Papas Arrugadas

A few months back, my husband and I ventured into a tiny Spanish restaurant in Bozeman, MT—Over the Tapas—and at his insistence, we ordered the papas arrugadas. These sublime little salted potatoes were reminiscent of nothing I’d ever before tasted, and I made a mental note to hunt down a recipe for both the delightful morsels of potatoes, and the mojos verde and rojo.

Interestingly enough, my Latin husband who was raised in Bogotá, Colombia, has an abundance of memories of being served papas arrugadas (without the mojo) throughout his childhood. His eyes lit up with excitement when I expressed an interest in replicating the dish at home.

It turns out that these spuds are super easy to prepare. Had I known, I would have made them long ago…

Dump an unfathomable amount of salt into a pot of cold water—seriously, you may easily dump half a cup or more into a few quarts of water. Then toss in a bunch of scrubbed small potatoes (such as new, fingerling, or purple) and bring to a boil. Boil for 20 minutes, and then drain almost all of the water out. Put back over a moderately low flame and toss the potatoes around in the water to coat with the mostly invisible salt (for the uninitiated, it’s invisible because it’s wet). Heat until the water’s completely evaporated, then roll the spuds around in the residual salt a bit. Cover with a clean dish towel for a few minutes off heat. Eat!

By the way, my husband swears that the accompanying mojos are unnecessary, though they truly are delish. I have yet to find a recipe for mojo verde that doesn’t taste like a cilantro-based vinaigrette, but I guarantee that any fresh Indian cilantro chutney will serve as a fabulous complement to the papas arrugadas. Bon appétit!

A Crumpled Chiffon Cake

Writing about both my friends’ culinary talents, as well as their mishaps, has been at the forefront of my mind as of late. Particularly noteworthy was Heather’s incident with a chiffon cake last week, which I have been pondering till this very moment. Heather is a dear friend, perhaps because we both are graduate students at the same university, have daughters the same age (who also happen to be good friends), love exploring wine, and adore sharing food with each other. Though our culinary backgrounds differ somewhat—recall that I am a recovering vegan who is only beginning to explore meat, while Heather swoons over visions of succulent roasts—our individual escapades with food tend to complement the other’s.

Over the past few months, Heather has been wildly romanticizing chiffon cakes. Though I concur that a well-made chiffon cake is indeed delicious, I am at a loss when it comes to understanding her current obsession over them. Regardless, I felt nothing but the utmost empathy when I received her heartbreaking email (complete with photos) about how her beautiful cake, which was to be a gift to her ill mother, crumpled upon falling out of its nonstick pan. The disappointment, the despair!

Because I’m such a good friend, I tried to console her—“You could make a trifle or a bread pudding, and no one will ever know!”—but my efforts were made only half-heartedly, for I knew that it truly was a travesty of an event. However, Heather is a true warrior and in the spirit of never accepting defeat, she left work early and made another chiffon cake. This time, however, she was careful not to be silly enough to drop it on the floor.

The subsequent email, also complete with photos, simply stated, “After taste testing to an audience of 8, we determined the lemon chiffon cake was a success!” And there you have it. 

Balsamic Vinegar

I'm on a mission--that of determining whether the balsamic vinegars in my pantry are authentic, and whether it even matters if they aren't. I'm not a total dumb-ass when it comes to recognizing that any "balsamic" vinegar that contains any ingredient other than grapes is not the real-deal. But it wasn't until I was flipping through one of my cookbooks just the other day when I realized that perhaps what I  had always  been treating as authentic were potential imposters. After all, I've never paid more than $35/bottle (and only once), and I typically buy bottles in the $15 range. 

Of course, my taste buds could care less if the bottle cost $100 or $15. Flavor is key. But what does REAL balsamic vinegar taste like? Since I don't even know whether I've ever tried the real deal, I don't know if I know what it tastes like. If this sounds complicated, I can assure you that it is.

For the record, the "balsamic" vinegars currently in my pantry are: Napa Valley Naturals Balsamic Grand Reserve Vinegar and Organic Balsamic Vinegar, Lucini Gran Riserva Balsamico, Spectrum Naturals Organic Balsamic Vinegar, and Rapunzel 100% Organic Balsamico Bianco. All claim to be produced in Italy, though some are actually bottled in the States. Upon quick inspection, however, it's apparent that three of the five are imposters--after all, they contain both wine vinegar and must. Agghhh!!!!!!!! I am embarrassed to admit to having been a fool.

So now I'm looking at the remaining two contenders: the Lucini and the first of the two Napa Valley Naturals. Are they for real? From what I've read about authentic balsamic vinegar, the real deal boast their authenticity in a myriad of ways, and it would appear that given this, my contenders , simply put, are fakes (http://oilandvinegar.cruets.com/finding-the-right-balsamic/).

Do I really care? I don't know. I NEED to try the real thing. I need to taste the standbys with the best of the best. And if Lucini holds its own, then I will pride myself on only having to spend $15 for a decent balsamic. It's worth noting that while some product "fakes" taste as good or better than their authentic counterparts, many do not (perhaps a future post will delve into the attributes and uniqueness of real Parmigiano-Reggiano). Since I'm an unemployed graduate student (on sabbatical), it may be quite a while until I will be able to afford to perform such a tasting. But perhaps during my upcoming three-week escape to Italy, I will be able to snag a few bottles to report back on to myself and my two other readers.

The French Culinary Institute

I'm so dreaming of attending the French Culinary Institute in New York. How could I not, now that I'm in possession of its instruction manual, which it claims represents a quarter of its actual course? So, tuition is a wee bit cost-prohibitive at $40+ for a 6-month intensive. However, the mere fact that for the first time ever in my entire 33 years I have found the idea of consuming kidneys appetizing speaks volumes of my enthusiasm to study amongst the culinary elite. I am now considering cooking my way through this masterpiece in order to learn a thing or two about being a real cook, and if I maintain this enthusiasm post-move (btw, I am in the process of moving, which is why I've been a lazy nincompoop and haven't posted anything for over a week!), I will undoubtedly blog about my adventures. Oh, and if you have either seen or read Julie and Julia, you must be forewarned that this book contains an entire section on aspics, complete with photos.

Day 7: Ponderings on Monday’s Coq au Vin

At around 9:30 on Monday evening, the heavens opened and the seas parted as I experienced the first bite of my very own coq au vin. Not only was the sauce delectable, but so was the coq itself! Actually, it was a poulet because I didn’t have an old rooster just waiting around to be butchered and subsequently simmered in wine, but since when would you ever expect a recovering vegan to be technically correct when it comes to meat, anyway?

As I poured through my 98+ cookbooks in search of the perfect coq au vin recipe, I quickly realized that though I possessed about a handful that would (presumably) be delish, none called out to me as being “the One.” So, I did what any irrational carnivorously-challenged individual would do and I combined attributes of three of the best recipes with a healthy dose of my own ideas in order to create my very own unique recipe for a French classic that deserves to be left alone by the culinary-challenged home cook. And thank God I did!

Here’s the deal: recipes for coq au vin tend to fall into two categories—those that reduce the wine prior to adding the chicken, and those that do not. Julia Child’s falls into the latter category, while Cook’s Illustrated and (most of) James Peterson’s versions fall into the former. Each has its attributes, though not reducing the wine prior to adding the bird will leave a dish with a distinctively raw wine flavor, since the chicken will finish cooking before the wine is adequately reduced. There may be more to it than this, so if you are really curious about it, just google it. Anyway, when coq au vin was really coq au vin and not poulet au vin or whatever the French actually call it when it’s made with chicken instead of rooster, the poor old bird’s meat was so tough that it required larding and a good three hours of simmering in the wine to tender it up, which would have eliminated the raw flavor of the broth. Why would Julia Child—the Master Teacher—ever direct us to prepare this dish in such a way so that the resulting broth is less-than-stellar (she does call for chicken, after all)? My guess is that she does not require first reducing the wine either due to simplicity’s sake for the American housewife—her target audience, or due to possible forgetfulness that simmering a rooster for three hours will affect the flavor of the sauce differently than will cooking a chicken for 30 minutes.

That aside, I invited my friends Heather and Celeste—both fellow wine and food snobs—over for dinner, which I had planned to be ready by 7. Do not underestimate the length of prep this dish actually necessitates; I began marinating the bird around 3, and was moderately busy for the next 6 hours! Anyway, all was good, since we shared a bottle of rosé with wedges of Winey Goat and Piave Vecchio during the final prep, and since my tardiness allowed for me to pass on the job of making mashed potatoes to someone far better suited to the task (Heather). During this time, I also managed to turn out an over-baked crème brûlée, which I am blaming on a faulty oven thermometer. Heather brought over the salad of greens, pears and chèvre doused in vinaigrette, as well as the rosé and a bottle of red, which we polished off while lingering over our coq au vin and crème fraiched-mashed potatoes. By the time the overdone crème brûlée was produced, I think that we were probably too happy from the wine and the otherwise gracious culinary gods’ blessing bestowed upon us during dinner to care. Finally, Heather and I did the dishes, and it’s worth noting that if you ever move to Bozeman, you should become friends with her so that you have an excuse to cook good food and have MAJOR help restoring your kitchen to pre-meal status. All she asks for in return is good conversation and a glass of wine.

Needless to say, dinner was a hit, my kid loved the stew, and I’ve decided that because of my obvious talent for preparing a tasty coq au vin and less-than-tasty crème brûlée, I ought to author a cookbook. Lol! Till next time…Bon Appetit!

Day 6: Coq au Vin with the Girls

I’m excited about tonight’s dinner of coq au vin, especially because I will be sharing it with a couple of girlfriends. Since I can’t find the perfect recipe, I’ve decided take the best attributes from the contenders and to create my own. Considering that I know nothing about cooking meat, this strategy seems the most (il)logical, no?! For the record, I’ve chosen James Peterson’s Glorious French Food, Cook’s Illustrated’s Best Recipe, and Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking.

I will provide updates and pictures, but probably not till tomorrow. Till then, enjoy the mental images evoked from the notion of a recovering vegan modifying a classic French recipe in order to improve it :-)

Mastering Hollandaise

In all earnestness, I am here today to tell you that I have become the Master of Hollandaise! I can claim such a title because I have perfectly whipped up five successive batches of the silky golden emulsion, and because my picky 7 year-old (finally!) asked for more.

Using a double boiler or a saucepan filled with an inch of water and with a heatproof bowl set on top (do not let the water touch the bottom of the bowl), bring the water to a low simmer, while vigorously whisking 2 egg yolks with a tablespoon of cold water until super foamy and thick in the bowl. Once the water begins simmering, it will take maybe 3 minutes to get to the thick-enough stage. Melt 2/3 of a stick of butter and VERY slowly whisk in a couple of drops of it until fully incorporated. Whisk in a few more the same way, and keep doing this until about 2/3 of the butter has successfully been incorporated. The remaining butter can be added in a slow but steady stream. By the way, this process takes about 1 ½ minutes. Add lemon juice to taste—start with a couple of teaspoons, and if you have any, freshly cracked white pepper. If it is a little bit runny, whisk less vigorously over the heat until it thickens to an acceptable level. Pour over poached eggs or roasted asparagus, serve as a dip for artichokes, or dunk in chunks of quality bread. The absolutely critical things to remember or else your hollandaise will suck are: (1) never stop whisking; (2) make absolutely certain that the water doesn’t come to a rolling boil or touch the bottom of the bowl; and (3) VERY slowly incorporate the melted butter—it will curdle if you don’t. C’est magnifique!

Day 5: A Rant About Alfredo

During my tenure as a grocery buyer for Real Food Market (Helena, MT), the bane of my existence—the single item that I had to force myself to reorder time and time again as I gritted my teeth in sheer disgust—was an alfredo sauce packet that was produced by Simply Organic. I simply detested this particular food product, despite the fact no one was forcing me to consume it personally. I had never even tried it! But I knew that its creation must have been a gift from something evil. By now, perhaps you are wondering what in the world I’ve been smoking, and I would concur that this sentiment is completely legitimate.

(Organic) maltodextrin. Silicon dioxide. (Organic) potato starch. (Organic) butter flavor. I’m not a food purist—these ingredients in and of themselves are not the cause of my disturbed feelings towards this particular product. What does evoke such psychological distress? It’s the directions one must follow to arrive at the finished product: heat milk, butter, parmesan cheese, and sauce packet, and toss with noodles. Yes! You must supplement the packet’s contents with these ingredients! You know how to make from-scratch alfredo sauce? Heat cream, butter, parmesan cheese, and toss with noodles. You don’t even have to add maltodextrin, silicon dioxide, potato starch, or “butter flavor”! To whip up authentic alfredo, it literally takes two minutes of prep, assuming that you grate your own cheese from a wedge and don’t obtain it from an oversized green and yellow shaker can. If you happen to be a poor soul who hasn’t yet realized that dairy fat is not the enemy, I guess that you could use milk instead of cream and margarine instead of butter. But if this is you, I feel sorry for you as much as I feel sorry for Twinkie-eaters and consumers of Big Macs. Regardless, you haven’t saved a minute of time by buying a mix, you’ve wasted about $2, and you’ve majorly compromised the integrity of your dinner.

As a grocery buyer, I decided that customers simply didn’t understand the simplicity of making fettuccine alfredo from scratch. So, I left a pouch full of recipe cards so that they could quickly be enlightened. Not a chance. This product continued to fly off the shelves, and shortly after this failed experiment, I transferred out of the grocery department because good buyers don’t try to convince their customers not to buy their products.

This experience—though at least 5 years old—still haunts me….

Day 4: Julia Child Read to Me—I Must be Schizophrenic!

Most evenings, I like to unwind with a book and a glass of wine, and last night’s book of choice was Julia Child’s very own Mastering the Art of French Cooking (for the record, the wine—a budget one—was  Altos Malbec, 2009). Now, I simply ADORE reading cookbooks just as other people enjoy reading novels. Christ—I have at least 98 carefully selected titles in my library, none of which possess names such as “Gourmet Microwave Cookery” or “Cooking with Splenda.” But last night was different, as Julia’s uber-charming and enthusiastic voice was instructing me not to fear the duck, should I be preparing to bone it, which is admittedly both entertaining and unnerving due to the paranoia it evokes of undiagnosed schizophrenic tendencies. I suppose that this is the consequence of having watched her construct a soufflé on PBS.com earlier in the day. 

Needless to say, having Julia Child read me my bedtime story is not at all unwelcome, provided that she opts to read an excerpt from Mastering the Art of French Cooking.

P.S.—if you are really lucky, tomorrow I will tell you all about the brand new itty bitty quasi-dutch oven that I bought today.

Day 3: Reflections on Boef à la Bourguignonne

Now that I’ve recovered from my boldly-going-where-no-recovering-vegan-has-gone-before-induced giddiness of making my first ever boef à la bourguignonne (which arguably was amplified by slightly excessive quantities of Italian wine), it is pertinent that I embarrass myself over my cluelessness surrounding meat.

It was sort of a rash decision on my part to prepare boef à la bourguignonne, and since my bank account was still in the red and because I did not have an army to feed, I did what any graduate student of economics would do: I minimized costs in an effort to maximize the returns to my endeavor. I calculated that with the year-old half-pound lean cut of stew meat I already had in my freezer, I could just pick up another half-pound or so of a fattier cut from the co-op in order to yield the quantity of beef that Judith Jones calls for in a single serving of said dish. After all, I already had plenty of bacon and the requisite garnitures. It’s also worth noting that I prided myself on recognizing that using a fattier cut of meat would make a better stew. Score! I was going to get away with preparing a dish worthy of serving to our beloved President Obama for a mere $8. As a budding economist, I also prided myself on noting that the cost of the year-old meat and garnitures were sunk costs and ought not be included when calculating the marginal cost of last night’s dinner. As if you care.

Well, what Judith Jones, James Peterson, and Julia Child don’t assume is that their reader is an idiotic recovering vegan who doesn’t recognize the inherent problems associated with combining fatty and lean cuts of beef in a dish at the same point in the cooking process. So they don’t warn you that your garnitures (translation: pearl onions, mushrooms, and whatever other veggies you might throw in when the stew is nearly done cooking) will break down into mush before the lean cubes of meat lose any of their toughness, and the fattier chunks of meat are nearly tender enough to fall apart from the tap of a wooden spoon. Ah, the sheer frustration of being a dumb broad when it comes to cooking meat.

I will note that I did possess enough intelligence to pull out the garniture before its inevitable disintegration, since graduate students of applied economics must be smart because they have to take a lot of hard math courses and use weird Lagrangian equations to solve maximization problems. See, I must be really smart because I understand what I just wrote. Do you? Anyway, after my friend Heather came over in anticipation of being served a delicious snack of boef à la bourguignonne upon her arrival, she proceeded to poke and prod the meat, informing me that the lean chunks would not be tender for another couple of hours. Hours? WTF?! We decided to eat the stew anyway, avoided the tough chunks of meat, and blabbed on about what girlfriends blab on about until around one in the morning. As she was leaving, we made a date to begin a meat-education course for me on Sunday. I think that she’s going to show me how to roast a chicken or something. Cool! I’ve never done that.

Despite the fact that half of the meat was virtually inedible, the rest of the boef à la bourguignonne was fabulous! I even licked the wooden spoon and my fingers after scraping them around the pot's inner surfaces. Seriously, I don’t lick spoons or fingers that are covered in meat juice—spoons and fingers are normally only meant to be licked if they are covered in cookie dough—but this was so damn good that I couldn’t help it. I will be making boef à la bourguignonne again someday soon, though next time I will be smart enough to use only a fatty cut of beef.

Boef à la Bourguignonne

It’s really hard to ponder the blogging possibilities of food on an empty stomach, so I decided to encourage the flow of my creative juices by cooking up a boef à la bourguignonne. The dilemma facing me at the moment is that (1) I’m alone tonight and do not want to buy 5 lbs of beef; (2) I have never before prepared boef à la bourguignonne; and (3) I don’t know a thing about buying or preparing beef. This is due to the fact that I am a recovering vegan and as you must know (as the year is 2010 already), vegans are a species of incredibly culinary-challenged creatures.

Luckily, I had the Bible of cooking wonderful single-serving food—"The Pleasures of Cooking for One" by Judith Jones (yes, that would be Julia Child’s Judith Jones). If you are cooking for one or even two people, this is seriously the perfect little cookbook/pleasure read ever! Anyway, she has an incredibly simple recipe for boeuf à la bourguignonne, which of course I deviated from. Yes, you read that right—the recovering vegan is deviating from the discovering editor of Julia Child’s recipe! Sound the alarm bells! Ok, so my deviations were minor: fresh thyme from my plant instead of dried, a bit more wine and broth, and browned mushrooms. For those of you who are fans of the movie Julie & Julia, you will be happy to note that I did not crowd my mushrooms, and they turned out perfect.

It’s simmering now, but I must say that I’ve had a bunch of tastes so far, and the broth is practically magical! I don’t know about the beef yet because as a recovering vegan, I don’t know a thing about what it’s actually supposed to taste like. I had to consult my friend Heather about whether it was over or under cooked if it was tough. We will find out with all conclusiveness within an hour, however, and then I will report back. With pictures.

Day 2: Writers Block

After making the rash decision yesterday to begin blogging due to being swooned by the delicious aroma of a tarragon plant, I am now facing the unsettling realization that if I am to be a writer, I must continue to write. But now what? Nothing is calling out to me to fervishly write about it. Developing writers block on Day 2 of blogging is arguably an indicator that I’m being foolish for even attempting such a feat.

What this blog needs is some sort of structure. Sure, random musings on whatever fancies me at the moment are good and appreciated (at least by me), but I need something to motivate me on those days when I’m not feeling particularly swept off of my feet by some potted herb growing on my balcony.

I’m thinking….ideas, anyone?

Day 1: How Tarragon Inspired this Blog

Today, I discovered the divine nature of fresh tarragon. Having made such a monumental discovery, what could be more ridiculously appropriate than creating a blog full of musings and ramblings on, well, all things related to food? Especially cheese and chocolate. And wine, which is technically not a food, but who the hell wants me to be technical on this goofy blog that no one else is ever going to read anyway? So I get to be un-technical. 

To be honest, I watched (and am currently reading) Julie & Julia, and Julie Powell’s project humored me to no end. For clarity's sake, it’s a project that I would never in a million years undertake myself. Not because I don’t appreciate Julia Child’s efforts to expose Americans to food worthy of being consumed, and not because I am lazy and can’t commit myself to working through a masterpiece of a cookbook. Simply put, I suffer from an extreme case of food snobbery. Not in the American foodie sense, but rather in the I-have-no-desire-to-eat-tripe-or-brains-or-aspics sense. Organ meats of every kind weird me out in the way that tofu appears to weird out Montana Natives (definition of Montana Native: Montanans who proudly place bumper stickers on their old monster pickups that advertize the fact that they were born in Montana). But I digress. The fact of the matter is that I love food and (almost) everything about it—fantasizing about it, savoring it, and obsessing about it. And my obsession du jour is fresh tarragon....

Have you ever tasted or even smelled fresh tarragon? It is truly one of the most sensuous herbs ever created by whatever creates vegetal things. Its scent is both powerful and delicate, and though it has an aroma distinctly reminiscent of anise, a sane person would never in a bazillion years mistake one for the other. I just googled “tarragon,” and discovered that it, like anise, contains estragole, which Wikipedia claims is both carcinogenic and teratogenic in mice. Thank God I’m not a mouse because after today’s discovery, I would probably develop a tumor in short order.

The discovery came from this morning’s moment of pinching away the dead leaves from two little tarragon plants I had purchased from the farmers market about a month ago in a vain attempt to convince myself that if I simply owned such a revered herb, I would become a truly magnificent cook. Disappointingly enough, it turns out that the plant doesn’t actually possess such magical properties, though it does evoke the urge cup one’s hands around the wildly growing leaves and inhale deeply….and how (bleep) mesmerizing it is to do with the eyes closed! Seriously, I got all choked up just smelling the damn thing. If my husband were to comment on this post, he would relate the multiple emails I sent to him gushing about the orgasmic-inducing properties of tarragon.

Now that the great discovery has been made, what do I actually do with tarragon? I’ve added it to scrambled eggs, which I also stupidly doused with Frontera brand salsa, and which (be forewarned) is not a good way to savor the nuances of such a prized specimen of an herb. Someday soon, I will make something substantial from this blessed herb, though my plants are not yet large enough to support harvesting enough leaves to prepare much of anything. And, as a starving graduate student of applied economics (on sabbatical, mind you), I know better than to rush out to the co-op to buy a baggie of the stuff while my bank account is in the red….