Just about Everything's Local

 I couldn't be happier than to know the provenance of every single item of food used to make last Saturday's dinner.  Talk about local.   The  cheese served with drinks was a fetchingly fragrant, kind of gritty Camembert-like goat's milk round threaded with fennel pollen called Pollenbert from R & G Cheese in Cohoes, NY - just a little bit north of here - but purchased at, where else (?), Lick the Market.   I served the cheese with roasted pears - roast unpeeled sliced pears, rubbed in fruity olive oil, in a 350 degree F. oven 'til golden and slightly crispy - about 30 minutes.

The first course soup was actually a combo of two pureed soups chosen for the availability of their ingredients and their stunning color alliance.   The base soup was a variation on the butternut squash soup that I always make as a base - the recipe can be found in an earlier blog - so, early that I'm sorry to say that I can't simply link you to it - so, I'll send you to Squash, Squash and More Squash, December 16th, 2010.  I added garlic, hot pepper, fresh ginger and fresh sage leaves to the original recipe.   The second soup was made by sauteing shallots in olive oil then adding peeled beet chunks to the saute. I covered the beets with water to 3 inches over them and simmered until soft enough to puree.  This took hours because winter beets are particularly tough - but ever so sweet.   I needed to add more water at several intervals in order to keep the ratio of beets and water.  When they were tender, I added  the juice of 1/2 of a juicy lemon.  Let cool and puree until smooth.   
To serve.  Heat the soups, separately, until piping hot.   Ladle the butternut squash into soup bowls, add a few heaping tablespoons of the beet soup into the center of the squash soup and swirl.  I garnished each bowl with a dollop of creme fraiche (local, from Ronnybrook Farm) and a shower of toasted, salted pistachios.   I served the soup with black sesame, brown rice crackers which appear to be navy blue.   It's about color as well as flavor.

The main course halibut was not local.  Obviously.  Purchased locally 'though.   The snowy white fillets were placed in a buttered baking dish and covered  with a mixture of Dijon mustard, horseradish, chopped red onions, then plain breadcrumbs, then sliced blood oranges and finally a dab of butter.  I had every intention of baking the fish at 350 degrees F. for about 20 minutes or until the fillets were opaque and the sides of the dish were bubbly.  But my oven went out an hour before dinner.  So, I covered the baking dish with foil and straddled it over two stove top burners set a very low heat.  It was cooked in 15 minutes and just right. 

I served the fish with a puree of celery root and apples.  Everyone of the three ingredients that goes into the manufacture of the dish was local.  Yay.    Peel the celery root, cut it into chunks and add it to a deep, non-reactive saucepan.  Cover with whole milk (Ronnybrook).  Simmer for 15 minutes (should be just about tender). Add a couple of peeled and chunked apples to the pot - the original recipe from Paula Wolfert's The Cooking of South West France ask for green apples - I used Golden Delicious to great results.  Simmer for another 10 minutes or so - until the apples are tender too.  Drain any remaining milk.  Let cool and puree.  Add salt and pepper if you like.  I don't because the subtle, yet emphatically-flavored puree is usually served with a dish that has plenty of seasoning to go around.

One of my dinner guests, Cynthia, made dessert - Nigel Slater's Simple Lemon,Apricot, Almond Cake - from his book Appetite.   She topped the moist cake, redolent of all the flavors in its name, with creme Chantilly -soft whipped cream - Ronnybrook.
 All perfect.   What a dinner.  Satisfying in so many ways.

SUSANSIMONSAYS:
In my constant quest to find new food sources I took a drive over to Great  Barrington, MA to check out two fabled Berkshire establishments; the Berkshire Coop at 42 Bridge Street, and Guido's Fresh Marketplace.  The former, as its name implies is a co-operative market, albeit , a very upscale one with a selection of all the latest in packaged organic products, vitamins, and a too small bulk ingredients section.  You'll find fresh produce, meat, fish, and dairy  departments at the coop.  But you will at find the same at Guido's an Italian oriented market that has grown into a kind of mini Whole Foods supermarket - with lots of organic products that crossover and even compete in price with the coop.   I liked things about both places.  Am I running back to shop there with any kind of regularity.  No.  There are great choices right here in Hudson.  However, my hunger - pun absolutely intended - for new food places knows no bounds.  I will continue to shop.

The D.R.: breakfasts at The Peninsula House, and other food

I'd been talking to Cary about the breakfast fruit arrangements at his and Marie-Claude's
The Peninsula House for a few years before I actually witnessed them - and then, of course, ate them.  The fruit was as delicious as it was beautifully set, on different china each morning.  At  least it was for the five mornings that it was served to me.

Grapefuit, Watermelon, Papaya, Mango, Pineapple, Grapes, Melon

Gonzalo Tizon, the chef at both The Peninsula House and its Beach Restaurant, created the delicious caper hors d'oeuvre to go with cocktails on the veranda one particularly sultry evening.  The flowers on the plate are REAL bouganvilla.  Gonzalo is a native of Argentina and coincidentally worked with Marcelo Raitelli  (see December 4th 2010 blog, "And then I went to Patagonia") at a hotel in front of the Perito Moreno Glacier in Patagonia.  What are the odds - it's not as if I travel that often anymore -  but - Argentina and the DR, and two chefs who know each other?  And two, young talented chefs.  Wow.

Plantains and batatas at a market in Las Terrenas

 

Paco Mer is a restaurant smack on the beach behind the cemetary in "downtown" Las Terrenas.  Its rustic, slapped-together appearance defies its rather sophiscated offerings.  Paco, pictured in a T-shirt the color of his eyes, and the sea, is a Frenchman who's lived in the DR longer than he can remember.  We ate avocado tartare (avocadoes were in season, highly flavored and incredibly creamy), fried, freshly-caught sardines, mai mai -  white fish similar to mahi mahi - with spinach sauce and chofan, an island staple that is more or less a Domincan version of fried rice.  It can be a main course filled with pieces of chicken and pork as well as chopped vegetables and plently of soy sauce - or as  a side with green onions, sweet corn and whatever else might be in season.  It's very tasty.

Just down the Playa Coson from the Beach Resturant is Restaurant Luis.  It's been on that spot, at the edge of the water for the past two years.  But Luis has had his restaurant for years - he just squats in the most hospitable location and when asked to leave he hitches his bar to a trailer, packs up his grill, and tables and chairs and moves to another welcoming place.  The first time we tried to eat there it was so busy - his reputation is far-flung and the highway that facilitates the trip to the Samana peninsula had just opened, so hungry patrons were crowding the beach to get a table and a chance at his grilled langoustines, chicken, fish and shrimp.  We went back the next day and were easily seated and fed the most scrumptious selection of garlicky grilled shrimp and fish, fried plantains, and potatoes, rice and beans, and avocado salad.   I had a fresh coconut to drink.

Happiness is all that tasty food, under a palm tree, at the edge of the sea with a dear old friend.

Gracias querido amigo.

SUSANSIMONSAYS:

Bedtime snack at The Peninsula House. Chocolate chip cookies.  These buttery, densely sweet, slightly salty cookies will insure heavenly dreams.

CHOCOLATE  CHIPS COOKIES

adapted from Jacques Torres

makes about a dozen and a half 5-inch cookies

2 cups minus 2 tablespoons cake flour

1 2/3 cups bread flour

1 1/4 teaspoons baking soda

1 1/2  teaspoons baking powder

1 1/2 teaspoons coarse salt

1 1/4 cups unsalted butter

1 1/4 cups light brown sugar

1 cup plus 2 tablespoons granulated sugar

2 large eggs

2 teaspoons natural vanilla extract

1 1//4 pounds bittersweet chocolate discs or feves . at least 60 % cacao content

sea salt

1.   Sift flours, baking soda, baking powder and salt into a bowl.  Set aside.

2.   Using a mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, cream butter and sugars together until very light, about 5 minutes.  Add eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition.  Stir in the vanilla.  Reduce speed to low, add dry ingredients and mix until just combine, 5 to 10 seconds (Cary says, "Do not overmix").  Drop chocolate pieces in and incorporate them without breaking them.  Press plastic wrap against dough and refrigerate for 24 to 36 hours.  Dough may be used in batches, and can be refrigerated for up to 72 hours.

3.   When ready to bake, preheat oven to 350 degrees F.  Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or a nonstick baking mat.  Set aside.

4.   Scoop 6  3 1/2 mounds of dough (the size of generous golf balls) onto a baking sheet, making sure to turn horizontally and chocolate pieces that are poking up; it will make for a more attractive cookie.  Sprinkle lightly with sea salt and bake until golden but still soft, 18 to 20 minutes.  Transfer sheet to a wire rack for 10 minutes, then slip cookies onto another sheet to cool a bit more.  Repeat with remaining dough, or reserve dough, refrigerated, for baking remaining batches the next day.

my note:  you can make smaller cookies - just bake for 12 - 15 minutes.

New Look, Quick Recipe, Delicious Restaurant

I've modified the blog's look a bit.  You might say that I dressed it in Spring clothes.   I had a feeling that it may  have been too dark.   So, out came the pastel hues - lighter colored banner, and a lighter background.  The type is darker too.  Is it easier to read?  Hmmm...

Springtime in the market means lots of things, not the least of which is the arrival of mountains of sole fillets.  So many that they were on sale at my local Whole Foods market for what appeared to be the very reasonable price of $6.99 a pound.   I love crispy-crusted fish whether deep-fried or sauteed 'til it crackles.  I don't love the mess that style of cooking creates on my stove top and the thin film of oil that generally settles around my kitchen.  To satisfy my craving, and need for neatness I developed a perfectly crispy, highly-flavored oven fried fillet of sole - or flounder.  You might think that sole and flounder are the same fish - easy assumption as their fillets are similar looking - but , no - they aren't even the the same species.  Both are flat fish - and sole is the more prestigious of the two ( I'm as pleased by one as the other) and is oval-shaped while flounder is a rounder, and thicker fish. 
The recipe includes some of my favorite ingredients.

Garlicky,Spicy Oven-Fried Fillets of Sole or Flounder

Serves 2 - 4, or one with plenty of leftovers for fish sandwiches with Romaine lettuce leaves and tartar on toasted any kind of bread.

1 pound sole or flounder fillets
1/2 lemon, juice only
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 clove garlic, minced
1 small hot pepper, minced or 1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes
3/4 cup unseasoned breadcrumbs
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup chopped flat-leaf parsley
parchment paper

1.   Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F.   Line a sheet pan with sides with parchment paper.  Place the fillets on the paper and sprinkle lemon juice over them.

2.   In a small skillet over medium heat melt the butter in the olive oil.  Add the garlic and hot pepper.  When the garlic just begins to turn gold, 60 - 90 seconds, lower the heat, add the breadcrumbs and salt.  Toss together to combine.   Turn off the heat and stir in the parsley.

3.   Cover the fish fillets with he breadcrumb mixture.   Bake for 5 - for the sole - 6 or 7 minutes for the flounder.   Serve immediately.

My favorite way to eat the fish is on top of a tossed - simply with extra virgin olive oil and aged balsamic vinegar - salad.  A forkful of vinegary-sweet, pungent oily leaves with a piece of  crunchy, crumbly, garlicky fish is a huge pleasure.

SUSANSIMONSAYS:

  Serendipity defined the discovery of Kebab Cafe! at 25-12 Steinway Street (718-728-9858 - no website) in Queens, New York.  I mean, duh!!!   Are my friend Roy, and I the last food-centric people on the NYC planet to find our way to Ali El Sayed's charming hole in the wall?  First of all who goes to an Arabic neighborhood on a Friday afternoon and expects to find an exceptional meal.  We did, and we did.    I had read about Mombar, an Egyptian restaurant a few doors away on Steinway Street, owned by who I now know is Ali's brother, Moustapha - but is only open  for dinner.  Moustapha happened to be near the open door of his restaurant as we walked by so I asked him - boldly - if he might like to make lunch for us.  "Sorry", he said, "I don't open 'til 5".   "Where should we eat ?", I wondered, out loud.  "Everything seems to be closed".  "Go down the street, just in front of the bus stop", he directed.  "Is it good?"   "It's my brother's place."   So, we walked into the Kebab Cafe! (yes, exclamation point). After we sat, a young man asked us what we'd like to drink and gave us a verbal list of their offerings.  We chose hibiscus tea.  He took our order and told us to wait a minute for Ali who was somewhere nearby having a coffee.    Ali arrived, changed into his chef's whites and also gave us a verbal list of food choices.  We choose, at Ali's suggestion, the cafe's signature mezze (appetizers) plate.   Now, here's where patience is truly a virtue.   The hibiscus tea arrived about 30 minutes after we ordered it. Worth every sip. Ruby red, floral fragrant served in a glass with thin apple slices floating on top, it stung our mouths with its sweet and tangy taste.   The mezze came to our table about 30 minutes after the tea.  It too was worth the wait.   We were each given a small plate that was sprinkled with ground sumac (the berry of a flowering plant) and za'atar (ground mixture of Middle Eastern herbs and spices).  Then Ali brought a large plate with his mezze, "This is hummus, this is eggplant and zucchini vinaigrette, this is smoked eggplant also called baba ganoush, this is fouls (Egyptian fava beans), these are falafel made with fouls - and try this now with your fingers, it's fried bok choy leaves.  Here's a dish of seven peppers sauce".  We served ourselves from the large plate to our smaller spice-strewn plates and we ate, we dipped, we schmeared pita bread, apple and cucumber slices - we smiled, we oohed, we aahed.  I choked a bit - too much seven pepper sauce.  We were happy.  Good thing too.  We had to wait another 30 minutes for our main course, quail with pomegranate sauce. Oy!  Such splendor, you can't imagine.  The perfectly cooked, basically before our eyes as we ate mezze, and waited, dark and rich quail was roasted with layers of spices - some recognizable - some mysterious, then covered with an olive oil- pomegranate molasses sauce and showered with the ubiquitous ground sumac to serve. The quail sat on a bed of roasted eggplant, zucchini, onions and potatoes, with a few fresh basil leaves tucked in between - all drenched in that same sweet and sour sauce.  Ali cooked this food with a kind of casual, towel, flipped-over-your-shoulder elegance, that somewhat obscured the true mastery of  his craft.  You know, something like the way Fred Astaire danced.

I recited a list of ingredients to Ali that I thought might have gone into the making of the quail.  He just smiled and said, "Oh, I think I'll try your recipe".  

After lunch we took a walk back up Steinway Street to number 25-78, Laziza Bakery.  It was difficult to choose from the bakery's offerings but we managed to treat ourselves to their celebrated kunefa - a special Egyptian (but made all over the Middle East and Turkey) dessert made in its own special flat pan, covered with rose-water flavored syrup and garnished with chopped pistachios) and an assortment of their baklava  The bite-sized (better to sample a variety) baklava are unique in the world of honey-soaked, walnut-filled, phyllo-wrapped pastries.