FOOD ON THE FOOD

My Top 10 Restaurant Meals of 2010

I was going to tell you all about a recent bad restaurant experience we had where four reasonable adults and two children unanimously decided to walk out.  But, instead, I'm devoting the space to calling out my 10 favorite restaurant meals of last year, because I feel like sharing the love, not the hate. 

These days, most of our socializing tends to take place at friends' houses since our budget doesn’t allow for a lot of restaurant outings.  But we we do think it's important to head out into the open world once in a while to make sure we don't lose what social graces we have left, if any.  There are a few cheap lunches here and there, the odd special occasion splurge meal, and sporadic outings with friends usually involving drinks and appetizers.  This list isn't intended to be trendy—just to point out where we went to enjoy each other's company over some great food and drink.  So, without further ado, here were my most memorable restaurant meals of 2010 in no particular order. 

Ponzu, Waltham, MA: Salt and pepper calamari and funky assortment of maki rolls (e.g., Dragon, House)

Sofra, Cambridge, MA: Turkish breakfast with soft-boiled egg and phyllo nest, fried feta, thick yogurt with fruit chutney, marinated cucumbers, and olives.  It's hard to really understand why it's so good until you taste all the different components on one plate.  The desserts are amazing, too.

The Local, Newton, MA: Fried pickles, macaroni and cheese.  Local means local: some of my favorite regional products are featured on the menu. 

Taqueria Mexico, Waltham, MA: Tacos pastor, El Presidente (one chile relleno, one chicken enchilada with salsa verde, one taco, plus rice and beans), and pastel de tres leches (cake of three milks!!!)

The Brewster Fish House, Brewster, MA: lobster bisque and pretty much any of their fish dishes.

The Gallows, Boston, MA: Bloody Mary, pumpkin butter on corn muffins, pork belly. 

Garden at the Cellar, Cambridge, MA: The spring meal I have in mind had some kind of rhubarb concoction with pickled ramps and doughnuts.  Sounds weird and it was, but in a fantastic way.  Lots of local farms represented here, too.

Sunrise Rang-Dong, Dorchester, MA: Vietnamese catfish clay pot with caramelized garlic and steamed rice (especially delicious after some urban peach-picking)

The Library Restaurant, Portsmouth, NH: Food and books: what could be better?  Despite it being a steakhouse, I found their lobster roll delightful.  (My dad was paying—thanks, Dad!)

Hungry Mother, Cambridge, MA: Get the #2 cocktail: Maker’s Mark, amaretto, sorghum syrup, and two boiled peanuts.  That drink is my favorite drink in the whooooole world.  Also, you can't lose with the corn bread with sorghum and anything else on the menu involving shrimp or grits or kohlrabi. 

So, tell me, what were your favorites?

Snow Day 5: Maple Cookies

Not that I'm counting or anything. 

I know maple cookies might not seem very original given that we already talked about cookies on the first snow day, and learned how to make maple taffy on the third.  But for our fifth snow day, I thought maybe I would take the maple and the cookies and combine them.  To make maple cookies.  Aaaaand use the exact same cookie cutters as before.  And take a crappy picture.  This is the kind of half-assed posting you can expect if we have any more snow days.

The recipe, however, is quite tasty, especially for rolled-out cookies, which tend to err on the side of boring, flavor-wise.  I tweaked it from an old New England family recipe I found.  A splash of maple syrup in the standard powdered sugar icing makes them extra tasty.  You could also add walnuts to the dough, shape it into a log, chill, and then slice into rounds before baking if cookie-cutter whimsy isn't your thing.  I might skip the icing in that case.  Maybe not.

Just please, for the love of god, no more snow days.

Maple Cookies

Dough
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, cut into quarters
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup maple sugar (or another 1 cup brown sugar)
2 eggs
1 Tbsp. vanilla
3 1/2 cups flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt

Icing
1/2 cup confectioner's sugar
1 tsp. maple syrup (preferably Grade B)
Few drops of lemon juice (optional)
Water

Preheat over to 375 F.  Lightly grease cookie sheet or line with silpat or parchment paper.

In a stand mixer, cream together butter and brown sugar.  Add eggs and vanilla, mixing well after each addition.  Sift together flour, baking soda, and salt.  Add to sugar mixture, and mix until combined.  Chill about an hour to make the dough slightly firmer and easier to handle.  Roll out about 1/4-inch thick.  Cut out shapes, gather scraps, and reroll.  Bake 8-10 minutes, or until cookies start to color along the edges.  Monitor closely as they burn easily.  Let cool completely on rack before making icing.

For the maple glaze, whisk confectioner's sugar, maple syrup, and lemon juice in a small bowl.  Add water as needed to make a slurry that both runs off the spoon and has some body.  Start with 1 teaspoon of water and go from there.  It doesn't take much.  If the icing gets too watery, add more sugar.  Frost and decorate.  Let dry.

Local Ingredient Sources:
Maple sugar: Warren Farm & Sugarhouse, North Brookfield, MA
Maple syrup: Williams Farm Sugarhouse, Deerfield, MA (via Russo's)
Butter: Cabot, Cabot, VT
Eggs: Red Fire Farm, Granby, MA (via Wayland Winter Farmer's Market)

National Pie Day: Banoffee Pie

Did you know that yesterday was National Pie Day?  Don't ask me why they picked January of all months to formally celebrate pie instead of midsummer when fresh, seasonal fruit is readily available.  But who am I to argue with the people who come up with arbitrary holidays for marketing reasons?  I like pie!

My plan for Sunday was to present you with a recipe for banoffee pie, a seductive variation on banana cream pie with a silky caramel filling reminiscent of dulce de leche.  It's a popular dessert in Britain and other places where British influence lingers.  The recipe I was working with came straight from my sister's South African mother-in-law, who has all kinds of delicious things in her repertoire.  But, for some reason, which I chalked up to inaccurate metric conversions or possible hemispheric differences, the filling only worked for me half the time.  One day I'd make it, and it would be perfection.  The next, it would be a soupy mess.  It went on like this for years.  Finally, I decided I would get to the bottom of the problem once and for all.  On National Pie Day 2011.

I reviewed my notes from previous attempts and proceeded to make the first pie.  The result: pie soup.  So, I made another pie.  That one ended up with a filling as firm as fudge.  Good for fudge, bad for pie.  I cursed and cursed, but at least I had the two extremes mapped out.  I continued to zero in on the sweet spot, making adjustments to the amount of liquid and heat in the recipe.  The clock, however, was ticking on National Pie Day.  I considered posting my best recipe guess without retesting it.  But what if it failed again?  I could just see the police arriving to tape off my comment section.  Or maybe they would be too mad about their failed pies to even bother. 

In the end, quality trumped punctuality.  National Pie Day passed me by.  This morning, after letting the fricking freezing morning air slap me across the face a few times, I retested the filling based on my new hypotheses.  Twice.  Both were winners.  So now you have a confirmed recipe for banoffee pie.  It's a day late, but less likely to leave you a dollar short.  And after all, in the real world, Pie Day is any day you want. 


Banoffee Pie

Make the crust and caramel filling ahead.  Then, slice the bananas and whip the cream just before serving (or no more than a few hours in advance so the bananas don't brown).  Plan on eating the whole pie at serving time since it doesn't keep well.  Your guests won't require much convincing.

Crust
4 oz. (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted
2 cups finely ground graham cracker crumbs

Filling
5 Tbsp. unsalted butter
1/4 cup brown sugar
2/3 cup condensed milk (6 oz.)
1 cup heavy cream
5 bananas

For the crust, mix melted butter with graham crackers crumbs, and press into 9-inch pie plate or tart pan.  (I actually like to rub cold butter into graham cracker crumbs to make a more cohesive dough, but this takes more time.  Your call.)

In a small saucepan, melt butter and brown sugar over low heat, stirring constantly.  When mixture starts to foam up to a simmer, stir in condensed milk.  Bring to a simmer over medium-low heat.  This is where you need to pay attention.  Turn down heat and simmer, stirring constantly, for 2 minutes.  Set a timer.  While you're stirring, scrape every inch of the bottom and sides of the pot to prevent scorching and unsightly lumps.  When the spoon starts to leave a trail on the bottom of the pot, around 2 minutes, remove from heat.  More than 3 minutes and you'll end up with something too stiff to be enjoyable in pie.  Pour caramel over crust.  Let cool in refrigerator for 45 minutes. 

When ready to serve, whip cream in a large bowl with a whisk or electric mixer (no sweetener necessary).  Stop when the cream mounds softly and forms soft peaks when you lift up the whisk.  I try to stop before the cream goes from smooth to rough and rumpled,  almost styrofoamy in appearance.  It's still edible at this point, but not as texturally pleasing.  If you go much beyond that, you'll end up with waxy butter flecks in your cream.  I made that mistake my third day in culinary school and I shan't make it again.

Slice bananas and pile on top of caramel.  Top with whipped cream.  Dust with cocoa if desired.  Devour.

Note: You may substitute canned dulce de leche for the homemade caramel filling.  Use caution, though, when using jars of charming, locally made, farm-fresh cajeta, which are typically too runny.  Save that ambrosia for another purpose, like drizzling over ice cream.

Local Ingredient Sources
Butter: Cabot, Cabot, VT
Cream: High Lawn Farm, Lee, MA

Snow Day 3: Maple Sugar on Snow

By the third snow day, I was pretty ready to be done with snow.  We had already spent the past two days doing every possible no-cost snow activity I could think of: shoveling, sledding, snowball fights, snow-fort construction, snow-fort demolition, and my personal favorite: cramming as much snow as possible up the sleeves of our coats and then crying about it. 

Still, we had all that beautiful snow, so I decided to try something new: making maple taffy (also known as maple sugar on snow).  Have you heard of it?  Basically, it's a soft candy made by heating up maple syrup to a certain point and then rapidly cooling it down.  That's where the snow comes in: you pour the hot syrup directly onto the snow.  Then, once cool, you take a popsicle stick and roll the taffy onto the end like a lollipop.  The cold temperature of the snow cools the taffy into a soft, sticky mass.  The snow also tends to stick to the taffy, making it as icy cold as it is sweet. 

A half cup of maple syrup makes a snack for 4 to 6.  Scope out an area of snow that is clean and not yellow ahead of time.  You want the snow at least two inches deep as the top layer will melt and sink when the hot syrup comes in contact with it.  You need a candy thermometer, a small pot, and a willingness to babysit the pot as it boils to make sure that the syrup doesn't bubble up and over the sides of the pot.  It really wants to.  Just lower the heat as necessary.  When the syrup reaches a temperature range of 234° to 238°F (recipes vary), turn off the heat and immediately bring the pot and your popsicle sticks outside.  Pour the syrup onto the snow in lines about 6 inches long.  Adhere a popsicle stick to one end of the amber ribbon and roll it onto itself.  Rest it in the snow while you complete the others.  Eat immediately (off its icy bed, the taffy tends to fall apart).  Once you're done, you can use the stick to dig any residual maple syrup out of the snow and eat it like a snow cone.  For me, this was half the fun. 

So there it is: possibly the only exception to the "Don't Eat Yellow Snow" rule!

 

Local Ingredient Sources:

Maple syrup: Williams Farm Sugarhouse, Old Deerfield, MA

Snow Day 1: Cookies

The kids had three days off from school as a result of last week's snowstorm.  Three!! 

Eighteen inches isn't an insignificant amount of snow, but I mean this isn't South Carolina.  We're supposed to be used to this sort of thing here in Massachusetts.  We're supposed to eat blizzards for breakfast.  Why, back in my day, you got one snow day.  If you were lucky.  Like if it was the Blizzard of '78 and your house caved in.  If the power was still out after that, classes were merely relocated to the abandoned cars left along the highway during the storm.  AND we had to claw our way through 27 feet of snow with bare hands and feet to get there, lugging full gas cans behind us.  At least that's how I remember it.  Character doesn't build itself, people.

I will grudgingly admit, however, that the Big Bad Blizzard of 2011 (in which we didn't even lose power or Internet access) presented a good opportunity to try out our new cardinal and owl cookie cutters from the Concord Shop, and so that's exactly what we did.  Can you tell which cookies are the ones I decorated?  I'll give you a hint: I tried to hide them underneath the artsy ones the kids made.

Crispy Hash Browns

Wow, you guys.  Never have I gotten so many desperate pleas for a recipe as I have in the past few days after the mere mention of hash browns.  It's nice to know that I have such a discerning/obsessed readership.  Now that we've had a chance to dig ourselves out of the foot and a half of snow that fell yesterday, I'm happy to share my technique.  It produces a well-seasoned potato patty that's crisp on the outside and soft on the inside.  In short: perfect.

 

Crispy Hash Browns

3 medium Yukon gold potatoes (or other starchy potato)
Kosher salt and black pepper
Olive oil

Peel and grate potatoes using the large holes on a box grater (watch your knuckles!).  Line a colander with cheesecloth or non-linty dishtowel.  Set grated potato on towel in colander and sprinkle with several pinches of kosher salt, tossing to distribute.  Let sit 5 minutes. 

Heat a large skillet (I like cast iron) with 2 Tbsp. olive oil on medium heat.  (If you're making the hash browns to go with sausage and vegetable hash, you may have some fat left over in the skillet so you can use less oil).  While the pan is heating, gather up the sides of the towel, twist, and squeeze the potatoes hard over the sink so all of the moisture drips out.  Repeat several times.  You want the potatoes dry, dry, dry before they hit the pan.  You should be left with a wad of potato pulp about the size of a baseball.

When the pan is good and hot, take 1/3 of grated potatoes, pull apart, and spread out into a potato pancake no more than 1/2-inch thick.  You want the potato loosely packed with lacy edges.  Sprinkle with black pepper, press down with a spatula, then leave it alone for about 10 minutes.  Time will vary depending on your pan and the flame.  When you see the edges start to brown significantly, carefully loosen with the spatula and lift up an edge.  If the hash brown is merely golden on the bottom and kind of sags, let it cook more time.  What you want is a crust on the bottom that can withstand the weight of the hash brown itself.  It's called hash brown for a reason (just take care not to make it a hash black).  Flip and repeat on the second side.  When nice and crispy brown, let drain on paper towels and season with salt.  Repeat with two more batches of potatoes, squeezing any additional moisture that may have been drawn out by the salt, and adding more oil to the pan as necessary.  Serves 2 adults and 2 kids (who split the third).

A few other notes: You could probably use a food processor fitted with the grater disk, though it takes less time to grate three potatoes by hand than it would for me to locate and later wash all of the parts of the food processor.  Don't let your peeled/grated potatoes sit out too long before cooking or they will turn brown.  Also, be sure to rinse out the squeezing towel with water soon afterwards so it doesn't stain brown.  If you need to speed up the frying process, use two skillets simultaneously.  Finally, if your kids turn up their noses at your beautiful hash browns, just say they're like hamburgers made out of French fries and suddenly at least one of them is chowing down.

Local Ingredients:
Potatoes: Waltham Fields, Waltham, MA/Picadilly Farm, Winchester, NH

Sausage and Root Vegetable Skillet Supper

Don't you just love breakfast for dinner?  Or "brinner" as my oldest calls it. 

To me, brinner usually means that Husband is making his amazing blueberry pancakes and I'm off duty, a double score for me.  Sometimes it means I'm frying up bacon and eggs.  More recently, though, I've been whittling down my root vegetable stash by making sausage and vegetable hash.  It makes fine cold- weather fare for breakfast, brunch, or brinner.  It is best served with hash- browned potatoes on the side or, as Husband easily convinced me, broken up so the crispy, lacy bits mingle with the rest of the vegetables.  My super-simple hash brown technique is here.  In the meantime, go find yourself some squash.


Sausage and Root Vegetable Skillet Supper (with Crispy Hash Browns)

If you don't have access to these particularly delicious breakfast sausages, you can substitute high-quality ground pork mixed with a healthy dose of salt, ground sage, and black pepper, as well as a touch of cayenne and ground coriander.  You could also use bacon.  Feel free to omit the root vegetables you don't like and replace them with others that you do, like carrots, sweet potatoes, and rutabagas.

1/2-1 lb. farm-fresh, breakfast sausage patties
1-2 Tbsp. bacon fat (or oil, if you prefer)
1/2 butternut squash, peeled, 1/2-inch dice
1 medium turnip, peeled, 1/2-inch dice
1 medium celery root, peeled, 1/2-inch dice
2 parsnips, peeled, sides sliced off the woody core, 1/2-inch dice
1 red onion, 1/2-inch dice
2 Tbsp. olive oil
1 Tbsp. chopped fresh rosemary
1 Tbsp. chopped fresh thyme
Salt and pepper to taste

Preheat the oven to 350°F. 

In a large skillet, preferably cast iron, melt the fat and brown the sausage meat, breaking the patties into bite-sized pieces as you go.  You want the pieces fully cooked and golden-brown on several sides.  When done, remove meat and set aside.  Reserve skillet (unwashed) for hash browns.

While sausage is browning, wash, peel, and chop the squash, turnip, celery root, parsnips, and onion.  Combine on a large rimmed baking sheet with olive oil, rosemary, thyme, salt, and pepper.  Toss with your hands until well-coated.  Roast for 40 minutes, flipping once, or until the vegetables are tender and golden. 

Meanwhile, make the hash browns.  Combine the vegetables, sausage, and hash browns in the skillet and brinner is served.

Source: Inspired by an adaptation of the Red Lion Inn recipe in The Boston Globe.

Local Ingredient Sources
Sausage: Chestnut Farms, Hardwick, MA
Bacon fat: From bacon from Codman Farm, Lincoln, MA
Squash, turnip, red onion, potatoes: Waltham Fields, Waltham, MA
Parsnips: Sugar Mountain Farm, Whately, MA (via Russo's)
Rosemary: My half-dead plant

Mama’s Got a Brand New Bag

Look at the new lunchbox I got for Christmas!  I’m super-excited because maybe now I won’t look like such a loser at school. 

That's right, I’m back at school.  It’s like one of those horrible dreams where you forgot to take a test, so you have to go back to your old classroom and pass the exam retroactively or they’ll render your very expensive college diploma null and void.  And so you wedge yourself into one of those old-fashioned desks with the ink wells and the attached chairs, even though they totally had pencils and separate furniture back when you were a kid, and all the 10-year-olds in the classroom point and laugh because you’re old and too fat to fit behind the desk, and it’s the wrong school anyway and it’s almost test time, so you attempt to sprint down the street in the direction of your old high school, which now bears a striking resemblance to a place you used to work, but your legs won’t move correctly and you keep falling down stairs.  Over and over you get up and attempt to run as fast as you can, but stairs keep appearing and you keep hurtling down them, prom dress tucked into your underwear, old-fashioned desk still girdled around your waist.

What?

Just kidding, I didn’t go back to school to take any tests—I went back to give the tests.  It’s true!  I now hold the esteemed position of on-call substitute teacher for an MCAS-challenged school district.  My specialty is run-on sentences.  And sentence fragments.  Can you believe that the public schools would let someone like me teach our nation’s children?  Me neither.  Such is the state of education in this country. 

Since I started back in September, it has been a very enlightening experience.  Let’s just say that I have my good days and I have my bad days.  The good days are marked by an incredible sense of well-being and purpose, like the euphoria you feel at the end of every single inspirational teacher movie ever made (Dead Poets Society, Stand and Deliver, Lean on Me, etc.).  Other days?  Well, other days the janitor arrives in the late afternoon to find me spackled to the white board in a hardened, partially soggy papier-mâché body cast of spitballs.  The only things visible are my dead eyes.  Sometimes the janitor makes me watch him sweep up the disaster of a classroom before he scrapes me down, because, apparently, my day hasn’t been bad enough.

But I am excited about my new lunch bag.  Lunch is my favorite part of the school day, for it is then that I may enjoy my hastily cobbled-together, room- temperature leftovers undisturbed, after I’ve had a chance to gingerly remove the thumbtacks from my asshole. 

Those tacks are mine now.  Take that!

Detox

Now that I’ve finished the last piece of penuche, it’s time to purge my system of holiday excess.  It’s not a resolution so much as a cold-turkey return to normalcy: not a lot of sugar, not a lot of alcohol, weekly trips to the winter farmer’s market, and frequent work-outs to hilariously awesome YouTube videos.  Like this one. 

Hey, you detox your way and I’ll detox mine!