Writing With My Mouth Full

Lamb Ragu

I was ready to spend the entire day indoors until my phone rang. It was the Dr. asking me if I was interested in having some lamb ragÃ¹ for dinner. When he invites you over for a home-cooked meal, you just go. He’s one of the best cooks I know who can move in the kitchen like no one’s business. If you watch me cook, I’m all over the place, stressing out and trying to make sure I’m getting every step right. He makes cooking less of a chore and the end product is always top-notch.

This lamb ragu from The New York Times Sunday Magazine is one of those recipes you keep and do over and over until you can cook it with your eyes closed. It was hearty and deliciously gamey in flavor, so after a big dump of snow here in the east coast, I wanted to make my own.

They say patience is a virtue and you’re going to need a lot of it for this dish. The key is for everything to be a deep brown color. It’s a sign that all the flavors have been concentrated.

While you do this recipe on your own, here’s a video of my version simmering.

Ingredients:
3 pounds ground lamb leg or shoulder
1 small can of tomato paste
3 cups red wine
1 large onion, chopped
2 carrots, chopped
3 celery stalks, chopped
4 cloves garlic, minced
2 sprigs of rosemary, removed from stem
half a bunch of thyme, tied in a bundle
grated Parmesan
farfalle, cooked al dente
garlic bread, toasted
salt, oil

1. Using a large Dutch oven, heat some olive oil over medium heat. SautÃ© garlic until light brown. Add the onions until translucent. Add the vegetables, season with salt and cook until all the water has evaporated and the vegetables begin to brown, about 18 minutes. Stir frequently.
2. Add ground lamb, season generously with salt and cook until it is browned, about 25 to 30 minutes. Everything should be a deep brown towards the end.
3. Add the tomato paste and cook for about 5 minutes. Stir in the red wine, rosemary and bay leaves. Cook at a lively simmer until the wine has reduced by half. Add the thyme bundle and enough water to cover the lamb by about 1 inch. Simmer for 2 hours, stirring and tasting frequently and adding more water as it evaporates. Remove the bay leaves and thyme when cooked. Season to taste with salt and pepper.
4. To serve, pour over farfalle that’s been cooked al dente. Grate Parmesan all over. Add toasted bread on the side.

Tossed Tofu and Brussels Sprouts Salad

After a family friend had a small heart attack this past week, my mother didn’t necessarily start running on the treadmill. The family friend is, thankfully, okay, but now he has to change his diet. That at least made sense to my mom who bought a few packages of tofu to change hers. Well, at least, begin to change. She asked me for a recipe that’s easy and quick to do.

I want my parents to know that altering their traditional diet to a healthier one requires not much more work than what they’re used to. If they start their meal with a light salad like this, then maybe they would be apt to eating less during the main course. At the least, there’s a variety on their table when I eat with them.

I always have Brussels sprouts on hand so I used a tub of them here. I sliced them in ribbons so that they would cook in less time and they could match the shape of the sliced tofu. This would be excellent with fried pancetta chunks, but I left that off just to teach my mom a lesson. At the end, the leaves were bright and the almonds added some crunchy texture for no more than 20 minutes of prep.

Ingredients:
1 package of extra firm tofu, drained, cut into small and thin chunks
1 small tub of Brussels sprouts, tips cut off, then sliced so they are like ribbons
2 cloves of garlic, minced
half a bunch of cilantro, roughly chopped
a handful of sliced almonds
salt, peanut oil

1. In a large skillet, heat some peanut oil and sautÃ© garlic until golden brown. Add Brussels sprouts and season with salt. Toss in the almonds. Cook for about 5 minutes, setting them aside in the skillet after 3.
2. Add a little bit more oil and fry the tofu. Gently turn them over to cook the other side. It’s okay that some of the tofu get crushed. Turn off the heat. Sprinkle in cilantro and toss everything together. Transfer to a salad bowl.

Porkolt, Hungarian Fish Stew

When my boss returned from our office in Budapest, he handed me two red packets of paprika. The developers we work with over there bought them for me because paprika is the most Hungarian thing that I could think of in terms of food. I’ll just have to wait until I visit them myself to experience and taste everything else.

I read that pÃ¶rkÃ¶lt is like ghoulash, a traditionally peasant and comforting dish for the Eastern Europeans. The most common version is to cook it with beef, but I used fish because I saw fresh Swai fillets in my grocery store. I also wanted to spend more time eating it with a glass of bold, red wine rather than actually cooking it.

Swai, or Vietnamese cat fish, or basa, are inexpensive at $3.99 a pound. But feel free to use any other firm, white fish. Swai fish retain flavor and stay moist when cooking, so I found them ideal for this recipe.

Ingredients:
2 Swai fish fillets, sliced in smaller pieces
1 green bell pepper, seeds removed, julienned
1 medium red onion, thinly sliced
1 tomato, quartered
2 cloves of garlic, minced
1/4 cup of regular paprika
2 tbsps of hot paprika
sour cream
salt, pepper, oil

1. Heat the oil in a large skillet and sautÃ© garlic until golden brown and onions until translucent. Add tomato and green bell pepper and cook for 5 minutes while gently crushing the tomato. Season with paprika, salt and pepper. Remove everything to a plate and set aside.
2. Add a little bit more oil in the skillet. Cook fish fillet for about 3 minutes per side. Add the vegetables back and add 1/4 cup of water and lower the heat to simmer. You’re done when the water has somewhat reduced.
3. To serve, top with a dollop of sour cream. Eat this with rice, pasta or lightly toasted bread.

egg

135A North 5th Street off Bedford Avenue, Williamsburg, Brooklyn
718/302.5151
about $90 for dinner for four, without drinks, without tip
â™¥ â™¥

Updated, December 2008: We closed egg for one Friday night to celebrate my birthday where we had fried chicken, sautéed kale, collard greens, mac-n-Grafton cheese, plus some corn bread and biscuits–all deserves another ♥

I know the owner of egg, that breakfast place in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, with the hipsters waiting outside on weekends. George Weld is a good friend and he also happens to be the chef. Forgive me if this review may seem biased, but I swear I’m not giving anything to this restaurant that’s not well-deserved: three hearts for breakfast and two for dinner.

For years, egg shared space with Sparky’s and only served breakfast until noon. Now, egg has taken over the entire space and is serving lunch (on weekdays only) and dinner until 10pm. A liquor license is on the way. All the menus are still Southern-inspired, and they still get all the ingredients they can from small and local producers. Needless to say, I am happy and proud of the egg family–so we made the trek from Harlem to Williamsburg one weekend to congratulate them.

After a ridiculous 40-minute wait for breakfast, we were finally seated right by the door. A few more diners came in before the waitress put up a note saying that the kitchen was closed until 6pm. People still came in to try and get food, letting in the draft behind me. I was uncomfortable and cold, but our waitress made sure that we got the next table that freed up farther from the entrance. After being transfered, we finally took our coats off and enjoyed our late breakfasts of eggs, grits, scrapple (pork scraps with cornmeal), bacon, hash browns, and pork sausage. For a place full of hipsters, the attitude of the staff makes you feel like you’re not even in New York City. They’re friendly, accommodating, and very patient with the hungry customers.

Given the wait, we took our time to eat and only left when the restaurant was empty. My three-egg Grafton Cheddar omelet was served with broiled tomatoes and hashbrowns. The cheese was sharp, but the tomatoes balanced everything out. I wish the restaurant would offer more side vegetables in the future. I also got a side of sausage at the end. Perfectly salty and juicy, I would choose it over any kind of eggs. Cameron’s cheese grits didn’t last very long. They weren’t too mealy or too soft, and the cheesy tang was perfectly balanced with the creamy texture. And the biscuits–oh, the biscuits–transported us with their crispy edges and fluffy insides. Have I mentioned the lightly sugared donuts brought to our table before our plates arrived?

We spent the rest of our afternoon walking around the neighborhood and checking out the stores down Bedford and Grand. After several drinks at Larry Lawrence, two more people joined us, and we all decided to walk as fast as we could back to the restaurant to eat dinner. We made it before they closed the kitchen at 10pm, but alas, there was no more fried chicken. This was upsetting to our entire party, but we made do with the pork chops and sausage with cabbage, fish and hominy, and perhaps the best dish on the menu, slow-roasted duck and dirty rice.

The menu is straightforward, and the food is hearty. One of my friends was surprised to love the cabbage, but another wished the pork were tastier. My duck was crispy outside and tender inside. The “dirty” rice reminded me of how Filipinos would scrape off the oil and spice bits from the bottom of a pan with rice and serve it just the way it is: dirty. The fish was under-seasoned–we bet a side of fried chicken would have made it taste better! While they’ve got the breakfast down pat, dinner is very new to egg, and it definitely needs to be refined. Never running out of fried chicken would be the perfect place to start.

Bubble and Squeak

There was half a cabbage head in the fridge that I didn’t want to go to waste. I remembered the Dr. making us bubble and squeak throughout our stay in Iceland, making use of the expensive cabbage and potatoes available in the grocery stores we drove by. Locked up indoors because of a nasty bug, I made my version and tucked in with a bowl of it in front of The Millionaire Matchmaker. Vegetarians can make this without the pancetta, and vegans can skip the heavy cream if they roast the cabbage and the potatoes longer towards the end.

Bubble and squeak is an English dish traditionally made with leftover vegetables from a roast dinner. I’m being traditional here because, hey, that cabbage was from the corned beef I made. Funny how cabbages last forever! I’m not quite sure where the name comes from. I think the bubble is from when the dish is bubbling hot. And the squeak? Well, we all know what a lot of cabbage does to you!

Ingredients:
half a head of cabbage, sliced in ribbons
4 medium potatoes, halved
1 medium red onion, sliced thinly
1 chunk of pancetta, chopped
1/2 cup of heavy cream
2 cloves garlic, minced
salt, pepper, oil

1. Boil the potatoes in a pan filled with salted water until tender, about 25 minutes. Remove potatoes from the water. When cool enough to handle, slice the potatoes thinly.
2. Preheat oven to 350Âº. Using an oven-safe skillet, heat some oil and render the pancetta. SautÃ© the garlic and onions. Add the cabbage. Season with salt and pepper. Toss and cook everything together until cabbage is soft. Spread the potatoes on top, covering the cabbage. Pour in heavy cream.
3. Roast in the oven for about 10 minutes or until bubbling hot. Remove from the oven, toss and serve with gherkins.