foodie nyc

A Bird for Andrew Bird

As you've read here before, music is a big part of my life.  I couldn't imagine cooking without it.

But as far as creating dishes at home, I'll take inspiration wherever I can get it.  Certainly cooking shows, books, blogs and restaurants are obvious sources of stimuli.  But sometimes I find ideas in unexpected places.

I recently went to see one of my favorite musicians, Andrew Bird.  His last album has been at the top of my iTunes playlists for over a year and was very excited to see him in concert for the first time recently.  If you don't know about Andrew Bird (listen here), he plays pretty much every instrument on his album, in addition to writing and singing well written, thoughtful lyrics.

Seeing him in concert at Bowery on Jan 17 was an inspiring experience.  Andrew flips between a violin, guitar, glockenspiel and a haunting whistle that adds an amazing depth to many of his songs.  While watching and listening to him at the show, I was totally in awe of his talent. Watching someone so remarkably talented perform an entirely new album (out in March, can't wait!) live with such effortless sincerity and passion was nothing short of inspiring.  While enjoying the show, I couldn't help but wish I pushed myself further and took more chances with my cooking. 

I asked myself a few interesting questions.  Am I drunk? Is that Brookyln Vegan taking those photos? Do I look like that when I go to restaurants? Should I get another beer and doublefist? And, if Andrew Bird were a chef, what kind of dishes would he create?

Well, I'm sure his dishes would be unique, thoughtful and relatively complex.  But I couldn't picture him using science or making foams.  And since he weaves multiple techniques and sounds together as elements that work within a single song,  I started to picture Chef Andrew expressing the same ingredient through multiple cooking techniques on the same plate.  As if transitioning from instrument to instrument, each element on the plate would need to be tied together by a similar flavor.  (I avoided adding music cliches/analogies here, which was very difficult but I hope appreciated).

I went on enjoying the concert but came back to these thoughts the next day.  I would make a dish based on the above ideas, inspired by Andrew Bird.  Now what would be my singular ingredient focus, expressed in a few different ways? Andrew Bird....hmmm.  Right.  Chicken it was.

And the single, uniting element that would tie each preparation of chicken together? I went with chilis.  I'd use a different form of chili within each chicken preparation, in hopes to link each of the chicken dishes together on the plate with a similar flavor.

So, here's an exploration of my Andrew Bird inspired experiment - Chili Chicken Three Ways.

Serrano Honey Chicken Wings - The goal here was to marry earthy, spicy chili flavors with the sweetness of honey.  I covered the chicken wings with an ancho chili powder, olive oil and salt. . While roasting them n the oven for about 25 minutes, I took out my roasted and finely chopped serrano peppers.   I removed the wings from the oven, dotted them with the roasted serrano and drizzled the wings with honey.  I roasted them for another 25 minutes until crusty and caramelized.  These wings were phenomenal. 

Cocoa Chili Crusted Chicken Breast - I brined the on-the-bone chicken breasts overnight.  After drying them very well, I covered them in a coating of 1/2 part bittersweet chocolate and 1/2 part ancho chili powder, salt, pepper and nutmeg. I seared the breasts in olive oil for only two minutes each side, then let them slow roast in the oven.  The brine is essential to ensure for a juicy chicken.  The crust of cocoa and chili added an earthiness that worked well with the other flavors on the plate. 

Coconut Water, Chipotle Braised Chicken - I seared chicken legs and thighs, then added some lemongrass, garlic and onions to the pan and covered the chicken with Zico coconut water and some chipotle and adobo sauce, and a splash of red wine.   I chose coconut water as I wanted the flavor without the richness, which worked well.  The sweetness of the Zico was balanced by the heat of the chipotle.  After braising for an hour and a half, I stripped the chicken into large pieces and reduced the braising liquid by 3/4 for use as a sauce. 

Finally, I added a few garnishes to the plate as a means to transition from one chicken dish to the other.  I dusted some red bliss potato wedges with the ancho chili powder, salt, pepper and olive oil and roasted them for 45 minutes until tender. I placed these wedges between the wings and the chicken breast.  I also poached some shitake mushrooms for about 20 minutes in the chipotle braising liquid, which I placed between the breast and the braised chicken.

All in all, a fun, creative experiment inspired by an unlikely source.

Andrew Bird photo via Brooklyn Vegan.

Plantain Wrapped Goat Cheese: The Sequel

I promised I'd check back as I looked to perfect the plantain crusted goat cheese dish.  You may have read the first edition already, where I discuss how I recently came up with this idea.     While I loved the flavors behind the original dish I made, I couldn't crack the presentation - I needed to find a better plantain to goat cheese ratio for each bite.

The solution came to me randomly while walking home from work the other day.  I'd cut long chunks of the ripe plantain while raw.  With a long sharp knife tip, I turned the plantain chunk on its end and created a hole through the entire piece.  I stuffed the hole with a mixture of goat cheese, chopped rosemary, olive oil, salt and pepper. The best way to get the cheese into the plantain was to push the cheese mixture into a single corner of a small ziplock bag.  After rolling the bag tight into a pastry bag shape, I clipped the corner of the bag with scissors and piped the cheese through the hole and into the plantain. 

I did this for an entire plantain and stuffed the pieces back inside the plantain skin and re-wrapped  it as if it were back in its original state.  I roasted the plantain at 300 for about 25 minutes until soft and firm.  The skin keeps the plantain soft and avoids letting the pieces dry out.  I placed a small plantain chip on the rim of each piece of plantain.  You can thinly slice and fry unripe green plantains or you can buy a bag at your local bodega.  The balsamic reduction is as described in my original post  - it adds a sweet acidic tang that rounds out the flavors of the creamy goat cheese and sweet plantain. 

The pieces of plantain were small enough that a person could eat a whole piece at once - it becomes a flavorful explosion of tastes and textures within a single, large bite.    I may have to add this to my canape arsenal - the addition of rosemary and the crunchy plantain chip take the original idea to another level.

Cooking for One: Smoked Paprika Rigatoni

I rarely cook for myself. 

For me, cooking at home is not a utilitarian exercise - I don't do it to satisfy my gluttonous desires.  Cooking, in many ways, is about personal expression.  Sometimes the expression is in the ideas that have led me to prepare a dish a certain way.  Other times, the expression is in the flavors I've married together. I don't cook from recipes, but I'd imagine the above would continue to hold true if I did. 

Even if I make a simple, straightforward dish, it just doesn't taste the same without someone enjoying it with me.  Expression almost always begs for a reaction. As all cooks know, once you get used to receiving the reactions, they become a continuous source of pleasure.  I'm all about the reactions to the food I make, as well as the conversation that usually comes along with a meal. I love to see natural expressions of joy, satisfaction, surprise or even skepticism someone has while eating food I've prepared for them.   I also enjoy hearing thoughts and ideas on how a dish could be better.  I can't tell you how many of my dishes have been improved based on these dialogues.

Based on where I was in my life a few years ago, my personal situation has changed dramatically.  Single life has been treating me well so far, but just like everything, it certainly has its ups and downs. As it relates to cooking, I don't have that reliable dining partner to enjoy the day-to-day cooking I do at home.  Since I have to pursue dinner guests now (not a great personality attribute of mine), having people over for dinner has become more like an occasion vs. a daily part of life.  As such, I've slowed down tremendously in terms of my cooking output.  It's led to lack of food porn for this site but more importantly, has hindered me from landing on those special culinary moments - when a few spontaneous kitchen maneuvers result in a personal culinary breakthrough.

All of this has led me to the conclusion that I need to cook for myself.   While the drawbacks I mention above will certainly be there, I need to continue on with my exploration in the kitchen, even if that means solo.  I obviously won't want to go all out for myself, but I can make simple, interesting, flavorful food that I can enjoy on my own without the need to overanalyze it, right?

In an effort to keep myself committed to this idea, I'm starting a series on this site called Cooking for One.  The food I feature will be simple, easy to execute dishes I've made for myself on any given weeknight.  As with most content on this site, I cannot commit to a posting schedule but my goal is to get Cooking for One posts up every week and a half.

I'll kick off Cooking for One with a simple pasta dish that I made in 20 minutes last night - smoked paprika rigatoni with sausage and sage.

One of the principles that I'll need to employ while cooking for myself is the fact that I probably will not want to go food shopping for the meal.  It needs to be residing at my apartment already.  That means it's all about what I have in the fridge and in the pantry at the time.   

For this meal, I had some sausage, sage and Parmigiano Reggiano in the fridge.  Pasta was a natural pairing, and I immediately went with an olive oil based condiment to dress the pasta.  My bit of experimentation was to create an oil infused with smoked paprika.  All I did was brown sausage, removing it (and the fat) from the pan once cooked.  I then put some fresh EV olive oil in the pan, along with a heaping teaspoon of smoked paprika and a pinch of chili pepper flakes. After I blended these ingredients into the oil, I heated the oil over very low heat for a few minutes.  I then added some chopped garlic and sage to the pan for a minute, then the sliced sausage and the cooked rigatoni.   Salt, pepper, some grated Parmigiano Reggiano finished it off, along with a heaping serving of Top Chef.  Now if only I could convince Padma to come over for a tasting.

Cheers to all you solo eaters out there.

Music in the Kitchen: January 2007

A new year requires new music in the kitchen.   For those of you who don't remember, Music in the Kitchen is a sporadic series in which I share some of my favorite songs that I've recently been listening to while cooking at home.

Confession: I have an iTunes playlist created for most occasions.

Confession:  I continue to have a burning desire to make a mix tape.  Yep.  A tape.

Confession:  I tried to play Dissident by Pearl Jam at a local hipsterbar jukebox and the bartender or owner saw it on the cue and deleted it.   This one's for you, pretentious music snot!

Confession:  While I like artisanal cheese, I also like November Rain cheese.  Seriously, this is a great song to cook to.

Confession:  I have been playing The Hold Steady album, Boys and Girls of America, on repeat.  Until I got the latest Thermals album, The body the blood the machine.  Just bought tickets to see them at Bowery as well.  Can't wait.

Confession:  Yes, that Royksopp song down there is from the the Geico caveman ad.   Yes, I love it.

For those of you interested, I post all of my Music in the Kitchen posts on iTunes as an iMix.  Here's the January 2007 edition.  Rock on.

Plantain Wrapped Goat Cheese, Balsamic Reduction

I can be annoying to go out to dinner with.

Take a recent dinner at Esperanto, a Latin American restaurant in my neighborhood. 

Listed under the appetizer section of the menu was a dish described as plantain crusted goat cheese.   I became inspired by the combination and began to hold a 15 minute brainstorm with my friend as to ways this could be prepared.  I thought about creating very thin layers of a ripe plantain and wrapping a disk of goat cheese completely, almost like a little packet.  The roasted plantain would be sweet and soft, the goat cheese tart and creamy.  I thought maybe a tart, acidic sauce or reduction would contrast nicely. The finishing touch could be a garnish of fried, crisp plantains. I think my friend's eyes were glazed over in boredom, but it sparked an idea for a dish that I ended up playing with the following evening.

I roasted whole, ripe plantains in their skins until soft and tender.  I let them cool, then carefully cut them into long, thin lengthwise strips.  I then experimented with presentation - what was the correct plantain to goat cheese ratio? The above photo is a sandwich style presentation, which was good but not the best.  The best preparation was when I wrapped the plantain strips around the entire goat cheese disk, folded across each other to create a plantain packet with the goat cheese inside.  The balsamic reduction is simply made by reducing a high quality 12 year old balsamic by boiling into a syrup-like consistency.

Overall, the flavor combination of the sweet plantain, the creamy tangy goat cheese and the balsamic reduction was excellent.  The learning I came away with is that you can't get too much plantain - the idea of creating a package encasing the goat cheese is the way to go.  Further, I didn't get around to adding the layer of fried unripe plantains, but a crunchy, salty element like plantain chips would make this dish even better.  Maybe long fried strips propped on top of the package for a bit of height? An herb could also add a final burst of flavor and color, or maybe even some salad greens.  This dish is definitely filed into my work in progress bin, but I'll keep experimenting and let you know where I land. 

(P.S. - the plantain crusted goat cheese at Esperanto reminded me of a traditional fried or baked bread crumb coated goat cheese that you'd find on a French bistro salad.  It was nice, but I couldn't tell that the crust was made of plantain as opposed to a nut, for instance.)

ADDITION: Click here to read Part II.

Traditionally Untraditional

I struggle with how I describe my cooking style.

Whenever I meet someone interested in the food aspect of my life, they usually tend to ask me what style of food I specialize in - Is it Italian? French? New American? No.  No.  Maybe...but no. The long answer, as you know by reading this site, is that I'm ingredient and technique focused.  After that, I try and create flavors that make sense to me.   Part of this is my desire to express myself creatively with food.  The other part is that I believe once I've mastered cooking techniques, making a dish becomes an expression of what I've experienced and what inspires me.  I make dishes like corn juice soup based on an experience in a restaurant.  I am inspired by trips to Italy, Argentina, Sonoma and sometimes Rockaway, N.J.

Rockaway is a small, middle class town in northwestern NJ.  I grew up there, as did generation after generation of my family.  While I was home for Christmas, I had a typical experience that, in retrospect, allowed me to articulate my cooking style to myself. 

Uncle Beef, Renee and I went to an 80 year old German pork store called Schwind's.  Nothing new here - we've gone to Schwind's plenty of times before. In fact, my uncle, his friend and others have been frequenting Schwind's their whole lives.  They make traditional Weisswurst and sausages that are just phenomenal.  The entire operation has been family run for their entire 80 years and still is to this day.  It shows in the quality of their food but in the fact that this isn't a yuppified foodie like stop to supplement a trip to Whole Foods.  This is their lives and you can taste it.

We picked up some veal sausages and took these treats, some traditional sweet German mustard and rolls to our friend Bob's house for an afternoon snack. Uncle Beef browned our Weisswurst in butter to get a nice brownness to them.  We cut them open to reveal a light, almost airy, rich interior of veal like mousse.  The picture speaks for itself, really.   They were the simplest expression of tradition and flavor I could imagine tasting.  Every bite seemed to remind me of how complicated food can be, especially when I cook it.

But the next morning, I was back at the stove to make myself a simple breakfast before heading back to NYC.  Somehow, like always, I forgot about the tradition of Schwinds, or how other Germans would prepare their Weisswurst.  I only thought about what would make my breakfast as tasty as it could be.

Another part of my Rockaway, N.J. experience is Latin American influenced.  The day before, I was able to pick up some arepas from a Latin American influenced grocery store that is quickly becoming yuppified.  I bought the arepas out of principle, without a real plan on how (or if) I'd use them.   

But I did what was natural to me.  I browned the sweet, yellow corn arepas (almost like a thicker, more savory pancake...or not) and used them as a base for some of the browned Weisswurst.  I fried an egg and perched it on the sausage and arepa.  As I broke the yoke and had an excellent and random breakfast, I realized what a culinary sin I had created.  Decades upon centuries of people have enjoyed the arepa and the Weisswurst in traditional cultural ways, and I just slap them together casually on an instinctual whim.  In Jersey.

In some ways, I felt guilty.  But I also felt inspired (and certainly satisfied) with what I had just eaten.  I then realized what I'd always known - my cooking style is rich with tradition, only personalized based on my own experiences.  For better or worse, I guess I'd call it traditionally untraditional.

Crab Salad with Radish Aioli, Radish Juice Vinaigrette

Whenever I spring for jumbo lump crab, my  goals are simple - to take extra care with keeping the luscious chunks of crab in tact and enhancing their richness with a few subtle flavors.  There's something to be said for adding flavors to a dish, but when you have the best ingredients, subtle can be better.

I began to notice radishes again after gnawing on a few whole bulbs at the bar of The Red Cat months ago.   After buying a bunch of radishes, I wondered how I could use them in multiple ways to bring their flavor to the crab.  The fresh, peppery bite, along with a simple herb, could be a nice match for the sweet crab.

I started by chopping radishes into a very fine dice and folding them into a homemade aioli - emulsified together with a touch of dijon mustard, lemon juice and chervil for a faint anise flavor.    As you've read here before, I'll use my juicer to juice just about anything.  The radishes produced a pink, light, subtle yet peppery juice that I used as a light vinaigrette to spoon around the crab.   Each bite of the crab was enhanced with a bit of the radish - from the aioli and the radish vinaigrette to the thin slices spread around the dish. 

Related:

My Recipe for Crab Salad with Smoked Paprika Aioli

Grape, Strawberry, Pecan Crab Salad

Parmigano Crisps with Crab Guacamole