Sunda

Last night we went to a new restaurant - Sunda. We had a gift card which was a wedding gift (thanks Phil and Rebecca!), so that made the night extra fun. Sunda calls its type of cuisine "New Asian", and the menu was vast. It was hard to decide what to order with so many choices, but we ended up sticking with small dishes and sushi.

First course, by recommendation of our waiter: Roasted Duck Hash Salad (glazed duck, daikon cake, frisee, crispy egg) and Boo-Dah's Style Grilled Ahi Tuna and Pork (with chile vinegar, mango, sweet onions).




These ended up being our favorite dishes of the meal. The duck frisee salad was really excellent. You can't really see under the egg, but there was a lot of shredded duck meat and little glazed daikon cakes about the size of croutons. The pork and tuna salad was an interesting combination but worked really well. The pork was actually pork belly, and the dressing was spicy and a great complement to the mango.

Next we ordered the Rock Shrimp Tempura (with glazed walnuts and creamy honey aioli) as well as yellowtail and tuna sashimi.




The shrimp ended up being our least favorite of the night, but it was still very good. The creamy sweet aioli got to be a bit rich by the end of the dish, but the pairing of shrimp and walnuts was a good one. The sashimi was perfect. I'm usually partial to the tuna, but the yellowtail was actually my favorite. How pretty is that little tuna rose?

We ended the meal with two rolls - spicy tuna, and the Dynamite roll (I think...I can't find it on the menu online). The special roll had crab, scallop, shrimp, and probably 4 other ingredients I'm forgetting, in a "dynamite" sauce. They dimmed the lights in the restaurant before this last course and my photos of the rolls are really just not good enough to post. I am usually a sucker for specialty rolls with all kinds of creative ingredients, but I actually liked the plain old spicy tuna roll the best. It was truly spicy - which sounds stupid, but most places serve spicy tuna rolls that really aren't so spicy. This one had a hotness that took a few seconds to kick in, and it was great.

All in all it was a great meal and I hope we can go back soon.

On a totally unrelated note, we went for a few drinks yesterday afternoon at the Clark Street Ale House. They have a back patio that recently opened for the season, and since it was so beautiful yesterday we went to have a couple beers outside. This bar is extremely dog friendly, and it turned into a dog party on the patio.




Those are a couple of the sweet guys we were hanging out with at the bar. There was a dog-related mishap (not involving us) while we were there, and I'll just say if you're ever at this bar don't leave your jacket over the back of your chair, or leave your bag on the ground.

George Washington Cookies

Today is a special day - the day I share the recipe for George Washington cookies. These cookies kind of fall under the "secret family recipe" category just because they've been around for so long. I've been making these cookies since I was three or four, and I can prove it.



That's me making the cookies with Jeannette, at my grandfather's house in Dartmouth, Massachusetts in 1986. Jeannette was my grandfather's housekeeper way back when, and has been a dear family friend ever since. This is her cookie recipe. She used to transport the cookies stacked up in a Lazzaroni Amaretto tin.



1 1/2 cup flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 cup butter, at room temperature
3/4 cup brown sugar
3/4 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup chopped walnuts
2 cups rolled oats
1 package chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Sift flour, measure, and sift again with baking soda and salt. Cream butter with both sugars. Beat eggs into butter/sugar mixture. Add vanilla and mix well. Stir in dry ingredients. Add nuts, oats, and chocolate chips. Drop on a greased cookie sheet (about 1 tablespoon for each cookie) and bake 12-15 minutes until golden brown.

This recipe makes a lot of cookies - about four and a half or five dozen. The addition of the oats almost doubles the amount of batter.



I have no idea why they are called George Washington cookies. I tried looking around online to see if I could figure it out - no luck. These cookies aren't so much gooey and doughy, but crispy and chewy. I actually made them last Monday but couldn't write about them until now because I sent them to my sister for her birthday today (along with some granola bars), so I couldn't write anything until she received them. Happy birthday Bub!

Oasis Cafe

I love falafel. For those of you who don't know - I didn't until a few years ago - falafel is a fried ball of ground chick peas and/or fava beans, and herbs and spices. I think the first falafel I had was from Bereket. Anyway, yesterday we went to Oasis Cafe for a falafel lunch. Here's a picture of the outside:



Nope, that's not a mistake. Oasis Cafe is in the back of a jewelry store on Wabash Avenue - this stretch of Wabash is Jewelers Row, a.k.a the West 47th Street of Chicago. Oasis is a hidden gem...pun intended.



We ordered two falafel sandwiches and a lentil soup. The falafel sandwich comes with lettuce, tomato, cucumber, and tahini dressing (and obviously falafels) packed inside a pita. You have to ask for hot sauce, which they serve on the side. At first I thought the lentil soup was made with red lentils, but it had a tomato taste to it so maybe it was green lentils with tomato. Not sure, but it was good.




The falafel was great - nice and crispy and hot. Not as great as my beloved Moshe's, but pretty darn good.

Scarpetta's Spaghetti

I was thinking of calling this post "Pasta Disaster 2.0" but it wasn't a total disaster - the dish turned out really well. But again, it was a battle between me and the pasta dough, and the pasta dough nearly won. Let me start from the beginning.

This week's new episode of Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations was simply called "Techniques" - instead of traveling to an exotic international location and eating the local cuisine, Tony (and some other chefs) gave lessons on the basics of cooking. Tony made a beef bourguignon, Jacques Pepin made an omelet, Thomas Keller made a roast chicken (the same recipe I use!), and Scott Conant of Scarpetta made spaghetti with tomato sauce and basil. There were also a couple other chefs/dishes. If I were going on the Food Network show The Best Thing I Ever Ate, I would talk about Scarpetta's spaghetti with tomato and basil. It's such a simple dish but done so perfectly. Fresh pasta, just enough sauce to coat the spaghetti, fresh basil, and a little parmesan cheese.

Naturally, I was really excited to see the dish prepared on tv. Peter was watching me watch this, and he said "you're going to try to make this, aren't you..." Yup. I wish there was video of Scott Conant making the dish, but there's no clip on the Travel Channel website. There is a written recipe, but it differs slightly from how he made it on the show. I decided to follow his instructions from the demonstration rather than the recipe. He didn't talk at all about the pasta, just the sauce. So I consulted my dad on homemade pasta, again, and tried to make it, again. Disaster. Enough explanation, here goes.

Sauce:
20 plum or roma tomatoes
1/2 cup olive oil, plus a few tablespoons
salt
10-12 basil leaves, half of cut into a chiffonade
8-10 cloves garlic
1-2 Tbl. unsalted butter
freshly grated parmigiano-reggiano cheese
crushed red pepper

Bring a large pot of water to boil, and add salt. Cut a small, not very deep X into the bottom of the each tomato. Prepare a bowl of ice water. Cook the tomatoes in the boiling water for about 30 seconds to a minute. Watch for the X on the bottom to start to separate and the skin to start to peel away a little. Transfer the tomatoes to the ice water to stop the cooking. I did the tomatoes about 2 or 3 at a time.



Peel the skin off all the tomatoes. You may have to use a small knife to get some of it off. Cut two small incisions in each side of each tomato and scoop out the seeds and guts with your finger. You don't have to get every last bit out, but most of it. Use the same big pot that had water in it, and heat up a few tablespoons of olive oil. Add the tomatoes and a big pinch of salt. Let the tomatoes cook for about 10 minutes or so, then start to mash them up with a potato masher. The tomatoes should cook for about 40 minutes total, and should have a smooth consistency.

About halfway through the tomato cooking, heat a small saucepan with about 1/2 cup of olive oil. Add half the basil leaves (you can put the whole stem in), a big pinch of crushed red pepper, and the garlic cloves. Let everything infuse into the oil, cooking for about 10 minutes. Strain the olive oil into the tomato mixture.




Pasta:
2 cups flour
4 eggs

Combine ingredients in a bowl with a fork, or in a mixer with the hook attachment. Add a little more flour if the dough is too sticky, or a bit of water if it's dry. Form the dough into a ball.




My pasta machine is a hand crank, not the kind you attach on a mixer. I think this kind is the best, and they are inexpensive. There's a lot of different ones on Amazon.



I started rolling out the dough...



And that's where I'm going to stop. I guess my dough was still too sticky and I should have added more flour, because once I flattened it enough and started to put it through the spaghetti cutting crank, things took a turn for the worse. It got all stuck in there wouldn't cut. I tried sticking the dough in the freezer for a couple minutes to firm it up. Still wouldn't work. Just like last time I tried to make pasta, I considered throwing all the dough and the machine off the balcony.

So I don't really feel qualified to give any instructions on how to do this. I ended up cutting the spaghetti by hand, which was a HUGE pain. It was actually fettucine because I did not have the patience to cut the noodles any smaller. In the end it was totally fine and tasted great, but was way too time consuming since I couldn't get it through the crank. Anyway, if you decide to give this process a try, you only have to cook the pasta for a minute or two. Barely.

As the pasta cooks, heat up a medium skillet with a little olive oil. Cook the pasta about 75% and put one serving in the skillet with some sauce, a little less than a tablespoon of unsalted butter, a small pinch of crushed red pepper, some grated cheese, and some of the chopped basil (for a chiffonade stack the leaves up, roll them up, and cut slices so you have long strips). Toss everything gently in the pan to combine all the ingredients. Scott Conant described it by saying the sauce should be like it's part of the pasta. And that's it!



Other than the pasta dough problems, the dish was easy. But I really think that the two things that make this dish are the homemade pasta, and the butter. If you don't want to make homemade pasta (and I don't blame you), definitely buy fresh pasta. It makes a world of difference. And the butter - I had never put butter into a pasta and tomato sauce dish, but it really made everything adhere and added just a little bit of creaminess. The other key is getting the tomato sauce to be a smooth consistency. If I had an immersion blender I would have used it, but just make sure you keep mashing the tomatoes to get all the big pieces broken up. I will definitely do the skillet/butter method again, that's where the dish really came together.

So...did it taste like the Scarpetta dish? I think in general, it was similar. It certainly didn't look as pretty. It did taste really good. But who was I kidding..did I really think I would be able to replicate the best thing I ever ate?

Food Photography

There's an article in this week's Dining section of the New York Times that pretty much sums up my life as of late - taking photographs of food both at restaurants and at home. I don't take photos of every single thing I eat - pictures of my daily breakfast of Kashi Go Lean Crunch would get boring pretty quickly - but I do photograph everything I cook and try to take pictures at most of the restaurants I visit. It's one thing when it's just Peter and I at dinner, or my sister or my parents...but when the group is big and extends to people beyond my closest family and friends it can get a little awkward. I also haven't been to a super fancy restaurant since I started this blog...I mean, it's a special occasion kind of thing so no surprise...but Peter and I are already toying with the idea of going to Le Bernardin to celebrate our first anniversary in September and I'm already wondering if I should take pictures. Not sure if I would want to because it's such a nice place (but I could be discrete and not use a flash)...also not sure if I would want to because I will just want to enjoy the meal. But how could I go to Le Bern and not document every tasty piece of seafood I might eat? I'll cross that bridge when, and if I get there.

All this thinking about fancy dinners and taking photos of food is reminding me of a very special meal on our honeymoon. We spent two nights at the Chateau de la Chevre D'Or (translation: Castle of the Golden Goat) in Eze, a village in the south of France which is about 20 minutes from Nice. I don't even know how to put into words just how breathtaking this hotel is. It is actually part of the ancient village of Eze which is perched on a cliff above the Mediterranean. The hotel has various levels of gardens you can walk through that bring you slowly down along the cliffside. Here's one of my favorite pictures I took, because it's obviously beautiful and because I was very proud of myself for holding the camera still enough to get the night setting to work.



The hotel's main restaurant, simply called La Chevre d'Or, has two Michelin stars for 2010. Upon arriving at the hotel we decided we should do our one big blowout meal of the trip here. This is me (in my pool clothes) studying the menu.



And here's the actual menu. We chose the set menu, without wine pairings, at a bargain rate of 95 euros per person. I decided not to bring my camera to dinner, but I was able to get a photo of it because it was included in the big binder of info placed in each hotel room.



Rough translation (pathetic for someone who studied French for 12+ years):
First course: mushrooms and eggplant. This was an eggplant and mushroom jam served on a little toast.
Second course: Mediterranean sea bass with black pasta and squids
Third course: milk-fed veal with osso buco juice, carrots, and spinach
Dessert: "Pear Williams" tart with a mini vanilla and pear milkshake.

Not included on the written menu were little in between courses: duck foie gras to start, a cheese course after the veal, and a second dessert (I guess it's really a first dessert) of profiteroles with ginger and citrus ice cream which was served before the pear tart.

And finally, the point about photos in fancy restaurants - even though I didn't bring my camera, Peter brought the Flip video camera and artfully shot three short videos which total about a minute. The middle part of the video is the waiter preparing the eggplant and mushroom dish tableside.



The meal, and trip of a lifetime. After paying the bill, we then had to eat stale baguettes for every meal on the rest of our trip.

Thai Grilled Steak

Airports are the worst...long lines, security checkpoints, 3 oz. liquids, taking your shoes off, delays, and don't even get me started on the masses of people wearing sweatpants and pajama pants. A couple months ago there was a guy at my gate with BARE FEET. But there's a glimmer of happiness at the airport, too - the newsstand. I always treat myself to a food magazine or two to enjoy on the plane. This past weekend I bought the April edition of Food & Wine, and found this great recipe I made last night. The recipe is actually Thai Grilled Skirt Steak, but I used flank steak instead. And as usual, I cut it in half, but here's the full recipe:



1/4 cup toasted sesame oil
1/4 cup soy sauce
2 Tbl. each of finely chopped ginger, garlic, cilantro, and salted roasted peanuts
2 scallions, minced
1 Tbl. each of light brown sugar, lime juice, and chile oil
2 lbs. skirt steak
1/4 cup chicken stock
salt and freshly ground pepper

In a bowl, whisk together the sesame oil, soy sauce, ginger, garlic, cilantro, peanuts, scallions, sugar, lime juice, and chile oil; transfer half to a shallow dish. Add the steak and turn to coat. cover and refrigerate overnight. Refrigerate the remaining marinade.



Light a grill. Add the stock to the reserved marinade. Bring the steak to room temperature, season with salt and pepper and grill over high heat until medium rare, 5 minutes. Transfer the steak to a board and let rest for 5 minutes, then thinly slice across the grain. Serve the steak with the sauce.

So I used flank steak which is a little more dense than skirt steak, and I cooked it over medium-high heat for 7 or 8 minutes on each side for medium doneness. And of course a broiler could be used in place of a grill. The steak was great - really flavorful and a little spicy. To go along with the steak I made rice (sushi rice) with toasted coconut, sauteed ginger, and some more chopped salted peanuts. The rice was pretty good, but even better when it soaked up the extra marinade on the plate. I'll definitely make this again.

Springtime

I think the warm temperatures are here to stay. At least, I hope so. It is only April, so you never know. It's actually pretty gloomy outside today but still warm. With warm temperatures comes cooking outdoors! We have a new grill and got to use it for the first time last night.





As you can see, nothing too fancy - chicken, pepper, and onion kabobs marinated in chimi churri sauce. And a salad. Grilled food not only tastes great, but there's no pots or pans to clean up!

Also with springtime comes flowers. Here's a couple photos I snapped while walking around the city yesterday. So pretty!

Easter, Jersey Style

I'm back in Chicago after a long Easter weekend in the great state of New Jersey. We had beautiful, warm, sunny weather the whole weekend and spent lots of time outside which was wonderful. Let's start with Friday night. We went to see Wilco at the Wellmont Theatre in Montclair, just a mile or two from Peter's house which was so wonderfully convenient. No cameras allowed, but I got a picture in with my iPhone. The venue was small but the picture doesn't really show how close we actually were.



Of course, a concert must be followed by pizza. We stopped at Villa Victoria Pizza on the way home, nothing too special but just a great New York style pizza place. And with New York style pizza comes...garlic knots. Oh garlic knots, I've missed you. Garlic knots are pretty much just garlic bread but in roll/knot style. Almost every pizza place in New York has them and they fall somewhere between three and six for a dollar. A greasy bag is a good sign...



And a peek inside the bag...mmmmm.



So what do you think we did Saturday night? More pizza, of course! Peter's favorite pizza in the world is from Star Tavern in Orange, NJ. I think every time we've come home to Jersey we've gone to Star. It's really excellent pizza. Not my favorite in the world (another post, another day), but it definitely ranks high. It's very thin crust pizza (the best kind!) with great sauce, not too much cheese, and simple toppings. Here's what the New York Times had to say about it in 1992:

"...the 46-year-old Star Tavern in Orange, N.J., is locally renowned for superior, light-crusted pizzas with all kinds of toppings. It's a big barn of a place with an elongated bar, two overhead televisions blaring hockey games, and a 100-inch-television screen that descends for special sports events."

Not much has changed in 18 years, except some new flat screen tvs. Was 1992 really 18 years ago? Jeez.



For us, a night at Star always starts with a pitcher of Sierra Nevada.



Next up, a mixed salad and we really went crazy this time and got mussels marinara as well.




And finally, the pizza. We ordered three pies for five of us - plain, sausage, and mushroom. The sausage is my favorite. It's crumbled into very small pieces and they don't put too much on. That's cheese on the top there, and sausage on the bottom.



Happiness is a plain slice with crushed red pepper.



And finally, Easter lunch. The main course was a Honeybaked Ham. Honeybaked Ham is, well...heaven. I made a Barefoot Contessa potato salad to go with it, and there were also a couple other sides - mac and cheese, and green beans with almonds. This potato salad is made without mayo so it's light and refreshing. Here's Ina's recipe:



3 pounds small white boiling potatoes
Kosher salt
2 tablespoons good dry white wine
2 tablespoons chicken stock
2 tablespoons lemon juice
2 garlic cloves, minced
1/2 teaspoon Dijon mustard
Freshly ground black pepper
2/3 cup good olive oil
1/4 cup red onion, finely diced
2 tablespoons chopped fresh tarragon
2 tablespoons chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley

Place the potatoes and 2 tablespoons salt in a large pot of water. Bring the water to a boil, then lower the heat and simmer for 10 to 15 minutes, until the potatoes are barely tender when pierced with a knife. Drain the potatoes in a colander, then place the colander with the potatoes over the empty pot off the heat and cover with a clean, dry kitchen towel. Leave the potatoes to steam for 15 to 20 minutes, until tender but firm.

Meanwhile, in a small bowl, whisk together the wine, chicken stock, lemon juice, garlic, mustard, 2 teaspoons salt and 3/4 teaspoon pepper. Slowly whisk in the olive oil to make an emulsion. Set aside.

When the potatoes are cool enough to handle, cut them into quarters or halves, depending on their size. Place the cut potatoes in a large bowl and pour enough dressing over them to moisten. (As the salad sits, you may need to add more dressing.) Add the onion, tarragon and parsley, and salt and pepper to taste. Toss well, cover, and refrigerate for a few hours to allow the flavors to blend. Serve cold or at room temperature.

The store didn't have boiling potatoes so I used red skinned potatoes, which are substantially bigger so I had to boil them a bit longer (about 25 minutes). And I didn't use parsley, I didn't want to buy a big bunch and have most of it go to waste so I just skipped it. It turned out well though, I made it the day before so on Easter morning I refreshed it with a bit more olive oil, lemon juice, chicken stock, salt and pepper.

One more thing - the whoopie pies and cake made it on the plane, but I don't think I would make the whoopie pies to travel again. I wrapped them individually and kept them wrapped until I served them and it made them kind of moist and dense. They're better served fresh, but were still good. All in all, a great weekend!

Hoppy Easter!

We are flying to New Jersey this evening for Easter, and I made some treats to bring. My sister-in-law is having an Easter lunch party on Saturday, and then we are doing Easter at Peter's mom's house. I made pink and green whoopie pies for Saturday, and an Easter cake for Sunday.

Let's start with the whoopie pies. I wanted to make plain vanilla ones so I could dye them pink and green. Most whoopie pies are chocolate or red velvet so I had to do some digging to find a vanilla recipe. I ended up finding it on the King Arthur Flour website. Their recipe is for reverse whoopie pies - vanilla cakes with chocolate filling. But I wanted to make mine all pastel and white and pretty so I did vanilla filling, and in the pink ones I added some raspberry jam. This recipe makes about a dozen whoopie pies. Here we go...



1 cup (2 sticks 8 ounces) unsalted butter
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 1/2 cups (10 1/2 ounces) sugar
3 large eggs
4 1/2 cups (19 ounces) all-purpose flour
1 cup (8 ounces) milk
2 cups (12 ounces) chocolate chips, optional

In a large mixing bowl, cream together the butter, salt, vanilla, baking powder, and sugar. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add the flour to the wet ingredients alternately with the milk, beginning and ending with the flour. Do this gently; there’s no need to beat the batter. Stir in the chocolate chips at the end.

Using a muffin scoop, or a 1/4-cup measure, drop the dough onto the prepared baking sheets. Wet your fingers, and flatten and smooth each mound of dough to a circle about 3" across. Leave 2 to 2 1/2 inches between each cookie, for expansion.

Bake the cookies for 11 minutes, or until they’re barely set on top; they won’t have colored at all. Cool them on the pan for 5 minutes, then transfer to a rack to cool completely.

I didn't have an ice cream scoop so I tried to get them as round as I could using two big spoons.






Time for the frosting! This recipe is from Paula Deen. I cut it in half, which was just enough for both the whoopie pies and the cake, but if you're worried about running out or having extra for mistakes definitely make the full recipe. I was scraping the bowl to get enough to cover the cake.

2 sticks butter, room temperature
8 cups confectioners’ sugar
1/2 cup milk
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

In the bowl of a standing mixer, cream softened butter and add 4 cups sugar, milk and vanilla. Beat with paddle attachment until smooth gradually add the rest of sugar to reach frosting consistency.

And now, making the whoopie pies. Put about 1-2 tablespoons of icing on the underside of one cookie, but don't spread it - just drop the spoonful on there. Make your sandwich and gently squeeze it together to get the frosting to spread to the edges. And for the raspberry ones, this picture below is the way NOT to do it. The jam I used was at room temperature, and I found it was better to spread a small amount on one of the cookies and then do the frosting part. The way I did it in this picture below was too much jam and it ended up squeezing out the sides.




And now, for the cake. My sister's birthday is right around Easter and every year, going back to a long time ago, my mom makes Easter/birthday cupcakes. They are vanilla cupcakes with vanilla frosting, topped with coconut that's been dyed green to look like Easter grass, and finished off with pastel M&M's to look like little Easter eggs. I wanted to do the same, but cupcakes are too hard to transport on the plane (especially when you also have a batch of whoopie pies) so I did a cake version. I haven't tried this recipe before, I just wanted to find one that is for a square 9x9 inch pan because that's what I wanted to take on the plane, and this one got good reviews.

1 cup white sugar
1/2 cup butter
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 3/4 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 cup milk

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour a 9x9 inch pan or line a muffin pan with paper liners.
In a medium bowl, cream together the sugar and butter. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, then stir in the vanilla.

Combine flour and baking powder, add to the creamed mixture and mix well. Finally stir in the milk until batter is smooth. Pour or spoon batter into the prepared pan.

Bake for 30 to 40 minutes in the preheated oven. For cupcakes, bake 20 to 25 minutes. Cake is done when it springs back to the touch.




I decided to add mini Robin Eggs (Whoppers) in addition to the M&M's. So, the baking is done, and the whoopie pies are all wrapped up. Now I just have to figure out how to carry all this stuff on the plane. Oy.