I don't know how old you are, but if you're my age, you certainly remember Noodle-Roni and Rice-a-Roni. There was an annoying commercial that I can only remember a snippet of (the one they wanted you to) and it piped cheerily "Rice . . . A-Roni! The San Francisco Treat!"
Well, let me tell you, they didn't need the jingle. We kids lapped that stuff up like hamsters in a honeydew patch, mainly because our mothers fed it to us in toxic amounts. My shake-knee weakness was Noodles Romanoff, by Betty Crocker. Today, I can think of nothing to recommend the original; it was in a box quite similar to today's Kraft Macaroni and Cheese, and the selling point was that it could be made in one pot. Just add some milk, and presto! instant dinner. It was pasty and viscuous and salty and day-glo yellow — crack-a-roni for little kids. I have no idea why it was named Noodles Romanoff. One has visions of the imperial family of Russia lounging about the palace snacking on vodka-laced stroganoff prepared with these very noodles: "Svetlana, my dear, more of zose vanderful noodles!"— but the reality was very different. Still, an addict never strays far from the fix, so I went in search of a recipe that would approximate this marvelously kid-dictive concoction. Here's what I came up with:
Noodles Romanoff
The key to success here is the Kraft Macaroni and Cheese day-glo yellow powder. Without it, you will never approach the original.
One package egg noodles (about 1 lb.)
1 cup sour cream (use full fat—don't make me come over there)
2 T butter, melted
1 medium onion, chopped finely
2 cloves garlic, crushed or chopped finely
3/4 cup grated Parmigiano Reggiano (okay, so I'm a cheese snob, except for):
1 package day-glo cheddar cheese powder from a box of Kraft Macaroni 'n' Cheese
1/2 cup chopped parsley
Cracked pepper to taste
Directions: Cook the noodles to al dente. While cooking noodles, sauté the onion and garlic in butter in large saucepan. Add parsley at the last minute; remove from heat. When noodles are a hair away from being done, drain but retain residual pasta water (don't wring them dry).
Put the hot noodles into the saucepan, then add the sour cream, day-glo powder and half the Reggiano. Mix very well with the cooked onions, garlic and parsley. The result should be a pleasingly creamy deep yellow mess. Add the pepper. Serve in individual bowls with the rest of the parmesan. Serve with a bone-in country ham and shots of frozen Smirnoff. Call rehab.
Incidentally, there was a double meaning in the title of this entry. The people who make Kraft Macaroni and Cheese are Philip Morris — the masters of addiction.
Monday, March 20, 2006
Sunday, March 19, 2006
My beef with beef
Okay, the heat is on. The other day at a friend's house we ate burgers cooked on a gas grill. The ambient temperature outside was -8 C. We had to shovel the steps leading to the back yard in order to get to the grill. I ground some of the burgers myself, the day before. Grinding your own burgers may seem to some to be a bit extreme, but to me, it's just an extension of the love affair I have with beef. They turned out to be quite good, as usual. But that's the part that bothers me; that's the beef I have with beef.
Because no two beefy experiences I have ever had have been the same. There is no guarantee that the filet mignon I buy from Fred's Market today will taste the same as the one I bought a week ago. This is good, in that I will always be surprised by my next beef experience, but it's not good in that there seems to be little or no consistency with beef shopping, at least in your dreary, garden-variety grocery store. Add a couple of Dateline NBC hidden-camera exposés about grocers relabeling old product and selling it and you're left with an E-colicky taste in your mouth.
I don't pretend I know anything about what's under the hood of my car. I can take it to my mechanic and he can spout anything he wants about turbos and spark plugs and transmissions and I'm completely at his mercy. I don't have a clue what he's talking about, but when he says the solenoid in the draft mechanism needs to be replaced to the tune of $145, I just pay up. I have to; there is no other choice. Which brings me to my point: when I go to the grocery store and the package says "Grain-fed Angus Beef filet mignon" at $45/lb, who am I to quibble? It's gotta be good, right? But the truth is, sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't. I've had nights when I've slapped the bastard on the grill for exactly the requisite amount of time and it comes out perfectly, melt-in-your-mouth delicious. But I've had other times, far, too many other times, when it's a chewy, rare mess.
Like plonk-fatigue, the illness provoked from imbibing too many inferior wines from the corner dépanneur, one gets filet fatigue. There has to be something bigger, something that transcends the daily grind, if you will. Something dependably delectable. Something so awesome, so life-affirming, so transcendental, so unattainable, that just the thinking of it leads to a disturbing obsession. Bon dieu, informez-moi. What could that be?
How to make perfect carpaccio.
I'll try to make that a priority next week.
Because no two beefy experiences I have ever had have been the same. There is no guarantee that the filet mignon I buy from Fred's Market today will taste the same as the one I bought a week ago. This is good, in that I will always be surprised by my next beef experience, but it's not good in that there seems to be little or no consistency with beef shopping, at least in your dreary, garden-variety grocery store. Add a couple of Dateline NBC hidden-camera exposés about grocers relabeling old product and selling it and you're left with an E-colicky taste in your mouth.
I don't pretend I know anything about what's under the hood of my car. I can take it to my mechanic and he can spout anything he wants about turbos and spark plugs and transmissions and I'm completely at his mercy. I don't have a clue what he's talking about, but when he says the solenoid in the draft mechanism needs to be replaced to the tune of $145, I just pay up. I have to; there is no other choice. Which brings me to my point: when I go to the grocery store and the package says "Grain-fed Angus Beef filet mignon" at $45/lb, who am I to quibble? It's gotta be good, right? But the truth is, sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't. I've had nights when I've slapped the bastard on the grill for exactly the requisite amount of time and it comes out perfectly, melt-in-your-mouth delicious. But I've had other times, far, too many other times, when it's a chewy, rare mess.
Like plonk-fatigue, the illness provoked from imbibing too many inferior wines from the corner dépanneur, one gets filet fatigue. There has to be something bigger, something that transcends the daily grind, if you will. Something dependably delectable. Something so awesome, so life-affirming, so transcendental, so unattainable, that just the thinking of it leads to a disturbing obsession. Bon dieu, informez-moi. What could that be?
How to make perfect carpaccio.
I'll try to make that a priority next week.
Friday, March 17, 2006
Radish mice
Recently I've been really interested in the presentation of food—the one thing that separates my chicken in wine and mushroom, say, from one served at Caprices de Nicolas. Obviously, when I cook spaghetti for myself, I don't put an artful chiffonade of basil leaves on top, but when it's for someone else, I've been thinking that my cooking needs to go to a new level.
Most of the time you don't even eat the garnish. How many sprigs of parsley have gone untouched back with the busboy on your plates? And you don't lap up that squeeze-bottle squiggle of cilantro-lime reduction after you're done with the Thai Grilled Chicken, do you, but you're kind of glad that it's there. Those small touches always add that indefinable element to your restaurant experience.
A sprig of parsley is a tiny thing and you just don't think about it, but it's really like the curly holly ornament on a Christmas present. It doesn't need to be there, but it makes the whole thing more Christmasy.
Thus, my newfound interest. However, I think that unless you're going to be getting paid for it at your next soirée, making cucumber petunia clusters or radish mice is not an art form you're going to be needing much.
Yet I've been able to find spectacularly little information on the subject. Can you put a thin slice of lemon on a halibut, and will it make the fish taste better? Why not a handful of long-cut spring onions? Or maybe you put the halibut on a single leaf of crisp romaine and drizzle chili oil on top?
I realise that these things are individual choices that make up recipes, but isn't there a general guide to garnishing for the home cook that eschews grand soliloquies that involve melon ball-mushroom flower cutters in favor of some simple, eye-pleasing presentations that will make anyone's cooking look like it was made in a restaurant? What goes well with what? How to make those squeeze-bottle squiggles?
I won't bore you with a list of books on the subject matter that I've looked at, precisely because none of them fits the criteria I just outlined.
Maybe someone should start a webpage on the subject . . .
. . . whadda you looking at??
Most of the time you don't even eat the garnish. How many sprigs of parsley have gone untouched back with the busboy on your plates? And you don't lap up that squeeze-bottle squiggle of cilantro-lime reduction after you're done with the Thai Grilled Chicken, do you, but you're kind of glad that it's there. Those small touches always add that indefinable element to your restaurant experience.
A sprig of parsley is a tiny thing and you just don't think about it, but it's really like the curly holly ornament on a Christmas present. It doesn't need to be there, but it makes the whole thing more Christmasy.
Thus, my newfound interest. However, I think that unless you're going to be getting paid for it at your next soirée, making cucumber petunia clusters or radish mice is not an art form you're going to be needing much.
Yet I've been able to find spectacularly little information on the subject. Can you put a thin slice of lemon on a halibut, and will it make the fish taste better? Why not a handful of long-cut spring onions? Or maybe you put the halibut on a single leaf of crisp romaine and drizzle chili oil on top?
I realise that these things are individual choices that make up recipes, but isn't there a general guide to garnishing for the home cook that eschews grand soliloquies that involve melon ball-mushroom flower cutters in favor of some simple, eye-pleasing presentations that will make anyone's cooking look like it was made in a restaurant? What goes well with what? How to make those squeeze-bottle squiggles?
I won't bore you with a list of books on the subject matter that I've looked at, precisely because none of them fits the criteria I just outlined.
Maybe someone should start a webpage on the subject . . .
. . . whadda you looking at??
Wednesday, March 15, 2006
Stew
It's an overlooked meal, I think. Or maybe just too ordinary to really get much notice. But stew is pretty much common to all cuisines in one form or another; it's how our ancestors dealt with a pantry whose components were coming to a rapid end and needed to be used. It's called curry in India, tagine in Morocco, bourguignon in France and sukiyaki in Japan, but it's basically stuff shoveled together into a pot with a liquid and simmered for a mite, preferably accompanied by some mind-altering beverage while you're doing it. Low maintenance, high yield.
This one I propose to you here is very simple and has a minimum of exoticness. I guess it's just an all-around one-pot dish that happens to star beef. I'm going on the American or European model here, so let's think Western. But it need not be bland. Let's look at the ingredients: we like garlic. We like onion. We like potatoes. We like top sirloin. We like butter and we love wine.
So here's the list:
Meez:
Four nice cloves garlic, finely chopped
One large or two medium Vidalia onions, roughly chopped
Two or three large carrots, sliced in rounds
Three Yukon Gold potatoes, peeled and sliced into 1/2 inch cubes
A couple of pounds of top sirloin, cut in generous 3/4 to one-inch cubes
A cup of full-bodied red wine, like a Merlot or Bordeaux
4 cups of chicken stock
1/4-1/2 cup of parsley (Italian or broadleaf is best)
1 cup kernel corn
1 cup green peas (miniature is good)
2 tablespoons tomato paste
2 tablespoons brown sugar
4 teaspoons olive oil
1 tablespoon butter
Herbes de Provence to taste (thyme especially)
Check out the video for visual directions, but basically, the method is this:
Don't get anal about this recipe—just put in the amount of stuff that you like. Get everything chopped and diced beforehand. Trust me, it's just easier. Put a couple of teaspoons of olive oil into a wide sauté pan and blast it. Toss in the meat, but let it stay on one side for two or three minutes—we're not looking to cook it, but to get a good fond and caramelisation. The meat will be nicely browned—like I say in the video, don't let it boil, we want it to sear, so dump the juices in the vegetable bowl if they get too much—in about ten minutes, if you're doing it right. Sprinkle salt and pepper on it while it sears. Remove from the pan and set aside in a bowl. Now add a couple of tablespoons of olive oil to the hot pan and sauté the onions and carrots on medium high for about ten minutes, then add the garlic. Cook for two minutes more. Put aside in the bowl with the meat.
Pour the wine into the pan you just made the meat in and bring it to a boil for a couple of minutes. Put that into the bowl with all the rest. Now, you will need a clean pan for the potatoes, so wash it out. Melt the butter and add the potatoes when the pan is not quite smoking. Watch the potatoes very carefully, but once they're in the pan, don't turn them over for about 5 minutes. Don't worry, at this point if you're doing it right, the butter won't burn. Now turn the potatoes over so that the other side can brown. This is labor-intensive, but worth it.
We're almost done . . . after about 15 minutes of sautéing the potatoes, add the parsley after turning off the heat.
Now fire up your soup pan—a pot for pasta is good. Put all the ingredients except for the potatoes and parsley into it, adding the chicken broth and tomato paste. It's all downhill from here. About 25 minutes before you plan to eat, add the potato-parsley mixture. Thicken with cornstarch, demiglace powder or onion soup mix. You're gonna be loving this one.
This one I propose to you here is very simple and has a minimum of exoticness. I guess it's just an all-around one-pot dish that happens to star beef. I'm going on the American or European model here, so let's think Western. But it need not be bland. Let's look at the ingredients: we like garlic. We like onion. We like potatoes. We like top sirloin. We like butter and we love wine.
So here's the list:
Meez:
Four nice cloves garlic, finely chopped
One large or two medium Vidalia onions, roughly chopped
Two or three large carrots, sliced in rounds
Three Yukon Gold potatoes, peeled and sliced into 1/2 inch cubes
A couple of pounds of top sirloin, cut in generous 3/4 to one-inch cubes
A cup of full-bodied red wine, like a Merlot or Bordeaux
4 cups of chicken stock
1/4-1/2 cup of parsley (Italian or broadleaf is best)
1 cup kernel corn
1 cup green peas (miniature is good)
2 tablespoons tomato paste
2 tablespoons brown sugar
4 teaspoons olive oil
1 tablespoon butter
Herbes de Provence to taste (thyme especially)
Check out the video for visual directions, but basically, the method is this:
Don't get anal about this recipe—just put in the amount of stuff that you like. Get everything chopped and diced beforehand. Trust me, it's just easier. Put a couple of teaspoons of olive oil into a wide sauté pan and blast it. Toss in the meat, but let it stay on one side for two or three minutes—we're not looking to cook it, but to get a good fond and caramelisation. The meat will be nicely browned—like I say in the video, don't let it boil, we want it to sear, so dump the juices in the vegetable bowl if they get too much—in about ten minutes, if you're doing it right. Sprinkle salt and pepper on it while it sears. Remove from the pan and set aside in a bowl. Now add a couple of tablespoons of olive oil to the hot pan and sauté the onions and carrots on medium high for about ten minutes, then add the garlic. Cook for two minutes more. Put aside in the bowl with the meat.
Pour the wine into the pan you just made the meat in and bring it to a boil for a couple of minutes. Put that into the bowl with all the rest. Now, you will need a clean pan for the potatoes, so wash it out. Melt the butter and add the potatoes when the pan is not quite smoking. Watch the potatoes very carefully, but once they're in the pan, don't turn them over for about 5 minutes. Don't worry, at this point if you're doing it right, the butter won't burn. Now turn the potatoes over so that the other side can brown. This is labor-intensive, but worth it.
We're almost done . . . after about 15 minutes of sautéing the potatoes, add the parsley after turning off the heat.
Now fire up your soup pan—a pot for pasta is good. Put all the ingredients except for the potatoes and parsley into it, adding the chicken broth and tomato paste. It's all downhill from here. About 25 minutes before you plan to eat, add the potato-parsley mixture. Thicken with cornstarch, demiglace powder or onion soup mix. You're gonna be loving this one.
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