Man Cub

I have a bit of a man (boy) crush going on. I met a kid on one of the social network sites a while back and in the process of getting to know more about him, discovered he was a baker. Well, one thing led to another and I ended up paying him a visit over the long President's Day weekend. One day I asked him to bake me some rolls for sandwiches. He graciously obliged.

Ciabatta Rolls - Rustic Italian Food, Marc Vetri & David Joachim

Starter

2 cups (250g) high-protein flour like King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose flour ⅛ tsp (0.5g) instant yeast 1⅛ cups (250g) warm water (100 to 110°F)

In a large bowl, mix flour, yeast and water until well combined. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rise at room temperature for 12 hours, or until almost tripled in volume. Now it's ready to use.

Ciabatta dough

1¾ cups (250g) high-protein flour 1⅛ tsp (4g) instant yeast ½ cup cold water 1 cup starter ½ Tbsp fine sea salt

Take one cup of your starter from the day before and combine with the flour, water and yeast. Mix until everything is moist.

Scrape the sides of the bowl as needed with a rubber spatula and continue mixing until the dough becomes smooth.

Add the salt and continue to mix the dough until very smooth. Form into a smooth ball.

Transfer finished dough ball into an oiled bowl, turning to coat thoroughly, cover with plastic and set in a warm spot (90°F) until doubled in size, or about 1 hour. Using a bowl scraper or a large mixing spoon dipped in flour, scrape the dough onto a heavily floured surface. Pat the dough with floured hands into a ½" thick rectangle.

Fold into thirds as you would a letter (if you ever write one in this age of emails and text messages).

Cut into 3 equal parts and shape into rough rectangles.

Place on parchment paper and cover with a kitchen towel. Store in a warm place (90°F) and let rise until air bubbles form under the surface of the dough and the dough is light, airy, and almost doubled in size, about 1 hour. Remove all but the bottom rack in your oven and preheat to 375°F for at least 30 minutes.

Bake for 25 minutes or until a nice golden color. Remove from oven and allow to cool completely.

We picked up cheese & lunchmeat from an awesome guy behind the deli counter at the local supermarket, yellow tomatoes and red-leaf lettuce. Simple, humble ingredients. I've never had a better lunch. It was a feast.

Thanks for taking the time - Blog O. Food

Pineapple Express

This is a story about figs, and a dessert that could not be recreated.

About five weeks ago I was invited up to Boothbay, Maine by a chef friend of mine, let's call him GwaG (short for Geoff with a G). It was his mother's 70th birthday and the whole family was gathering to mark the occasion with some serious weekend feasting. GwaG and I would be in charge of dessert after the formal birthday meal. We both agreed that something simple and rustic would be suitable. I knew that nothing was simpler than frozen puff pastry and that the hard work would be coming up with a fruit filling for a rustic tart. In late September the blueberries are long gone from Maine's rocky shores and apples seemed just too damned pedestrian to wow a crowd of gourmands. So I went a whole other route with something savory and sweet at the same time. That's how I came up with brandy-soaked dried Kalamata figs, goat cheese and fresh mint. It was risky experimenting like that on crowd of foodies, but nothing ventured, nothing gained someone once said. And the results? Well, the tart made a repeat appearance the following night by command of Mother GwaG herself, so one could assume it didn't suck.

When I went looking for dried figs during yesterday's record-breaking snow storm, none could be found, and I wasn't about to go gallivanting around the Bronx and Westchester counties looking for them when perfectly adequate substitutes eyed me from the shelves of TJs.

Chili Pineapple Tart - a Blog.O.Food original

1 package (¼ cup) Trader Joe's Chile Spiced Pineapple ¼ cup Frangelico liqueur ½ Tbsp brown sugar 1 sheet puff pastry dough 4 oz goat cheese, at room temperature 1 Tbsp fresh mint chiffonade

In a stainless steel mixing bowl, toss the dried pineapple, liqueur and brown sugar to thoroughly combine. Cover with plastic wrap and allow to sit for at least an hour, or overnight.

Pre-heat your oven to 400°F. Strain the macerated pineapple through a fine sieve, reserving the liquid. Thaw the puff pastry sheet for 10 minutes before rolling out on a floured work surface to roughly form a 10"x14" rectangle.

Transfer the dough to a baking sheet covered with parchment paper. Lightly brush some of the reserved fruit liquid on the tart crust to within 1 inch of the four edges. Arrange pineapple evenly on top of the syrup. Crumble the goat cheese over the fruit then top with the mint. Artfully fold over the edges of the pastry to make a rustic looking tart, and move to the oven.

Bake for 15 minutes, or until the crust has risen and develops a nice golden brown color. Remove tart from the baking sheet and allow to cool slightly before slicing and serving.

There is a welcome and not-unpleasant kick from the chili in my tart. It really enlivens the taste buds, and as with the figs, the cheese and mint play off one another in subtle and tantalizing ways. And I never met a food that a little hooch couldn't improve!

Did I say adequate substitutes? Well, I do have a gift for understatement. The pineapple tart far exceeded anything I had tried in that arena previously. I think we can safely say I hit this one out of the ball park. I'll be pulling a chili pineapple tart out my arsenal anytime I'm looking to score a few points with the "ladies", if you catch my drift.

Thanks for taking the time - Blog O. Food

"I grew up thinking of snow as a luxury you visit." ~ John Landis

Saturday, October 29, 2011. It snowed today. It snowed. In October. All day. I was incredulous. All the weathermen forewarned us of the coming storm, but I dismissed them outright as mouthpieces for the insidious and unending stream of propaganda coming out of Washington, probably a ploy to get the Occupy Wall Streeters out of Zuccotti Park.

Who's laughing now?

Like a boob, I shot off to Target this morning, blithely confident in the knowledge that I could outrun any snow that would drop later in the afternoon. In the checkout line I stared aghast at the freakishly large snowflakes falling outside the wall of picture windows at the entrance. Suddenly, my self-satisfaction at the purchase of a shiny new immersion blender waned. By the time I reached the parking lot it was simply dumping snow, and I still had to get to Trader Joe's. I had a decision to make, I could chuck it all and turn tail for home, or I could ride it out. But my truck has four-wheel drive. The choice was taken out of my hands.

I was already planning on cooking. I picked up veal chops from the butcher on Friday, when the skies were blue, and the temps in the upper 50's. That seemed like ages ago. So it wasn't any stretch to come up with a Marsala sauce on a wintery night in October, it just seemed incongruous, some how. But that was before the four inches of slush I had to trudge through this afternoon.

Marsala Sauce - as seen in every cookbook known to mankind

4 Tbsp olive oil 1 large shallot, finely chopped 1 Tbsp garlic, minced ¼ lb portabella mushrooms, de-stemmed and sliced 2 Tbsp flour ½ cup Marsala wine 1 cup chicken stock Salt & pepper to taste

Add two tablespoons of olive oil to a large skillet set over medium-high heat. Make sure your pan is very hot before adding the oil. Once the oil just starts to smoke, sear the chops on both sides, 2-3 minutes per side. Remove the meat from the pan, and set aside, covered.

Add the remaining oil. Introduce the onions, garlic and mushrooms to the pan and cook until the mushrooms are tender and have given off most of their moisture.

Sprinkle the flour over the mushroom mixture and continue to cook for an additional minute or two, stirring constantly. Deglaze the pan with the Marsala wine over high heat, scraping up the browned bits on the bottom of the skillet with a wooden spoon. Stir in the stock and adjust the seasonings. Nestle the veal chops in the sauce. Reduce the heat and allow the sauce to reduce and thicken, roughly 10 minutes.

I'm on one of my ridiculous health kicks and have given up starchy foods for the time being, at least until Thanksgiving (I've already lost 20 pounds!), but had I a mind to, I would have served these chops over spätzle, then drown them in sauce. Yeah, that's what I would have done. Instead, I had my second favorite vegetable, asparagus roasted in a hot, hot oven and simply dressed with olive oil and a little sea salt.

I spent the entire morning pissed off at the weather and the moronically timid drivers who decided to clog the streets of NYC, always in front of me. But it was a silly and nugatory exercise. It wasn't until my first taste of the Marsala sauce that I finally remembered how good life actually is. And what makes it so good? The little things, naturally. It took all of 20 minutes to prepare this meal, yet it tasted like a team of chefs slaved over a hot stove for hours. I'm just sayin'...

Thanks for taking the time - Blog O. Food