How I Poisoned My Family

A Tale of Two Hasselbacks

The internet is rife with Hasselback potato recipes. Many of these recipes refer to Hasselbacks as "Swedish baked potatoes," and some note that these fancy potatoes were originally served in a Stockholm restaurant, the Restaurang Hasselbacken (Hazel Hill restaurant), in the late 1700s. That the potatoes were named for the restaurant I do not doubt. I'm a bit less certain about the date. Although a restaurant called the Hasselbacken has been on Djurgården island in central Stockholm since the 1760s, I've had no luck tracking the origin of the potatoes with any such certainty.

In fact, I'm not really sure what the original Hasselbacks looked or tasted like. If you peruse the many internet recipes, you will find Hasselbacks peeled and Hasselbacks rustic, made with starchy potatoes and waxy potatoes and everything in between, sprinkled in breadcrumbs and cheese, stuffed with herbs or stuffed with nothing, devoid of any addition but butter or olive oil. If you're looking for the Iconic Hasselback—well, good luck. The one constant I've found in these many recipes is the comb-cut potato, which is really the most important innovation. The potatoes are sliced with as many cuts as possible, none all the way through, about 1/8th-inch apart across the long axis of the potato. This cut is what makes it possible to produce a potato that combines the fluffiness of baked potatoes with the crispy edges of their roasted cousins. Good stuff, no matter how you top or stuff it.

The comb-cut, as many have discovered, also allows you to infuse the potato with the flavors of herbs, cheeses, breadcrumbs, butter and other flavored oils—more than you could possibly manage with a whole or hollowed potato. The comb-cut also allows you to use a greater variety of potatoes, successfully, for baking. For a proper texture, baking usually requires starchy potatoes (some call them mealy potatoes, but that doesn't sound at all appetizing). Starchy potatoes have a porous skin and loose textured flesh that lets heat flow readily through the potato, allowing them to bake in a reasonable amount of time. Because the comb-cut of the Hasselback offers up more surface area to the baking space, any kind of potato can be used. I have found that medium-sized reds and Yukon golds produce more flavorful Hasselbacks than russets, which are the classic baking variety. The reds yield a more earthy flavor; the golds, a more buttery result.

My earliest introduction to something like this concept wasn't called "Hasselback." Roger Verge's Vegetables in the French Style, describes what his translator calls "bay-scented roasted potatoes." Roger peels his waxy potatoes, slices them more thickly (3/8" vice 1/8") than Hasselbacks, and inserts a strip of bay leaf into each slit in the potatoes. The result is a fluffy, creamy infusion of bay laurel floral/spicy/herbal notes into potato earthiness.

After a bit of experimentation, I came up with the variation I describe below, using waxy potatoes, unpeeled, a combination of olive oil and butter for basting, and the insertion of bay leaves alternating with cellophane-thin garlic slices into the cuts. The first time I served my finalized variation to the girls and a guest, I had a hard time getting anyone to eat the rest of the meal. The potatoes were the star of the show. Even my lovely wife, who usually prefers rice to potatoes, praised the dish.

So, when Da Boy—a sixteen-year-old with an avowed enthusiasm for all manner of potatoes—was visiting for a special dinner, those glorious Hasselbacks seemed an ideal treat to enliven the meal. I was running low on bay leaves, so I picked up a pack while shopping at my favorite specialty market. Their packaged herbs were a different brand than what I usually purchase at my neighborhood grocer. The leaves were about three inches long, a bit narrower than what I'm used to buying, thinner and decidedly paler than the bay leaves I usually get, but I really didn't think these minor differences would matter. They certainly smelled like bay leaves. In fact, if I'd been paying more attention, I might have noticed that they smelled more like bay leaves on steroids.

I prepared the potatoes as before, using up the dark bay leaves I had on hand before turning to the pale ones. In potatoes containing the paler bay leaves, I used one third of a leaf in every other slit in the potatoes. I used perhaps as much as three whole leaves in a single potato.

At the beginning of dinner, the girls agreed the potatoes were as good as usual, but the boy hadn't tried them yet. Initially, he was more interested by the protein offering (grilled dorado). At my urging, he finally tried the potatoes. He took one bite and said, "That's disgusting."

I was flabbergasted. Disgusting? Potatoes with butter, salt, olive oil, gloriously infused with garlic and the essence of bay, gently roasted to a crinkly, golden turn—how could such a thing be disgusting?

Princess V disagreed. "You're out of your mind. These potatoes are divine." (Princess V had me go back in and add the italics.)

Had I done something wrong? Da Boy loves mashed potatoes, baked potatoes, pan-roasted potatoes, fries. How could this be?

I tried the potatoes for myself. My first bite seemed fine—crispy edges, buttery center, hints of garlic and eucalyptus—but after two more bites, I wasn't so certain. Something was wrong. Off. Something was too sharp. My sinuses were hurting. An unfocused source was driving a needle up through my nasal passages into my forehead. It felt like the onset of the mother of all sinus headaches. This couldn't have anything to do with dinner. Was something pollinating? I took one more bite of my potato, and the pain quadrupled. I couldn't see straight. Tears welled at every breath. I stood up and paced, trying to walk off the pain. I looked at my dinner. Could that be the problem? My potatoes? But the girls weren't affected.

Examining what was on each plate, I quickly determined the source of this problem. Princess V and the girlchild were both eating potatoes stuffed with the old, darker bay leaves. The boy and I were eating potatoes infused by the paler organic leaves. Could bay leaves really differ that much from plant to plant? Could something in conventional bay leaves be removing toxins? That certainly seemed counterintuitive.

A few days later, my brother-in-law was visiting, and I told him about our little bay incident. He took one look at the leaves and said, "Those aren't bay. Those are eucalyptus." I'd had a eucalyptus tree in my front yard in San Diego many years ago, and I had to admit, the leaves did look quite a bit like eucalyptus—paler than bay, longer, thinner. Folding a leaf released a scent of something very much like camphor. I didn't remember eucalyptus being quite that strong, but the aroma profile seemed about right. It was definitely much stronger than anything I expect from bay leaves. Thinking we'd solved the problem, I decided I'd best report this problem to the purveyor: I called Generation Farms. They had been good enough to put their phone number on the package.

Generation Farms was spectacular in response to my complaint. They apologized for my discomfort and explained the source of confusion. Generation Farms is dedicated to providing strictly organic produce, but bay laurel trees are a bit troublesome for year-round organic production. As a result, producers dedicated to providing organically-grown bay tend to rely on a more forgiving plant: something called "California bay". The Generation Farms rep explained that California bay is far more potent than Mediterranean bay. Based on our experience with the potatoes, one of the California bay leaves would have sufficed for a half dozen potatoes. Based on what they told me, I'd used about ten times too much.

The Generation Farms folks apologized for the misunderstanding and sent me a care package by way of reparations, including not only actual Mediterranean bay laurel leaves but also many samples of their other herbs: savory, lemon grass, rosemary, and thyme. I did express my opinion that it just doesn't make sense to label two so very different products the same way. According to Generation Farms, some of the restaurateurs actually prefer the California bay. I guess it's a bit more economical if you know how to use it.

Then again, if they're just two variants of the same sort of plants, is it the farmer's fault that my botany skills are lacking?

Perhaps. I did a little research, though, California bay isn't really bay. "California bay" is something of a marketing ploy.

Bay laurel, an aromatic leaf used as an herb and perfume for well over five thousand years, is a variety of laurel (Laurus nobilis) indigenous to the Mediterranean. Bay laurel leaves exude a mild combination of essential oils, providing a mix of woody, floral, and spicy notes and, yes, a mild hint of something like eucalyptus.

So-called "California bay" isn't a bay laurel at all. It's a native North American plant, Umbellularia californicans. In all fairness, it is true that Umbellularia is a member of the laurel family, but it's the sole member of the Umbellularia genus. Again I say: this is not bay laurel. Before finding a market as "California bay," Umbellularia was variously known by such telling names as Pepperwood, Spice Bush, and—my personal fave—Headache Tree. Herbal medicine specialists with chops in Native American herbalism will tell you that, in small doses, Umbellularia can cure headaches. In slightly larger doses, it causes headaches. I can attest to this from personal experience.

So the plant is a laurel, but it's not a bay laurel. The packages for both varieties say "Bay Leaves." Still sounds like false advertising to me. Cooks in the US and Europe have been using bay laurel to impart a subtle yet complex flavor profile to roasts, soups, and stews for hundreds of years. If Umbellularia is being marketed as a substitute that's more organic-friendly and more economical than bay laurel, why aren't the purveyors willing to be honest about the switch and label their product "California Bay"?

Caveat emptor.

Bay and Garlic Perfumed Haselback Potatoes

dramatis personae
serves 4

6 medium (size-C) potatoes
two large garlic cloves
a dozen medium bay leaves
olive oil
cracked black pepper
salt

quality of ingredients

For best results, use red or Yukon gold potatoes. California whites will work in a pinch. Select potatoes that are all about the same size and shape and relatively free of blemishes.

I've talked about garlic before, so here's the short form: you want white rather than purple-stripe garlic for roasting.

Use fresh bay leaves, and, as I think I've made abundantly clear, use Mediterranean bay leaves, unless you really want to upset your diners.

preparation notes

Set your oven rack near the bottom and preheat to 400F.

Slice the potatoes across the long axis, making cuts every 1/8th of an inch, being careful not to cut all the way through the potatoes. I prefer resting the potato in a plastic spoon that's deep enough to keep me from cutting all the way through.

The result should look something like this:

Prepare the garlic by peeling it and then slicing it thin enough to read through the slices.

In each slit in the potatoes place, alternately, a half-leaf of bay or one of the extra-thin garlic slices.

Brush the potatoes with olive oil and place them, slit-side up, separated by an inch or more, in a roasting pan. You might have to slice a little off the bottom of each potato to make them stand up in the pan. Brush the potatoes with olive oil and sprinkle the potatoes liberally with salt and cracked pepper. Roast them in the oven until a small knife, inserted at the thickest part of the potato goes in easily and comes out clean (about 25 minutes).

The Heat Goes On

Hell Is Other People


I completed the majority of this entry a month ago, so the references to the summer heat might sound odd. Still, the dishes are pretty good for a day when you don't feel like doing much cooking.

I spent the majority of the 80s in the U.S. Navy, running reactors and reactor protection equipment aboard nuclear submarines. In the early 80s, while the submarine I was assigned to was laying over in Guam for repairs, the crew was billeted in some old WWII vintage barracks up on a jungly hill. The place had no A/C, huge open-bay rooms full of bunk beds tented with mosquito netting, lots of perpetually-open windows, and just a few old slow fans for cooling. For our first few days, during the day, with temperatures in the upper 90s and humidity ditto, having become accustomed to the consistent air-conditioned comfort of the sub (well, except for occasional hot moments in the engine room) most of us just lazed under our mosquito nets, waiting for sundown and practicing our sweating. I remember one of the guys waxing rhapsodic about his hometown in Vermont. Making angels in pristine, new fallen snow. Getting a tongue stuck to a flagpole. Sledding in the mountains. Snowforts and snowball fights with his brothers. Apparently they were a very frolicsome family.

Lying there with what felt like a large tributary of the Mississippi running down from each armpit, the thought of snow didn't cool me at all. Maybe I was just feeling disagreeable, but my crewmate's burbling just reminded me how much I hated snow. I grew up in Colorado, skiing from pre-adolescence, and I absolutely hated snow then no less than now. I've never liked cold weather. Okay, I loved skiing—during which I could forget how cold it was—but I always wished it could have been possible to ski in warmer climes. That sweaty day in Guam, as I lay simmering in my own bodily fluids, I realized that, as bad as I felt, I've always preferred hot weather.

So what was keeping me in that hot room with those other shlubs, watching the geckos scurry across the netting? Was the humidity really that enervating? I mean, if I got up and Did Something, would I feel any worse? I decided not. I got out of the sack and strolled off toward town to find something to do in the beautiful sunshine. For the next several days, whenever I wasn't required to be on the boat, I was touring Guam—hiking in the jungle, birding, taking pictures, snorkeling, window shopping, restaurant hopping. Gradually, a few of my crew mates joined me on these excursions. What had started out as a soul-sucking layover in a suburb of hell turned into a free vacation in paradise.

Now, I'm not saying the heat was all in my head, but certainly there is a mental component to the malaise wrought by hot, humid days. So here I am in Austin, Texas, in one of the hottest summers in the past decade (temps in the triple digits, only occasional cool snaps down to the upper 90s), and I've been staying indoors with the air conditioning. As I noted last time, I get up at 5 a.m. to do my (almost) daily walks just to avoid the heat.

Well, last week, I finally took a plunge I'd been avoiding for a decade: I bought a grill. I don't think I'm suffering any kind of testosterone crisis, but I have been getting quite tired of heating up the whole house at every other meal. I also realized that I had been avoiding grilling because it didn't make much sense to stand over a hot grill on a hundred-degree day. Me, avoiding the heat? Why? CAVEAT: this blog entry won't include any grill recipes. I'm a grilling novice. Sort of. I've cooked on charcoal grills, and thirty years ago, I worked for a few months as a grillardin, but that was a long time ago. I have a lot to recall, relearn, reinvent. I've got a start on it—I've grilled chicken breasts, carnitas, tuna steaks, spatchcocked chicken, shrimp, sirloin kebabs, and pizza—but I'm not there yet, confidence wise. I'll get back to you on this.

Chill

Of course, one of the simple solutions to the heat is to avoid cooking, altogether. Salads, tartares, sashimi, carpaccios, crudos—no fire in the house means the house stays cool. Fresh baguettes or artisanal crackers from the grocery store round out the meal. That's more or less what I was doing, frequently, prior to getting the grill.

Last year on an episode of Top Chef one blogging food critic (*cough* pretentious jerk-off New Yorker *cough*) made a negative comment about a tuna tartare before even tasting it. Essentially, his complaint was, "This dish is so last year." Now, yes, I know that foods of one sort or another do go in and out of style, and I understand that the passion for a particular food or treatment can make it seem old even faster, but I don't think tuna tartare is quite there yet. In all fairness, I'm in Austin, maybe the restaurants in New York have overdone the presentation of tuna tartare. I hope not. Tuna tartare, done right, is sumptuous, rich, and satisfying.

Another caveat: all measurements are approximations—guesses, really. I just toss in what looks right, taste, and adjust as I go along.

Tuna tartare Japonaise with fennel-apple salad
serves 4

dramatis personae

tartare

sashimi-grade tuna
one small carrot
two tablespoons minced chives
two tablespoons minced basil
one tablespoon sesame seeds
juice of one lime
one tablespoon tamari
two teaspoons wasabi
one teaspooon sesame oil

salad

one quarter cup pignolis
one medium Fuji apple, unpeeled, cored, and sliced thinly
juice of one lemon
one fennel bulb, cored and sliced thinly
one quarter cup radicchio chiffonade
four ounces ricotta salata, cut or broken into half-inch chunks

dressing

one teaspoon fennel fronds, minced
two tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
one tablespoon white balsamic vinegar
one teaspoon tarragon vinegar
dash of tabasco sauce
one teaspoon Dijon mustard
black pepper
salt

quality of ingredients

I've never had any trouble with tuna steaks. for raw preparations. You want either the freshest, reddest tuna steaks you can find (first choice) or frozen steaks labeled "sashimi-grade." If you're selecting from fresh tuna steaks, the tuna should be glistening and slightly translucent and have a gentle, sweet aroma. If you smell even a hint of ammonia, pass it by.

Carrots should always be crisp. Don't use rubbery carrots; they tend to be bitter.

Chives should be deep green and neither limp nor bruised. Dice from the tips of the chives, which are more flavorful than the base.

Basil leaves should also be dark green and neither limp nor discolored.

Limes should be dark green (as much as half yellow is okay) and firm but not too hard. Unlike lemon zest, which softens with age, the zest of a lime desiccates with age and takes on a texture like melamine.

If you don't have tamari, you can use soy sauce. If the soy is too dark, thin it one-to-one with water.

Pignolis should be solid and free of blemishes.

Fennel bulbs should be white and firm. A few light brown blemishes are acceptable, but deep, translucent blemishes can't be removed. The fronds should be dark green and not wilted.

Fuji apples should be solid and free of bruises.

Lemon juice should always come from fresh lemons, not from a green bottle.

Radicchio leaves should be purple and white, and free of brown splotches. If the outer leaves are becoming brown at the edges, remove and discard them. The leaves underneath should be okay.

White balsamic vinegar is a fairly recent introduction to American supermarkets, and it's one of those special foods that excites a good deal of anger and excitement among purists. Frankly, I don't understand the problem. Real balsamic vinegar (labeled "aceto balsamico tradizionale") is made by cooking grape musts to carmelize them and then aging the resulting liquid in a series of successively smaller wooden barrels for a minimum of 12 years. The traditionally aged stuff costs a small fortune, and fine restaurants dole it out in drops. The stuff we get in the supermarkets that does not say "aceto balsamico tradizionale"—even the aged stuff—is made differently. Most of the commercial grade balsamico is made in Modena and Reggio Emilia, near where the tradizionale is produced. The commercial grade stuff is made by adding the same cooked musts to a little bit of wine vinegar. So, the only difference between white balsamic vinegar and the dark stuff is that the musts in the white balsamic aren't caramelized. What's really important here is that white balsamic is a tasty substitute for balsamic where the dark, caramelly richness of OTC balsamic vinegar would be inappropriate.

preparation notes

Unlike beef, tuna for tartare should not be minced too finely. A quarter-inch dice works great. This not only reduces the amount of work you have to do, it provides a dish with a better mouth-feel. Chopped too finely the tuna feels mushy. Mix the solid ingredients before adding the liquids.

For the salad, first, toast the pignolis over high heat in a non-stick skillet with no oil. Shake the pan constantly to prevent burning the pignolis. Once the pignolis are uniformly golden brown, pour them into the salad bowl. Slice the apples, put them in a small bowl. Toss the apple slices with the juice of one lemon and set them aside. Combine the fennel, pignolis, radicchio, and cheese.

Mix the dressing and set it aside.

When ready to serve, pour the excess lemon juice off of the apple slices and toss them into the salad. Dress the salad either just prior to serving or at the table.

Serve the tartare and salad with a baguette or similar crunchy bread.

Where's the Beef?

Not the Heat

In October of last year I had spinal surgery. My lowest disc had been ground to the consistency of hamburger, and—despite epidural steroid injections, physical therapy, and a river of opioids—my back pain just kept getting worse. So, they removed the disc and fused the associated pair of vertebrae. After the surgery, I spent a painful week in the hospital followed by two weeks in a rehabilitation facility. Returning home, a big part of my post-operative rehabilitation has been long walks. I've had my share of ups and downs with the rehabilitation process, but walking Lately, I've been trying to get in at least one long circuit (at least a mile and a half) every day.

A typical summer in Austin, Texas, means daily high temperatures in the triple digits, with humidity just high enough to ensure runnels of sweat just from walking down to the mail box. As I type, it's 3:30 in the afternoon, the temperature outside just hit 102F. My back-patio thermometer says it 96 degrees in the shade. I hear the sizzling trill of cicadas in the trees, and it's hard not to think of the neighborhood as a giant skillet. As much as I love the Texas heat, it's not the kind of weather you want for a long walk. It's also a bad idea to walk any time around or just after dusk. That's when the mosquitos come out, and they're wicked hungry. So, like a lot of other Austinite walkers, runners, joggers, and cyclists, I end up having to get up before dawn to get in my day's exercise. It works. I get in a long walk without being braised in my own juices, and I get to watch the sun rise.

I wish it were that easy to solve the cooking heat dilemma.

Baking is the worst. Crank up the oven to 400F for half an hour, and the house can heat up five degrees for the rest of the evening. Open flames, naturally, have pretty much the same effect. Too many cooked dishes in a meal can mean an uncomfortable night all around. Plus, no one really wants a meal that warms them up when the air is this hot. If I even mention soup, Princess V makes a sour face. Sure, we can eat lots of sashimi, carpaccio, tartare, and salads; and we do. After a while, though, the cold foods leave me wanting some of the complexity that can develop only with the addition of heat: roasting, grilling, sautéing. Also, summer places its own culinary demands on us. For most people, apparently, summer means grill marks. It's rare, this time of year, that you find a food-porn magazine without grill marks on the cover. I understand the attraction of the grill in summer: you get all of that caramelized, smoky goodness without heating up the house. Then again, standing over a bank of hot coals in 102F weather isn't the ideal cooking experience.

Continuing the Boycott

For me, summer has always meant hamburgers. I don't know where the association originated, but hot weather always leaves me craving juicy burgers with molten cheese. Ironically, I don't eat a whole lot of beef, and I never buy ground meat. As I mentioned in Beauty in the Beast Princess V is more than a little concerned about the possibility of BSE. Also, I find that beef makes me logy and generally plays hell with my digestion. I like the flavor of beef once in a while, but I can't eat much of it, and I try to avoid ground beef altogether. This is why I started experimenting with alternative meats, and I think I've come up with a success.

First, here's a brief run down of the failures:

• Bison. I love rare bison, but bison tallow is gamy. Bison burgers always taste a bit too much like liver, for my taste.


• Pork. Too greasy or too dry, and ground pork just doesn't hold together. Plus, the flavor profile is just wrong.


• Turkey. Lean ground turkey is way too dry and a little too sweet. Adding in a little dark meat helps a little, but the result is far too sweet.


• Ahi tuna. Luscious, but this is a burger? Also, this strikes me as a waste of good tuna. I can think of a thousand dishes I'd rather make with fresh tuna. Similarly, I have no interest in even trying shrimp burgers or lobster burgers.


• Chicken (version one). Lean ground chicken is as dry as lean ground turkey, but the flavor of pan seared ground chicken is more like ground beef than turkey.


• Chicken (version two). The grocery store carries a variety of ground chicken that's not so low in fat. As with the turkey, they mix in one part dark meat with three parts white meat. The result is moist, but the burger tastes too schmaltzy.

And the winner, believe it or not, is: chicken (version three). The secret is to replace the chicken fat with tastier fat. Blow off the pre-ground chicken, use lean breast meat, and add some good streaky bacon for the fat. Of course, everything is better with bacon.

For the sake of a little of the old bang/wow, it also helps to design your own condiments. Catsup and mustard seemed like no-brainers, and the chipotle in the catsup was begging for some avocado to balance the heat.

Chicken Sliders with Chipotle Catsup, Dijon Tapenade Mustard, and Avocado Cream

(serves six)

dramatis personae

four boneless, skinless chicken breast halves
eight slices center cut bacon
one teaspoon cornstarch
one teaspoon worcestershire sauce
two tablespoons olive oil (if frying)
black pepper

catsup

one small can tomato purée
chipotle chilis in adobo
cider vinegar
dark brown sugar
a pinch of kosher salt

mustard

one quarter cup niçoise olives (pitted)
two tablespoons non-pareil capers
three anchovy filets
one quarter cup dijon mustard

avocado cream

one large hass avocado
juice of one small lemon
juice of one medium lime
one tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
one half tablespoon of avocado oil
one quarter cup milk

quality of ingredients

The chicken breasts should be free of freezer burn. These days, you'll find many options for high-quality chicken: free-range, cageless, hormone-free, antibiotic free, air-chilled. As far as I can tell, each of these adjectives adds a great deal to the cost of the chicken and next to nothing to the taste.

I like the fat-to-lean balance in center cut bacon, but that's also our go-to variety for breakfast. A good applewood, mesquite, or hickory smoked bacon might work. Possibly pancetta. I'd avoid the maple syrup stuff, though.

Some of the TV chefs and foodies of late seem determined to use extra-virgin olive oil for everything. As much as I love extra-virgin olive oil, using it in any high-temperature application is just stupid. Use a good quality olive oil if you're frying your burgers but leave the extra-virgin on the shelf.

Even if you live in an area (like Austin) where you can get dry chipotle chilis, the canned ones work better for uncooked sauces.

Be sure your cider vinegar does not say "cider-flavored vinegar" on the label. That's not cider vinegar. Some brands sell both cider vinegar and cider-flavored, so read the label every time you buy it.

Salt. I like kosher or sea salt. It doesn't matter which you use, but be aware that you'll use half as much if you choose to use table salt.

I prefer Niçoise olives in my tapenades. In a pinch, you can use kalamata olives for a tapenade, but in this case—for a mustard—I think the kalamatas would be too tart.

Taste the capers before you use them. Some brands are too salty to use directly out of the jar. If they're too salty, soak them in fresh water for a few minutes before using them. Be sure you don't get the kind steeped in balsamic vinegar.

Avocados are difficult to get at exactly the right degree of ripeness. If they're just a little too soft, they might be overripe. Overripe avocados have nasty brown portions. For this application, however, where the avocado will be puréed in a blender, it doesn't need to be quite as soft as it would for a guacamolé. Buy an avocado that yields to a slight pressure.

preparation notes

Cut away all the fat from the chicken breasts, dice the bacon, and combine the chicken, bacon, corn starch, and worcestershire sauce in a food processor. Process the ingredients until you no longer see chunks of bacon in the mix.

Wet your hands (ground chicken is very sticky) and form the chicken into patties at least one half-inch thick. Cook the chicken patties until they're golden brown on one side (about four minutes in a hot skillet, a little longer on a grill). Flip the patties and cook them until the other side is equally golden brown.

You can make the patties burger-size and serve them with hamburger buns or slider-size and serve them on biscuits or dinner rolls.

You may have noticed that I didn't list quantities for any of the ingredients for the catsup (except the tomato purée, but you have to start somewhere). I find most store-bought catsup cloying and vile, but I know this is a matter of taste. For this reason, you should make the catsup to suit your own taste. I recommend starting with one chipotle. Remove the stem, cut open the chili, and scrape out the seeds with a spoon. Add the chipotle and the purée to a blender. Add a splash of cider vinegar, a teaspoon or so of brown sugar, and a pinch of salt. Blend the ingredients until the chipotle is completely puréed. Taste the concoction. If you want it hotter, add another chipotle. Add more vinegar, sugar, and salt as your taste dictates.

For the Dijon tapenade mustard, first make the tapenade. Combine the ingredients in a food processor and pulse them a few times. The anchovy filets will disappear immediately. You just need to process the ingredients until the bits of olive are about the same size as the capers.

For the avocado cream, in a blender, purée the ingredients until smooth.

Debriefings

Near Misses

This past week I served the family two stew-like dishes. Both were dishes I've prepared in the distant past. Both were well-received (Girltzik declared both dinners delicious). Both, frankly, disappointed me. Maybe I'm just too demanding. Maybe I'm never satisfied. Maybe I'm having Prince flashbacks.

I go through this all the time with new or re-visited dishes. The girls will be enjoying the meal and I'll start with open questions ("What do you think?" "Anything you'd change?") and move to leading questions if I don't hear anything that answers my own inner critic's concerns. Princess V calls it the debriefing.

Khoresh-e Fasenjan

The dish I was attempting to revise is called khoresh-e fesenjan, and I have no idea how that translates, but what little I know of Persian foods tells me that (1) khoresh literally means "eating," (2) all Persian stews are called khoresh-something, and (3) khoresh-e fesenjan is always made with (at the very least) pomegranate molasses, walnut meal, onions, and poultry. I think the name essentially means "pomegranate stew," but I wouldn't bet a paycheck on it. This khoresh is unique in that the inclusion of pomegranate sweetens the stew; most Persian stews are decidedly savory, containing no sweetener of any kind.

If you google khoresh-e fasenjan, you'll find numerous recipes, including dozens of redactions of Maideh Mazda's recipe from In a Persian Kitchen. Mazda's goal appears to have been making Persian cooking possible without access to authentic Persian ingredients. For this reason, her version is far from iconic, relying as it does on shortening, poultry seasoning, and pomegranate juice instead of pomegranate molasses.

One of my objections to most versions of this dish is the walnut meal, which in addition to providing a bit of flavor, thickens the stew. I like walnuts, but in this particular application, they give the dish a gritty texture. In the past, I've tried substituting ground cashews, which is smoother than the walnuts, but the cashew flavor is pretty assertive and radically changes the flavor. I decided, for this latest revision of khoresh-e fasenjan, that I would eschew the walnut meal thickener entirely. Instead, once the vegetables and chicken were fully cooked, I simply removed them to a bowl and reduced the liquid. I think this worked quite well, but it was a wee bit sweet for my taste. No surprise. The pomegranate molasses makes khoresh-e fasenjan tart and sweet, and it can easily become cloying. Princess V commented on this, noting that my khoresh fell just short of being too sweet. Some recipes I've seen actually add sugar, and that would be entirely too much.

Khoresh-e fasenjaan is usually quite spicy and will typically contain cayenne, turmeric, and cinammon. I decided to replace the traditional spice selection with ras al hanout and turmeric. The ras al hanout I used on the chicken pieces as a spice rub prior to searing them. I used the turmeric because I like the way it works with pomegranate. Searing on the ras al hanout worked well, imparting a warm, smoky spice to the dish.

A khoresh usually includes onions and will often include zucchini, eggplant, or artichokes. For vegetables, in addition to the onion, I elected to use artichoke hearts and pistachios. Both are meaty and rich, and pistachios match well with pomegranate. Besides, Girltzik and I are big artichoke fans.

The sauce for khoresh-e fasenjan is often made even tarter by the addition of lime juice, tomatoes, or tomato sauce. I don't care for tomato with pomegranate but I did include a little lime juice.

The poultry component of khoresh-e fasenjan is often a whole chicken or duck or just chicken legs. I decided to use thighs and breasts. The girls don't care for dark meat, but it does a better job of flavoring stews. Breast meat is problematic in acidic stews: it dries out and takes on a slightly astringent quality. That turned out to be the case in this instance. My biggest objection to our meal was the dryness of the breast meat. Next time, I think I'm going to try chicken meatballs or possibly chicken meatballs fortified with duck fat.

Bouillabaise

Bouillabaise is a dangerous dish. To be more precise, it's major food snob fodder. Like Pad Thai, lasagne Bolognese, gazpacho, and teriyaki, if you don't follow a strict traditional recipe and technique, purists will pooh-pooh the dish and accuse you of being a poser. The traditional bouillabaise of Marseille, according to the Michelin Guide, must be made with rascasse (a Mediterranean scorpionfish), fish caught that day, fine olive oil, and quality saffron. Others will tell you that three specific fish must be used and no more than seven.

In practice, bouillabaise was the Provençal version catch-of-the-day stew enjoyed by fishermen. These stews are found all round the Mediterranean. Bouillabaise, like most such stews, was originally made with lesser quality fish. The good stuff was their livelihood, so the fishermen used the bony, gelatinous they wouldn't be able to sell. Because rascasse, grondin (sea robin), and conger were common on local reefs, they were an ubiquitous set of components in the fishermen's stews of Marseille. Crabs, octopus, and various shellfish were often included. Saffron was a must as was aioli.

So here's what the real hardcore food snobs will tell you (yes, many of these points are in conflict):

- An authentic bouillabaise is impossible outside of Marseille because you have to have the three (and only three) authentic fish, and they have to be fresh. Anything else is just a fish stew.

- An authentic bouillabaise can include no sea creatures but lotte (monkfish), hake, turbot, sea bream, mussels, octopus, sea urchin, and crab.

- Bouillabaise does not contain lobster or shrimp.

- Bouillabaise can include tomatoes, leeks, celery, and potatoes.

- Bouillabaise must include fennel, garlic, onion, bay leaf, thyme, orange peel, saffron. Any other vegetables make it not a bouillabaise.

- The fish and shellfish for bouillabaise are served separately from the broth.

- In authentic bouillabaise, the broth is poured over the fish just before serving.

- In authentic bouillabaise, the fish is lightly grilled or pan seared and finished in the fumet.

- In authentic bouillabaise, the stock is heavier than a fumet and is made by straining the racks with a foodmill or bu crushing them in a chinois.

- Authentic bouillabaise is served with aioli and baguette.

- Authentic bouillabaise is served with toasted slices of baguette and rouille (aioli with saffron and cayenne).

So, here's what this food snob says: bouillabaise is a fruit de mer stew with saffron and vegetables that should be served with a crunchy baguette and aioli or rouille (both are good). In my experience, the very best bouillabaise is made with a variety of the freshest available fish. Lobster and squid in bouillabaise may not be traditional, but anyone who refuses a bouillabaise because it contains these is robbing himself of a divine dining experience.

I would also place one other limitation on the fish in a bouillabaise: no oily fish. As delicious as tuna, salmon, and Chilean sea bass may be, their fat overwhelms the the subtler flavors in the dish.

Everyone enjoyed this most recent bouillabaise I prepared, but I only found two types of suitable fish, and I returned them to the fumet too early. They disintegrated. Clams always take longer to open than I expect (more about that when I write about my pasta alla puttanesca). So, next time I'm doing bouillabaise, I'll alter a few of these aspects and throw in a lobster tail. Then I'll write about it.

The Secret Language of Fish, Part 8: Three Crusts

Synchronicity Goes Crunch

In the past few weeks, we've had three different varieties of crusted fish. I hadn't really planned a study in crusting fish. It just sort of happened. I only recognized the threesome as part of a pattern the day after the latest such preparation. Now that I've recognized the pattern, I can either continue experimenting with crusting one thing and another on various types of fish, or I can go back to looking for inspiration day-by-day.

Actually, that's only partly true. Although I am constantly on the lookout for a new preparation or a new take on an old preparation, I don't cook something new every day. Lately, we've been ordering out about five times each fortnight. Of the remaining nine, probably three are more or less original meals. On the other six nights, I fall back on frequent favorites: chicken piccata, Thai crab soup, chicken tacos, chicken or fish en escabeché, spicy pork tenderloin.

Generally, I'm not all that fond of crusted fish filets. Too often the crust hides the flavor or, if the crusting agent is a bit too absorbent, adds a layer of mush instead of something toothsome. Why then are so many crusts popular with so many varieties of fish? Essentially, any crust should provide at least two of three possible attributes: enhanced texture, enhanced flavor, and protection from direct heat. Admirable goals, but all too easy to screw up. A battered coating can provide too much insulation, resulting in overcooked crust and undercooked fish. Flavor enhancements all too often overwhelm the thing they're meant to enhance—doughy breadings making delicate fish taste like bread, spice rubs burning out every other flavor. Textural elements can also go too far. Crusts should add a delicate crunch not a layer of mud.

Curry-Crusted Tuna



The first such crust treatment I tried recently was a lightly dusted seared tuna. I've frequently coated tuna steaks with pepper, sesame seeds, or both. I had in mind something summer-heat-appropriate: a salad with spicy seared tuna. Over all, the salad wasn't a great success. The tomatoes I used, a fairly new orange variety of apricot-sized fruit called mandarines, turned out far less flavorful than I'd hoped. They were bland and not at all sweet. Girltzik said she liked them, but Princess V and I were underwhelmed.

The one element of the salad that I thought truly fine was the seared tuna. Girltzik didn't like it, which surprised me, but the adults enjoyed it. After patting the steaks dry, I coated them with a layer of curry powder and let them stand for half an hour before searing them. The curry powder seared nicely, forming a light but crunchy layer of spice.

Sadly, the mango-tamarind dressing I made for the salad was too thick and a bit starchy. I wanted something chutney-inspired to match with the curry, but I blew it. I'll try a variant on this salad again later this summer while Girltzik is off visiting her bio-dad. If I come up with one that works, I'll post the recipe.

Pecan-Crusted Orange Roughy

One obvious crusted fish example is breaded, fried whole fish or filets. This class of fish can be further divided into deep-fried and pan-fried. Deep fried fish without the breading would be pretty nasty. The outer flesh would be blistered and dried out, and the hot oil would invade the slippery spaces between the flakes. Of course, many varieties of fried fish are pretty nasty even with the breading. I've had fish and chips, for example, in which the fish was perfectly done, the breading light and crispy, and the oil content was surprisingly low. I've also had fish and chips where the filets could pass for biofuels: the breading soaked up the oil or the fish did or both.

When I was a youngster, whenever my father took us fishing, he always ended up cooking the fish the same way: battered, dipped in corn meal, and pan-fried. Trout, bass, bluegill, crappie, catfish all received the same treatment both at home and on camping trips. For years, I thought it was the only way you could cook freshwater fish, and I didn't much care for it. Fried cornmeal already has, I think, an inherently fishy aroma. I always picked off as much breading as I could to get to the sweet fish flesh underneath.

On the positive side, the cornmeal breading did protect the delicate flesh from the heat. More important, it kept the oil out of the fish, so picking off the breading meant I didn't have to taste oil. With either deep-frying or pan frying, the real trick is to cook the fish without creating an oil sponge.

These memories were very much on my mind when I decided to try pecan-crusted filets. I didn't want to reproduce the negative aspects of Dad's pan-fried trout. Pecan crust is almost as tricky as bread crumbs. You don't need a lot of oil in the pan (I found a tablespoon per orange roughy filet is sufficient), but it has to be hot enough to brown the crust before it can saturate the pecan meal. Pecan meal also, however, burns more readily than bread crumbs.

I considered serving the filets with a vinaigrette to cut any oil the pecan crust absorbed, but I wanted a sauce that would enhance the pecan flavor, which is delicate and easily overwhelmed. I decided on a lemon and caper beurre noisette. The beurre noisette made a beautiful bridge between the buttery sweetness of the orange roughy and the nuttiness of the pecan meal crust, and the capers and lemon juice added just enough sparkle.

I served the filets with a dense, crunchy baguette and a fennel kumquat salad dressed with olive oil and a drizzle of reduced balsamic I had left over from the last time I made Niçoise salad. Tart, sweet, and crunchy, the salad made a beautiful counterpoint to the buttery, nutty filets.



Pecan-Crusted Orange Roughy with Lemon Caper Beurre Noisette and Fennel Kumquat Salad

(serves three)

dramatis personae

fish
three orange roughy filets
one half-cup milk
juice of one small lemon
two eggs
one half-cup pecan meal
one teaspoon kosher salt
one half-teaspoon fresh ground black pepper
two tablespoons olive oil

beurre
one half-cup unsalted butter
juice of one small lemon
two tablespoons nonpareil capers

salad
one fennel bulb, cored and sliced thin
one tablespoon fennel fronds, chopped
one dozen kumquats
three ounces roasted ricotta ensalata, sliced thin
two tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
one teaspoon balsamic reduction
salt

balsamic reduction
one cup balsamic vinegar
one tablespoon light brown sugar

quality of ingredients

As with other white-flesh fish, the orange roughy filets should be firm, white, blemish-free. They should have relatively little aroma and no sour fishy smell.

See Purity of Essence for my notes on capers.

Fennel bulbs in the grocery store slowly develop brown translucent parts. The whiter and more opaque bulbs will be the freshest. Fresher bulbs are sweeter and stronger tasting.

You want kumquats ripe but not overripe. Kumquats don't ripen quite as uniformly as oranges. A perfectly ripe kumquat will be firm and mostly orange with a bit of yellow around the stem-end. An overripe kumquat will be completely orange (no yellow) and slightly soft.

If you can't find roasted ricotta ensalata, substitute fresh mozzarella.

One nice side effect of reducing balsamic vinegar with a little brown sugar is that it dramatically improves the flavor. Don't waste expensive, aged balsamic on a reduction. Use the cheap stuff.

preparation notes

In a small sauce pan over a low flame, mix the balsamic vinegar and brown sugar and allow the liquid to reduce until it reaches a consistency like maple syrup. You should be able to finish the meal while the vinegar reduces.

Mix the milk and lemon juice and let it stand for five minutes to curdle. Whip the two eggs into the milk.

Mix the pecan meal with the salt and pepper in an oversized bowl.

Dip each filet in the milk-and-egg mix and allow the majority of the liquid to drip off. Dredge them in pecan meal.

In a non-stick sauté pan, heat one tablespoon olive oil over a medium flame. Once the oil begins to shimmer, gently place one filet in the hot oil. Allow the filet to cook undisturbed for two minutes. Using a fish-turner and one other spatula, gently turn the filet over and allow it to cook, undisturbed for two minutes.



Orange roughy filets are thicker toward the collar. The tail-end will be done after four minutes, but the collar end will nead another two minutes. I've seen cookbooks occasionally recommend cutting the thinnest part of the filet and folding it back towards the head, but I find that slipping the fish turner under the tail end of the fish for the last two minutes will allow the thick portion of the filet to cook without overcooking the thin portion.

In a stainless steel sauce pan over a low flame, melt one stick of butter and allow it to cook, stirring occasionally, until it takes on a light brown (hazelnut) color. Add in the lemon juice and capers and continue cooking the butter for one minute, stirring constantly. This is your beurre noisette.

Drizzle the filets with a bit of the beurre noisette to serve.

For the fennel kumquat salad, you only want the zests of the kumquats. The pith, juice, and seeds are bitter and tart. Halve each kumquat. Cut off the stem end and scoop out the pith, juice, and seeds with a melon baller.

Combine the sliced fennel, ricotta ensalata, and kumquats and toss them with extra-virgin olive oil. After plating, drizzle about a teaspoon of balsamic reduction over each serving.

Jerked Salmon

Tony Bourdain makes a good point about fusion dishes—sometimes they're just silly. The example he gives is a monkfish tagine, and the example is apt on several levels. Tagines are used to slow-braise meats, and monkfish—which will overcook if you just look at it crossly—would gain nothing in a slow braise. Besides, Moroccan cuisine doesn't include any monkfish recipes. In fact, aside from pork, I can't think of a less Morroccan ingredient than monkfish. There is something a little discordant—possibly pretentious—about applying a traditional technique to a non-traditional ingredient just for the sake of saying you've done it.

On the other hand, if applying a treatment to a non-traditional ingredient works, why argue with success? Pork tagine is a good example.

A couple of weeks ago, I picked up some jerk-rubbed chicken breasts at Central Market. I thought jerked-chicken tacos with guacamole would be an interesting change from the jalapeño-lime marinated chicken I usually use in our tacos. The jerked chicken was good, but I kept thinking, This rub would be terrific on salmon. I also thought the idea of jerked salmon sounded kind of silly. I was surprised at the incredible number of jerked salmon recipes online. Then again, the internet hosts a pretty astonishing number of monkfish tagine recipes.

Ah well. For the Jamaican purists out there, yes, I know, you're supposed to jerk pork or goat, possibly chicken. Okay, and some people have started using jerk spice rubs on beef and fish. Yes, I know, salmon is geographically silly choice. Snapper, you could at least argue, is something you can actually expect to find in Jamaica.

It's not my fault. Jerk has become one of those broad cooking terms like curry, salsa, or mojo. The only consistent requirement from one jerk spice mix to the next is Scotch bonnet peppers and allspice. Typically, though, jerk is sweetened with sugar, honey, or molasses. Thyme and an alium or two usually slips in there, too—garlic, shallots, scallions, onion.

Sorry, but salmon flavor really blooms in a sweet and spicy treatment. Jerk spice and salmon—it was simply meant to be.


Jerked Salmon with Mango Ginger Barbecue Sauce

(serves three)

dramatis personae

salmon
three five ounce portions of salmon filet, scaled
two garlic cloves, pressed or finely minced
one Scotch bonnet or habeñero, seeded and finely minced
one tablespoon salt
two teaspoons allspice
one teaspoon cinnamon
one half teaspoon powdered cloves
one half teaspoon powdered coriander
one tablespoon dark brown sugar

barbecue sauce
one small mango, peeled and seeded
one half-cup tomato catsup
one tablespoon grated ginger
salt

quality of ingredients

Yep, sock-eye salmon again. See Flesh for Fantasy for my quality notes on salmon.

Ginger should not look shriveled and dry. Buy only roots that are plump with taut skins. Store ginger in an open sack in the crisper. If you close it in a plastic bag or similar container, it rots rapidly.

preparation notes

My jerk rub is almost a dry rub, but the garlic makes it more paste like. Coat the flesh side of each filet with the rub. Allow the salmon filets to stand for one half-hour before cooking.

Combine the ingredients for the barbecue sauce in a blend and purée it.

In a non-stick pan over a medium-high flame, heat one tablespoon of peanut oil to smoking. Place each filet portion, rubbed side down, in the hot oil and sear it for two minutes. Turn up the flame to high. Using a fish turner and spatula, carefully turn over the filets and cook the skin-side for one minute. Remove the filets from the pan and immediately slice each piece into one to one-and-a-half inch strips. Slicing the fish allow it to begin cooling so that it doesn't continue to cook.

Plate the strips and drizzle each with barbecue sauce.

The Problem of Evil

Without the Darkness How Can We Know the Light?

My Catholic friends call it The Problem of Evil, but it exists in many forms in many cultures. If [insert name of principal deity] is omnipotent and desires that we be good, why does [insert gender-appropriate pronoun] allow evil to exist? The answer they've come to accept is that [deity] wants us to grow and learn and ultimately do good as a result of reaching a state of grace. That answer kept the clergy happy until the Calvinists came along and muddied the waters by asserting that you're either born with grace or you aren't, but that's a tangent I'd rather avoid for the moment. The topic here is bad things—pain, evil, unpleasantness—and the way we respond to them.

My philosophy professor (one of them, anyway) called this issue the Pain Rationale. The Problem of Evil, he argued, is just a subset of the Pain Rationale. Every society deals with the Pain Rationale on a daily basis at every level of human endeavor. Essentially, the issue is pain, discomfort, evil, and anything else that most of us don't like. Why should we put up with bad things when we have the capability to overcome them? We can go back to the age of Stoics and Epicures and ask, with them, why should we put up with pain when pleasure is so much more—uh...pleasant?

On one extreme of this question is severe pain and oozing hideous evil. Severe pain has been on my mind a lot lately. For the past four months, I've been dealing with pain management issues because of disc injury. The disc compresses my sciatic nerve any time I sit upright, and the resulting pain can be excruciating. Combating this problem has entailed three epidural injections of corticosteroids, several thousand dollars worth of physical therapy, and a pharmacological journey through NSAIDs, anti-spasmodics, and opioids. I have Celebrex, Tylenol, and Tramadol coursing through my veins as I type, and their efforts still leave a bit to be desired.

If I could throw a switch and permanently turn off this pain, I would do it without a regret or even a second thought. Clearly, I've come down on the side of the Epicures with respect to this particular pain.

Clearly.

But, no, my goal is not to banish all pain. I enjoy exercising, and a good workout always creates a degree of pain. Oh, sure, a good personal trainer will tell you never to work yourself until it hurts, but the distinction between the discomfort you feel at the end of a productive workout and the pain you feel when you've overexerted yourself is one of degree, not one of type. It's all pain. One level of pain whispers, "Move carefully, stretch gently, and be nice to these muscles, or we'll make you sorry." The next level of pain screams at you, drowning out everything else.

Even if you're a couch potato, you need a certain amount of pain in your life. You need that ache in your shoulders and hips on Sunday afternoon that tells you to haul your lazy ass out of bed after you've slept for fifteen hours. You need those pangs in your belly that drive you to the refrigerator. You need that sharp prickling feeling on your fingertips telling you to let go of the handle of that hot cast iron skillet. Pain, in moderation and where appropriate, is a necessary element in our lives. Without it, we'd all eventually just lie down and starve to death.

Honestly, though, without hunger, eating wouldn't be as much fun. I'm not recommending fasting as an aperitif, but isn't a meal just that much more satisfying when you're really hungry? We "work up an appetite," and it makes a fine excuse for working harder. Anticipation, someone said, is the savor of the dish. In a way, all this working and waiting is really just one step removed from banging your head against a wall in anticipation of the relief of stopping. Okay, it's an easy topic to slip into hyperbole, but is there really any savor without the preceding hunger pangs? Can we enjoy life in the absence of pain? If there is no darkness, what good is the light?

Spice and Pain

Much of Eurasian philosophy has really led us astray on these questions of absolutes: good, evil, pain, pleasure. Some of our earlier philosophies—Skeptics, Gnostics, Zoroastrians, Manichees, the Medieval theory of humors—and much of surviving Chinese philosophy (Yin and Yang) point to a different set of goals than the absolute. Those philosophies suggest that the enlightened goal is always balance. Pleasure, says the philosophy of balance, is not the absence of pain—it's the proper balance between pain and relief. Note, that's proper balance and not fifty-fifty split. The most extreme examples I know of pleasure—sex and food—always contain an element of pain.

No, I am not saying whipping each other with razor wire and splashing around in a pool of vinegar will enhance your sexual pleasure (although, for a few it probably will), but sexual pleasure is born of friction, tension, restriction, collision, and a bit of hair-splitting between the realms of pain and relief. One man's teasing is another's torment. What hurts enough to fire your jets and what hurts enough for you to leap back and say, "Stop right there, Tex," depends on your own thresholds.

Pleasure from food also involves a degree of pain. Think of all the food items we consume that, in high concentrations, are just downright painful. Capsicums and piperines, ginger and galanga, onions and garlic, all create a burning sensation that can be disagreeable. In the cases of capsaicin and piperine, high enough concentrations can actually raise blisters in your mouth. Likewise, extremes of bitter, salty, and sour tastes (think quinine, sea salt, and white vinegar) can also reach a point of discomfort that at least encroaches on outright pain. These elements are spice. Without them, food falls to the level of sustenance. Without them, eating isn't fun.

Recent decades have seen a blossoming of fusion in cuisines that has done much to spread the word about the primacy of balance. The Thai standard of a balance between salty, sour, sweet, and hot has even inspired a number of titles for cooking tomes and classes. The broader sense of balance demonstrated in the best cuisines all round the world (Kyoto, Provençe, Spain, Sichuan, Yucatán, Piedmont, to name just a few), has begun to edge its way into the public consciousness, but it's been slow coming. The big secret, the big unspoken rule of thumb, is that foods succeed best when they present the right sense of balance in every aspect of a dish. Flavors have to be balanced between not four but six basic flavor elements: salty, sweet, bitter, sour, hot, and umami.

Quick digression here on umami. Every time I hear some Food Network or PBS commentator rediscovering umami, it makes me a little sad for the state of world scholarship. Dr. Kikunae Ikeda identified this taste element in 1908. Here we are discovering it a century later. Pish. Umami is often translated as savory, but I'm comfortable with giving its discoverer his due and using the name he gave it. For the three or four people in America who still don't know, umami is the richness of glutamines that comes through in MSG, clams, shiitake mushrooms, seared tuna, and Parmigiano-Reggiano. For those who will quibble that these things don't taste alike, I would point out that apples, sugar cane, mango, and chocolate cake are all foods strong in sweetness, and those don't taste alike, either.

Meanwhile, back on the topic of balance, I think most cooks understand the concept of balance in flavors. Many even grasp that balance has to be visual—dark against light, red against green. The place where many American cooks fall down, in my opinion, is in the area of textural balance. Oh, we know to balance the soft and the spongy with the crisp and the crunchy. We even understand the joy in the delicate pop of caviar eggs or tapioca berries. Unfortunately, somewhere along the way we've pretty much eliminated a broad range of food textures from our diet.

Over the years, diners in the US and Canada have decided, for reasons of habit or health, to eliminate a lot of textures that we find unpleasant in large portions. We don't like chewy meats, sinew, gristle, cartilage, fats, and the jiggle of natural gelatins, so we banish them from our plates. Other cultures revel in the texture of gelatins in marrow, fish skin, and organ meats. We call it icky, and lose some remarkable flavor elements in the name of removing icky bits from our dishes. I remember watching a cooking competition some time back in which the contestants had to produce an original dish at streamside using fresh-caught cutthroat trout. Every contestant—professional chefs all—fileted the damned fish. Every one. Not one of them thought to use the whole body and head of the trout. I wonder if they know how much their dishes were lacking as a result?

We treat gristle and cartilage with the same disrespect. One of the more popular forms of yakitori (grilled skewers) that I remember folks enjoying on the streets of Yokosuka, bonjiri (chicken butts), would never sell in the US—too little meat and too much fat and gristle, to say nothing of the negative connotations of That Part of the Body. Even the yakitori tebasaki (skewered chicken wings), which you frequently see the American GIs buying, are enjoyed differently by the different cultures. The Americans would gnaw off some of the skin, pick out the bits of white meat, and throw the rest of the wings away. When the locals finish theirs, they're throwing away nothing but bones and skewers. After stripping a wing of meat and skin, they splash on more sauce and gnaw the cartilage from the joints. "Maybe they're just hungrier than we are," a sailor friend commented. "They do eat smaller meals, you know."

Maybe. Or perhaps some of us have lost the ability to enjoy some textures because it was easier to eliminate them. If the gristle is difficult to chew, strip it from the meat. We're not so poor that we have to try to ingest every conceivably digestible bit of the animal. I'm as guilty of this as the next American. More, in some cases. I don't often enjoy gnawing food from bones even though I know some of the most flavorful meat is butted up against the ribs. I admit, there is something very satisfying about stripping all the edible matter from a spare rib—stripping it down to the calcium—but I don't do it often.

I guess I need to work on that.

Arroz con Pollo

I could probably discuss this dish in two tiers—arroz con pollo classico and the flavorless crap that passes for arroz con pollo in most places nowadays. Arroz con pollo, a Spanish dish, probably started as a simple method for stretching a single chicken to feed a large family: cut up the chicken, brown the pieces, remove the chicken, bloom the flavors of a sofrito (a sauce base of tomatoes, onions, and garlic) in the schmaltz (melted chicken fat), pour in some rice, pour in some stock and wine, sprinkle with spices, put the chicken back in, and simmer the whole until the rice absorbs most of the liquid.

Sounds simple enough, but arroz con pollo does offer a few little challenges. First, in the Good Ol' Days, the chicken was likely browned in either collected schmaltz or in lard—not exactly healthy choices. Schmaltz, I would argue, is okay in small doses. Better to start with a small quantity of a healthier oil like olive, grapeseed, or canola. Okay, I have to admit, I'd rather eat plastic wrap than cook in canola oil, but many cooks swear that it's flavorless. If you think so, go ahead and use it.

Second, the outline I gave for a basic arroz con pollo is also an outline for a lot of problems. White meat and dark meat, for instance, don't cook at the same rate. If you leave the whole chicken in the pot long enough to cook the thighs through, the breasts will be dried out. Likewise, the long-standing Spanish tradition of cooking a sofrito as a single element results in flavorless tomatoes and harsh burnt garlic.

Third, many cooks have discovered that the chicken pieces can be a problem. Who wants to pick a chicken breast out of hot rice and gnaw it off the bones? Too messy by far. Add to that the current health concern that tells Americans to avoid the dark meat to eliminate cholesterol and saturated fat from their diet. Replacing a whole chicken with boneless, skinless chicken breast meat is a huge mistake, robbing the rice of flavor and leaving only dry fibrous meat. Honestly, I'm not a big fan of chicken thigh meat, but breast meat dries out easily and doesn't give up anything in the way of flavor to the surrounding rice. Arroz con pollo made with no chicken but skinless boneless breast meat will make for a dry and flavorless dish.

So, I may not like thigh meat or drumsticks, and I may not like chicken fat or bones, but I need both if I'm going to make a moist, flavorful arroz con pollo.

(serves six)

dramatis personae

one heavy dutch oven

one can whole tomatoes
one tablespoons olive oil
four chicken thighs (bone-in, skin-on)
two boneless chicken breast halves
salt and black pepper
one large white onion, diced
four medium garlic cloves
three Serrano chilis, minced
one and one half-cup Arborio rice
one half-cup dry white wine
two cups chicken stock
one healthy pinch of saffron threads, crushed
one quarter teaspoon cumin
one quarter-cup cilantro leaves, chopped

one large ripe avocado, sliced
one cup shredded Monterey Jack
lime wedges

quality of ingredients

A good, stout dutch oven is crucial for this dish, preferably enameled.

One three pound whole chicken can substitute for the pieces I've outlined. In any case, the chicken should not be too fatty. Remove any large clumps of fat under the skin before you begin browning the chicken.

See my comments on the quality of garlic in the Bang/Wow entry.

Jalapeño peppers can take the place of the Serranos, but the dish will have less heat. If you want more heat, cayenne or Thai bird peppers will work.

Most recipes I see for arroz con pollo call for long-grain rice. Frankly, I can't see why. Paella, a similar dish in some respects, is traditionally made with Spanish short-grain rice. I have found that Arborio produces a richer, creamier dish than any other I've tried. The results won't be quite risotto-creamy, but it will take up more stock than long-grain rice.

Saffron threads should be red or dark orange. It's not unusual to find a few yellow threads (say, one in ten), but don't buy saffron with too many pale threads. I really hate that so many spice companies package the threads in opaque containers. Don't buy it if you can't see it.

preparation notes

Open the can of tomatoes and remove and discard the tough core from each of the tomatoes. Tear each tomato in half and set them aside in a bowl. Reserve one half cup of the canning liquid.

Over a medium high flame, heat two tablespoons olive oil to smoking. Place the thighs and breasts in the bottom of the pan, skin-side down. Let the chicken pieces brown, undisturbed, for six minutes. Turn down the flame as necessary to prevent burning. Turn over the chicken pieces and brown the opposite side for an additional six minutes. Remove the chicken pieces from the pot.

Remove any excess oil (anything more than two tablespoons). Stir in the chopped onion and a pinch of salt. With a wooden spoon, stir the onions constantly as they sweat. The liquor from the onions will help lift the fond left by the chicken. Scrape as necessary to loosen up all of the fond.

Once the onions are softened and translucent (three to five minutes), stir in the garlic, chilis, and spices. Continue stirring for about thirty seconds to allow the flavors of the garlic and chilis to bloom.

Stir in the rice. Stir the rice continuously for one minute to thoroughly coat the rice with oil. The outer portion of the kernels will all appear translucent.

Stir in the tomatoes, stock, wine, and reserved tomato liquid. Bring the liquid to a boil. Place the thighs on top of the rice mixture, reduce heat a simmer. Cover the pot and simmer the dish for fifteen minutes. While the rice is simmering, chop the chicken breasts into bite-sized morsels.

Remove the thighs from the rice. Stir in the breast pieces. Remove the meat from the thigh bones and return the thigh meat to the pot. Cover and simmer the rice for ten minutes or until the rice is done.

Turn off the flame and stir in the cilantro. Recover the pot and let the rice stand for five minutes.

Serve the rice with lime slices, avocado slices, and grated cheese.

Comfort Angles

Comfort Zone Food

I've never really seen the attraction of backyard grilling. Oh, grilling has charms I understand, but I prefer cooking indoors. I keep all my cooking equipment and supplies—to say nothing of the food—in the kitchen. Grilling outdoors involves carting all that stuff outside and setting up a makeshift alternate kitchen. I've known dedicated backyard grillers who actually do have a second kitchen out by the grill: tables, cutting boards, knife blocks, even a second refrigerator. Great, but they still have to contend with the vagaries of weather, and dinner time for us coincides a bit too precisely with dinner time for the mosquitoes.

Generally, I'd rather stay inside and cook.

My ex-wife didn't see it that way. As far as she was concerned, if the weather allowed, I should be cooking over charcoal. Occasionally, I managed to talk my way out of grilling on the patio; usually, I did not. She had a tendency to read any disagreement as a deliberate assault, and I didn't want her to think I was refusing to grill her dinner just to spite her. What can I say? I'm an appeaser.

I remember one such appeasement twenty-one years ago. My daughter, then seven, was still living with us. My ex's son, then just turned eight, had come to visit. Miss Charcoal wanted rib-eye and so did her eldest (my ex's eleven-year-old daughter was also living with us at the time), the younger two wanted hot dogs. The eight-year-old initially said he wanted a hamburger, but when he learned that I would be grilling it and not picking one up from Burger King, he changed his mind.

Now, naturally, since hot dogs are composed of pre-cooked meat and similar substances, they finish up on the grill in a matter of seconds. I started the steaks, turned them when the texture was right and then went in to get the hot dogs. The two little ones—arguing amongst themselves under the swing set—saw me go inside, return with a small plate of wieners, and lay them out on the grill. Immediately, I was besieged by two screeching little harpies yelling that I was ruining their hot dogs and that I was Doing It Wrong and that they were not going to eat anything coming off the grill.

"Whoa. Slow down. What the hell are you two talking about?"

"You'll burn 'em," said the boy. "I'm not eating any burnt stuff."

"You're supposed to put it in the microwave," said the girl.

I shrugged them both off. "Nonsense. They won't be burnt, and they'll taste better this way. Coming out of the microwave they taste like plastic." I opened the lid of the grill and retrieved the slightly browned wieners with my tongs, holding up the last one. "See? No black stuff."

The boy pointed to a blistered patch on the side of the wiener, "What about that?"

"What about it? It isn't black."

"It's nasty," said the girl. "I'm not going to eat that."

Both of the little darlings continued to protest. My daughter not only refused to eat the grilled dogs, she wouldn't touch or even look at the grilled dogs. Eventually, I convinced the boy to taste at least a bite. Technically, I don't think I can say he actually tasted it. Pouting, he prepared a hot dog (on a bun with catsup, mustard, and relish) and then bit into the very last quarter-inch of the wiener. Before his teeth could even pass beyond the outer skin, he threw the thing to the ground, spitting and wiping his mouth even before his little hot dog bomb exploded against the concrete, sending condiment shrapnel every which way (but mostly all over my pants).

"It's yucky."

I promptly went inside to inform his mother (1) that the steaks would be finished in the short time it would take for me to change clothes, and (2) that her son was about to die a horrible screaming death.

Everything eventually worked out peacefully. The boy's mother put him to work cleaning up his hot dog strafe (at which, being eight, he did a thoroughly half-assed job), and I microwaved a couple of wieners for the kids.

The kids are adults now, and both excuse the whole incident with, "pssh, I was a little kid." Many others have offered the same explanation over the years. "They were little kids." So, kids don't have a palate? I'm pretty sure I would eat just about anything when I was eight. Not that I would have wanted the hot dog either, mind. I'd have wanted a steak. No, I don't believe their taste buds were unformed at that age.

I think, at the time, the problem was that both kids ate hot dogs—a lot of hot dogs—toxic levels of nitrates worth of hot dogs. The little monkeys had unassailable expectations. The boy was just visiting. He lived with his father, who didn't do much cooking. Microwaved hot dogs were a staple in his diet. My daughter, who was raised primarily by my mother (long, weird story), was the most finicky eater I have ever known. Hot dogs and pizza cheese constituted 99% of her protein intake. What I didn't understand when I put those wieners on that grill was that, for both of the kids, the microwaved wiener was for them a key element of a comfort food item. For each of those kids, the term hot dog meant specifically a white-bread hot dog bun, a microwaved wiener, catsup, and yellow mustard. The boy also wanted relish. Both kids, I would later learn, were equally put off by any and all substitutions: no wheat rolls, no barbecue sauce, no Dijon mustard. I think they would have balked if the buns weren't stale enough.

One difficult aspect of cooking for anyone is that you are dealing with likes and dislikes, and while most folks can tell you exactly what they do and do not like about any given movie, song, or politician, they're more often than not clueless as to why they dislike most foods. Ask why they don't like a dish, and if the response is anything but a sour face and a bleah, the answer most will give is "I just don't."

One overriding prejudice in this regard is the comfort food category. As exemplified by my kids and their microwaved dogs and acidy yellow mustard, most comfort food prejudices are more matter of familiarity than of taste. Take the simple example of macaroni-and-cheese. Yes, a gruyere-basil-cream sauce on fettuccine would probably taste much better than elbow macaroni in pasteurized processed cheese food product thinned with milk, but to someone who grew up with mac-and-cheese as a staple Sunday lunch item (or, in the South, a staple holiday meal item), the latter is likely to look more appealing under certain circumstances. Yes, crazy as it may sound to a dedicated foodie, some folks in some applications will actually choose thick, dry pasta with imitation cheese rather than fresh-rolled pasta with a fine aged Swiss cheese. Sad, but such is the power of memory.

Usually, comfort food is not the kind of dish you want when you're celebrating a promotion, a holiday, or a birth. Comfort food is what you want when you don't get the promotion you were sure was yours. Comfort food is what you're likely to crave when you're dumped, when you hear that an old friend has a terminal illness, or when a Republican is elected President of the United States. The purpose of comfort food is nostalgia—to put you in a better mental place by transporting you back to a time when you were at peace.

The nostalgia effect is both good news and bad news for the cook. It's good news because, once you know how to make a comfort food dish, it won't require any special effort to recreate, and your diners will be joyous and grateful. It's bad news because, if you don't know the right recipe, you might have a hell of a hard time working it out. You may never work it out. For some diners, comfort food has to be note perfect, or they just won't eat it. I went through this kind of trial several years ago, trying to make mashed potatoes for a friend the way her mother made it. We finally got it right after a dozen tries but only when I figured out that what she had assumed was nutmeg had actually been mace. Lucky guess.

Even more exasperating, the nostalgia-effect of comfort food acts as a restraint. Some folks are willing to accept minor changes, enhancements, but most are not. Even if your diners are willing to accept changes to their pasta sauces, for example, they will usually have limits to how much change they're willing to tolerate. Fresh onions are a must, and they have to be caramelized, or onions are utterly taboo. Garlic, sliced cellophane-thin and sautéed in extra virgin olive oil, or garlic roasted and mashed, or garlic powder. Peppers are mandatory or verboten. The sauce must be savory unless Grandmama always added a half-cup of sugar. Tomatoes must be roasted, stewed, a particular brand of canned purée, or fortified with sun-dried. Yes, good luck finding those limits.

Classics and Comfort

Once upon a time, you only heard the term comfort food applied to starchy low-brow dishes: spaghetti with meatballs, meatloaf, grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup, mashed potatoes, macaroni-and-cheese, chicken-fried steak. The term can, however, be more broadly applied to any dish that any family was likely to serve frequently. Couple that attitude with a more international view of food, and you can come up with a vast array of dishes. Everything from paella and bulgoki to steak frites and Welsh rarebit. In my home it's chicken tacos, Thai crab soup, chicken piccata, and arroz con pollo. For Princess V and Girtzik, it's pastina in chicken broth.

Chicken piccata (originally veal piccata until veal was deemed Evil in much of the US) is a classic preparation: delicate breaded cutlets, lemony sauce with artichoke hearts, capers, and a light pasta. I can taste it just at the mention of the name. If you haven't seen a piccata in a while, keep your eyes open. The recent trend toward capturing comfort foods in haute cuisine (haven't noticed? really? how many high-end restaurants do you know that now serve grits, mashed potatoes, or both?) has also begun to turn to classic preparations of yesteryear: chicken à la king, turkey tetrazzini, steak au poivre, pot roast, even meatloaf are making a comeback. I know this because I not only see them showing up on fancy new restaurants but also because I keep seeing references to them on cooking programs and cooking competition programs.

In recent weeks, I've seen four such references to steak au poivre and the American derivative, pepper-crusted steak. After the most recent one, I decided it had been too long since I last prepared a steak au poivre. That coupled with Girltzik's recent plea for bison convinced me to give it a shot.

Steak au poivre relies on peppercorns and butter to enhance the beefiness of strip loin steak. Bison already tastes like intensified beef. Bison steak au poivre seemed like a no-brainer: beef squared. Just to be certain, though, I decided to pair the bison with scallops. The traditional surf-and-turf, I know, is filet and lobster. I love lobster, but I think scallops are a better pairing.

It was the best meal I've had in weeks.

Bison Steak au Poivre with Pan Roasted Thai Red Curry Potatoes and Seared Scallop Disks on Braised Leeks Dijonnaise

(serves three)

steak
one pound bison strip loin (1.5" thick)
three tablespoons cracked black pepper
six tablespoons butter (four tablespoons cut into half-inch cubes)
kosher salt
one tablespoon peanut oil
one shallot, minced
one cup Amontillado sherry

potatoes
one half-pound red potatoes
salt
one tablespoon peanut oil
juice of one lime
one teaspoon Thai red curry paste

leeks
one cup julienned leeks
one cup chicken stock
one half-cup white wine
one tablespoon Dijon mustard
one quarter cup chopped garlic greens
salt

seared scallops
three U-10 scallops halved (in disks)
one tablespoon olive oil
kosher salt

quality of ingredients

Bison is lower in fat than beef, and that's fortunate because bison fat is funky. It's not as foul-smelling as lamb fat, but it definitely does not have the inherent sweetness of beef tallow. The meat is darker than beef—almost purple. Don't worry about marbling. You won't find much. Even in beef, strip loin (New York strip) is a pretty lean cut. If you can't find bison, find a good New York strip.

This recipe demands freshly cracked black pepper. Accept no substitutes. The magically sweet, chocolaty flavor of seared pepper and steak depends on a two step process. The first step, heating the cracked peppercorns in butter and then allowing them to cool, converts much of the piperine (the source of heat) into piperdine, an amine with a similar structure to the principal flavor agents in chocolate. The second phase, searing, releases those amines and some other volatiles. So, you want as high a concentration of piperine as possible. White pepper contains less piperine than black, and pre-cracked pepper gradually loses both volatiles and piperine. In short, buy whole black peppercorns and crack your own.

Real butter, unsalted. Nothing else will work.

Shallots are a traditional ingredient in the pan sauce for a steak au poivre. Some will tell you that a bit of onion and garlic can act as a substitute, but they really don't taste the same. Shallots are decidedly sweeter and have a faint but distinct something different (a molasses note?).

I used Amontillado, but cognac, brandy, or dry vermouth also yield excellent pan sauces.

For the pan-roasted potatoes, small Yukon golds or gold fingerlings are also good. I tried purple Peruvians this way once. Bleah.

I've gotten lazy about Thai curry pastes. I used to make my own, but Thai Kitchen makes excellent green and red pastes, so I just keep a jar of each on hand.

As I've said before, always select leeks with the largest possible white portions—at least three inches.

Every Dijon mustard I've tried tastes quite a bit different from every other. My favorite is Grey Poupon, which has a richness lacking in most.

Scallops for searing should be intact and not marinating in their own juices. If they're labelled previously frozen, an hour before cooking, cover both sides of the scallops with a layer of kosher salt and allow the liquor to leach out. Every fifteen minutes, pat the scallops dry and replace any salt that wipes off.

I love extra-virgin olive oil, and I frequently pooh-pooh so-called experts who say not to cook with it because the rich olive flavor is lost or overwhelms whatever it's cooking. I prefer extra-virgin for some applications (eggs, for example). For searing scallops, however, extra-virgin olive has far too low a smoke point for searing anything. Use a good olive oil.

preparation notes

Roughly crack the peppercorns with a heavy skillet or rolling pin. Be aware that doing this on a wooden cutting board or with a wooden rolling pin, will result in dimples on the wood. Over a medium flame, heat two tablespoons of butter to foaming. Add in the cracked peppercorns, turn down the flame to low, and simmer the pepper in the butter for five minutes. Do not let the butter brown. Remove the pan of peppercorns to a trivet to cool for five minutes. Push the peppercorns together in a single layer.

Trim the bison strip and cut it into thirds. Press the three pieces down onto the peppercorns. Place a plate atop the steaks and press them down onto the peppercorns, and leave them to soak up the butter for at least thirty minutes.

Blanch the potatoes for eight minutes in boiling salted water. Strain out the liquid and spray the potatoes down with cold water to halt the cooking. Let them rest in the strainer or colander for five minutes to dry. In a sauté pan, heat the peanut oil to smoking and add in the potatoes. Turn all of the potato quarters so that a flat side is down, and allow them to fry, unmolested, until brown (three to five minutes). Tip each quarter so that the other flat side is down and fry the potatoes until that side is also brown. Combine the curry paste and lime juice and stir it to break up the paste. Pour the curry and lime mix into the potatoes and sauté them vigorously to coat the potatoes uniformly. Be warned, the steam coming off of the potatoes during this last phase plays hell with your sinuses (although the girls in the next room frequently remark on how delightful they think the aroma at a safe distance). Remove the potatoes to a serving bowl and tent them with foil to keep them warm.

Preheat the oven to 275F.

Bring the chicken stock, white wine, and Dijon mustard to a boil. Add the leeks to the boiling liquid and reduce heat to a simmer. Simmer the leeks for ten minutes. Turn off the flame and add the garlic greens and salt if necessary. Allow the vegetables to stand for ten minutes in the braising liquid. Pour off the liquid or pluck the vegetables from the liquid with chopsticks and move them to a serving bowl.

Once the steaks have rested on the cracked peppercorns for at least a half-hour, give them one last firm press and then gently lift them so that the peppercorns remain affixed to one side. Place them on a drying rack atop a cookie sheet, pepper-side up and bake them for ten minutes at 175F. Remove the steaks from the oven and, with a quick-read thermometer, verify that the steaks are at least 98F. In a stainless steel sauté pan over a medium-high flame, heat one tablespoon of peanut oil to smoking, and place all three steaks peppercorn-side down in the hot oil. Let the steaks cook for two minutes (no matter how tempting it may be to turn them early). Using tongs (a spatula will knock off the peppercorns), carefully turn each steak over (peppercorn-side up) and cook them, unmolested, for a minute and a half. If you have a high-power burner (12,000 BTU or better), turn down the flame as necessary to keep the oil from burning. You want brown-residue from the steaks but not ash. Turn the steak and allow each of the remaining four sides to cook for 30 seconds each. For irregular sides, hold the steaks in place with the tongs. Remove the steaks to a cooling rack and tent them with foil. Allow the steaks to rest at least ten minutes.

Reduce the flame to low medium and add in the minced shallots. Stir the shallots constantly for at least a minute while they sweat. The liquid from the shallots should at least begin to deglaze the pan. Pour in the sherry and let it cook down until the pan sauce is reduced to about two tablespoons. Turn off the flame and whisk in the four tablespoons of cubed butter to mount the pan sauce. If the pan sauce is mounted before the steaks are done resting, pour the sauce into a cool container (measuring cup or gravy boat) to prevent its breaking.

In a non-stick sauté pan, over a medium-high flame bring a tablespoon of olive oil to the smoke point. If your scallops are previously-frozen and you've been salting them to eliminate moisture, wipe off any remaining salt. Place the scallop disks in the hot oil and allow them to cook, unmolested, for two minutes. Once the scallops have developed a nice crust, flip them and sear the other side.

After at least ten minutes of resting, slice the steaks very thin and plate them. Plate the leeks and potatoes. Plate the scallops atop the leeks. Drizzle a spoonful of pan sauce over each set of steak slices.