. Add the parsley and cover with lid. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer, about 30 minutes.
      3. If chicken is cooked, grate one tomato into tagine, add preserved lemon strips, carrots and potatoes. Add a cup of water and the lemon juice. Uncover and cook until vegetables are done and the sauce reduced. Add salt to taste. Add peas in last minute of cooking.

      Related post/s:
      Make your own preserved lemons
      Dom’s carries preserved lemons if you don’t want to make them

    • Swedish Meatballs

      Adapted from Marcus Samuelsson, Aquavit Restaurant

      Ingredients:
      For the meatballs:
      3/4 pound ground beef
      3/4 pound ground pork
      1/2 cup dry bread crumbs
      1/4 cup heavy cream
      1 medium red onion, finely chopped
      2 tbsps honey
      1 egg
      3 tbsps unsalted butter
      salt, pepper, olive oil

      For the sauce:
      1 cup chicken stock
      1/2 cup heavy cream
      1/4 cup cranberry relish
      2 tbsps juice from a jar of tiny gherkin pickles
      salt, pepper

      1. Sauté onions in hot skillet with olive oil until softened. Let cool and set aside.
      2. Make meatballs. In a bowl, mix ground beef and pork with honey, egg, bread crumbs and cream. Add salt and pepper to taste.
      3. Melt butter in the same skillet. Brown meatballs and cook for about 7 minutes. Transfer to a clean plate. Keep skillet on heat and discard the remaining oil and juice except for 1 tablespoon.
      4. Make sauce by whisking stock, cream, cranberry and pickle juice in the skillet over medium heat. Simmer and add salt and pepper to taste. Add meatballs and simmer for an extra 5 minutes and until sauce is slightly thickened.
      5. Serve with tiny gherkins and top with more cranberry relish.

      Related post/s:
      Aquavit
      Making meatballs at home
      The New Scandinavian Cuisine at Amazon.com

    • egg

      135A North 5th Street off Bedford Avenue, Williamsburg, Brooklyn
      718/302.5151
      about $50 for two, without drinks, with tip
      ♥ ♥ ♥

      My only complaint about egg is that it stops serving breakfast at noon. That doesn’t give me enough time to wake up in Harlem and trudge all the way to Brooklyn to eat breakfast. I’m sure the hipsters who live in the neighborhood feel the same way. But if any of us need a good reason to wake up, it’s breakfast via the L train to Williamsburg. The menu is short, southern-inspired and most especially, organic. There’s the delicious ham and the orgasmic bacon, the fresh and warm homemade biscuits with sausage gravy, the grits made with love, the fig jam and the oh-so-real potato hash.

      If you’ve never made a big deal of breakfast, you’ve never had a meal at egg. One bite and you’d forget that you’d otherwise still be sleeping. The best part of it all is still feeling pretty good after your big meal. Every ingredient was selected by its chef, George Weld, to make sure that you’re not putting anything bad in your mouth. This is important because, hey, you still have seven hours to go before the sun goes down.

      Related post/s:
      Sparkys All-American Food

    • Cafe Mogador

      101 St. Marks Place between First and Avenue A
      212/677-2226
      about $80 for two, with two drinks, without tip
      ♥ ♥

      Whenever I’m craving for a lamb dinner but don’t necessarily want Indian food, I go to Cafe Mogador. Their tagines are excellent here and my favorite is the lamb with couscous in saffron sauce. The staff is not the friendliest–every time I visit, I always wait outside for at least 30 minutes to be seated even though there are empty tables inside. I’ve learned to bug the waiters, though, and point to an empty table and volunteer my party to be seated right away. I don’t understand how they work, but it’s hard to say no to a comforting tagine.

    • Raspberry Pastries

      I love Everyday Food because they have simple recipes like this pastry snack using the frozen kind. I’m sure Martha would prefer that you make your own pastry shell from scratch and pick raspberries from your own garden, but frozen pastry and raspberries in a jar work, too.

      Ingredients:
      1 box or 6 pieces of frozen puff pastry shells, thawed
      raspberry jam
      white sugar

      1. Preheat oven at 400º. Spread jam on shells and sprinkle with white sugar on top. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and bake until pastries are puffed and golden, about 10 minutes. Sprinkle with a little more sugar. Let cool and serve.

      Related post/s:
      Everyday Food at Amazon.com

    • Carrot Vichyssoise

      Vichyssoise, pronounced as vee-shee-swaz, is a fancy term for a thick creamy potato soup flavored with leeks, usually served cold.

      Ingredients:
      3 medium-sized leeks, roughly chopped and thoroughly washed minus the hard green leaves
      1 clove garlic, minced
      4 small Yukon gold potatoes, peeled; 2 cut into smaller chunks and the other julienned
      3 medium-sized carrots, peeled; 2 sliced and 1 julienned
      2 1/2 cups of chicken stock
      2 cups of whole milk
      3 tbsps of fresh chives
      olive oil, salt and pepper

      1. Heat a stockpot and add olive oil. Cook leeks and garlic until leeks are wilted, about 12 minutes, stirring occasionally.
      2. Add the potato chunks and carrot slices to the pot along with the stock, salt, pepper and 2 cups of water. Cover partially and bring to a boil over high heat. Reduce heat and cook vegetables until tender, about 20 minutes.
      3. Remove from heat. Stir in milk and purée in blender until smooth. Cool.
      4. Cook julienned potatoes and carrots in a separate pot of boiling water until tender, about 3 minutes. Drain and transfer to an ice bath to stop the cooking. Drain and add to puréed soup for garnish. Top with chives.

      Related post/s:
      Lettuce soup
      Good ol’ chicken stock

    • French Ham with Lavender

      How do you dress up ham? If you’re Filipino, there’d be pineapple slices and cherries on top, but if you’re French, you use lavender. I went all over Manhattan to find fresh lavender sprigs and finally found them at a Whole Foods store in Chelsea. I’m not French, of course, but who says I can’t snazz up my ham like they do?

      Ingredients:
      1 fresh ham, 3 to 4 pounds
      1/2 cup garlic, cut into slivers
      4 sprigs thyme
      2 sprigs rosemary
      4 sprigs lavender
      1 medium can of diced tomatoes
      1 cup lavender honey
      zest and juice of 1 lemon
      1 tbsp fennel seed
      salt and pepper

      1. Preheat oven at 325º. Score the ham crosswise and place in an oven-safe roaster pot of boiling salted water. Simmer for 3 minutes and remove to a platter.
      2. Insert half of the garlic into the ham using a knife. Place ham back in pot of water and add the rest of the garlic, all the herbs and the tomatoes. Bring to a boil.
      3. Bake in oven for 3 hours, basting occasionally. Cover with aluminum foil if ham browns too quickly. Remove ham from pot when cooked.
      4. Reduce remaining liquid over medium fire. Stir in honey, zest and juice of lemon and fennel seeds. Use as glaze for ham.

      Related post/s:
      Where to get lavender honey

    • Green and Lima Bean Salad

      A very nutritious and green salad that children may hate.

      Ingredients:
      2 pounds of fresh green beans, ends snapped
      1 small box of frozen lima beans
      2 tbsps fresh tarragon, finely chopped, plus more for garnish
      1 bunch of flat-leaf parsley, finely chopped
      1/4 cup of white wine vinegar
      3 tbsps Dijon mustard
      1 shallot, finely chopped
      salt, pepper, olive oil

      1. Cook all the beans in boiling salted water, about 5 minutes. Transfer to an ice bath to stop the cooking.
      2. Make vinaigrette. In a medium bowl, combine vinegar, mustard and shallots. Add salt and pepper to taste. Whisk in olive oil until vinaigrette is creamy. Whisk in tarragon and parsley. Toss beans in a large bowl until well coated with vinaigrette. Garnish with remaining tarragon and parsley.

      Related post/s:
      So you have too much Dijon mustard?

    • Homemade Meatballs

      This is my basic recipe for making meatballs at home using either ground pork, beef or lamb. Depending on the dish I am using the meatballs for, I add breadcrumbs and an egg to make sure they remain intact when added. For more tagine and stew dishes, I skip both, substitute the nutmeg for cumin and usually add some mint.

      Ingredients:
      1 pound lean ground meat
      1/4 cup of parsley, finely chopped
      2 garlic cloves, minced
      1 tbsp plain dried breadcrumbs
      1 large egg
      1/8 tsp ground nutmeg
      salt, pepper

      1. Combine and mix all the ingredients in a large bowl. Form golf-sized balls with your hands using some breadcrumbs to help them stick together.
      2. Arrange on a baking sheet and freeze for an hour. Once frozen, transfer to a re-sealable bag.

      Related post/s:
      Swedish meatballs
      Meatballs with pomegranate molasses