h o m e * e c o n o m i c s

steak & cake

I have always been a red meat girl, even in high school, when everyone else seemed to be subsisting on frozen yogurt and Lender's bagels. I haven't often made myself a steak at home, however, preferring to leave that to the people who know how and thereby to avoid the whole dodgy, expensive meat-buying experience. Last weekend I finally bought steak at the Greenmarket, having lurked tentatively around the Elk Trails Bison Ranch stand for a few Saturdays. I wish I had done it sooner.

Elk Trails sells both bison and black angus beef. The beef is grass-fed--I hate to get all Greenmarket-sanctimonious, but it is comforting to think that when dinner mooed it was not eating, you know, reconstituted cow pellets. Being shy sorts, Andrew and I sidled up to the counter and quietly waited to be noticed before telling the nice lady that we wanted a pound of hanger steak. There wasn't quite enough, though, so the big bison boss butted in and recommended that we take a Western Sizzler. Thankful for the guidance (and, at least in my case, looking forward to eating something called "Western Sizzler"), we took it and nodded gravely as he urged us not to subject it to high heat. Grass-fed beef is less fatty than grain-fed, so high heat will dry it out faster than we suppose.

Since my cooktop still isn't working, we had to broil it. I thought it was a little tough--not disastrously so--but the taste was fantastic. A few weeks ago, we broiled some supermarket steaks; those seemed passable at the time, but they had nothing on this meat, which was much bigger tasting, no tougher, and, at $10 a pound, not much more expensive. I will definitely be back there and am already dreaming of a winter full of bison stews and steak dinners. With Greenmarket corn and tomatoes, drizzled with creme fraiche mixed with cumin and chili powder, sprinkled with chives, it was a Sunday night dinner that felt special despite being fast, easy, and cheap to put together.

In fact, it felt so special that I was inspired to make chocolate cupcakes for dessert.
 
But those might deserve their own post.

crisp-off: three fruit crisps go head to head

   

fruit and butter: that's what I'm talkin' about

Today there is a story in the Times about a 646 pound catfish caught in Thailand's Megkong River. You must follow the link to see the picture of this monster; doesn't he look like something Paul Bunyan would have rasseled with & et for dinner?

They used to feed us fried catfish sometimes at camp. At that point in my life fish was on my do-not-eat list, unlike, say, chicken-fried steak and apple crisp, a glorious all-brown meal that was a favorite with everyone in the Chow Hall. When I started cooking for myself after college, one of my happiest discoveries was that crisps are super-easy to throw together and pretty much impossible to mess up. Though I've never made a crisp I was unhappy to eat, if I'm eating that much butter, I'd like to maximize my pleasure by making the best crisp possible. In the past few weeks I have tried three different recipes. Two notes: A) I judge a crisp by its crumble, not its fruit; B) I don't have pictures of these really because, let's face it, it is a delicious dessert but not a photogenic one. It should go without saying, of course, that these were eaten with vanilla ice cream.

1. RHUBARB-STRAWBERRY CRISP from Chez Panisse Desserts

Andrew made this one (as I made a chocolate cake) for his birthday dinner. I think it's late for rhubarb, but we found some at the Greenmarket and decided this was the perfect thing to do with it. We made two changes to the recipe: we could not use the 1/2 cup walnuts, though that sounds divine, because someone is deathly allergic to nuts, and it was his birthday; and we threw in the optional strawberries. It was very good, but it could have used more topping. We should have made it in a smaller dish, but all we had was a 9x13" Pyrex.

Cut 1.5-2 pounds of rhubarb into 1/2 inch thick slices. You should have about 6 or 7 cups. If you want, add half a pint of sliced strawberries. Toss the fruit with 3/4 cups sugar and 3 tbs flour. We tossed it right in the baking dish, which should have been a 9-inch round one.

For the topping, mix 7/8 cup flour, 1/3 cup brown sugar, 4 tsp white sugar, and 1/8 teaspoon cinnamon. When you have mixed these, rub in 1/2 cup softened salted butter "until it looks crumbly." [At this point, you could mix in 1/2 cup toasted walnuts chopped into 1/4 inch pieces.] Spread the topping over the fruit and bake at 375 for 45 minutes, until the fruit is soft and bubbly and the topping brown and crisp.

I had never made a rhubarb dessert before. I liked it better than apple. But the next crisp I tried had more to offer...

2. APPLE-STRAWBERRY CRISP from Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone

   

This, in my opinion, is the winning crisp, thanks to the fact that the topping uses brown sugar only, not white. This made for a toothsome, slightly sticky, darker-tasting topping. It also incorporates oatmeal (as does the next one--come to think of it, since we did not use nuts in the first crisp, perhaps we should have thrown in some oatmeal). Yum. Deborah Madison, you can do no wrong. Except that this was too salty (and I luuurve salty desserts), so below I have reduced the salt from 1/4 tsp to 1/8 tsp.

Slice enough apples (peeled or unpeeled, it's up to you) to fill your 9" square or 8" x 10" dish. We used 3 or 4 apples. Slice them thinly. We threw in sliced strawberries, too. Toss with 2 tbs sugar (and if you have it--we did not--a tablespoon of lemon juice).

Mix 3/4 cup brown sugar, 2/3 cup flour, 1/2 cup rolled oats, 1/2 tsp grated nutmeg, 1 tsp cinnamon, and 1/8 tsp salt. Rub in 6 tbs butter (does not need to be softened) that you have already cut into little chunks. Cover the fruit and bake at 375 degrees for 45 minutes  to an hour--top should be brown, fruit should be bubbly.

These were Mutsu apples. Andrew didn't want to peel them, but I think it would have been even better if they had been peeled. He thinks the skin imparts good apple flavor; I think when I am eating a bowl of this with vanilla ice cream melting on top, good apple flavor is not my first concern. I am more interested in mouthfuls of soft fruit, caramelized sugar, butter, and cream uncomplicated by stringy old skin.

3. APPLE OAT CRISP from Staff Meals

Finally, I had to try my old standby apple crisp recipe. Unlike the others, this recipe calls for the butter to be creamed; this means the topping is more like a uniform cookie-roof than a crumble. To be fair, I think I found this crisp less pleasing because I failed to include enough fruit. But  Deborah Madison's brown-sugar-intense crisp would have taken the day, I think, no matter what was underneath.

Peel and dice 6 apples (I used Mutsu apples; I only had three, and I wish I had had more). Toss with 1 tbs sugar (and, if you have it, lemon juice; I did not have it).

Cream 6 tbs room-temperature butter with 1/2 cup dark brown sugar and 1/2 cup granulated sugar; this should take 3-5 minutes. Add 1/3 cup flour, 1 tsp cinnamon, a pinch of salt, and a few grinds of black pepper (I could not taste this in the baked dish). Stir in 1/2 cup rolled oats. Spread topping over fruit and bake at 375 degrees for 45 minutes.

   

In this picture you can see the Staff Meals apple crisp on the left and the (slightly mutilated) Deborah Madison crisp on the right. Not very instructive, is it? But I think the lessons I learned are 1)rhubarb is good, 2)use all brown sugar in the topping--no white, and 3)use oatmeal.

If anyone else has a favorite standby recipe for crisp topping, I would love to hear it.

tomato tart with parmesan crust

   

I deplaned at Newark with two packages of dried porcini mushrooms in my carry-on. I feared I would be detained by mushroom-sniffing dogs, but, thank goodness, I made it through. (Mushrooms are probably allowed and I'm just being crazy; but I thought they looked suspicious.) Andrew, who was on a different flight, was in charge of bringing back a giant hunk of Parmigiano-Reggiano; he, too, was nervous, but he made it. Whew.

When I got home I collapsed onto the sofa, opened my computer (o, computer, how I missed you!), and found  that Heidi had posted the perfect recipe for using that cheese on 101 Cookbooks: an heirloom tomato tart in a parmesan crust. The next weekend I bought these beautiful tomatoes (the picture doesn't do them justice at all, as you know if you have ever seen a tomato). The tart was great fun to make. I love making things in my tart pan--it makes me feel very professional, the fluted edge. Once the shell has baked and cooled, you just arrange your tomato slices on top.

It  tasted as good as you would expect, despite the fact that I mistakenly added a teaspoon of salt to the tart crust. I would love to make small versions of these and pile them with salad, too, as a first course (god forbid we eat an out-of-season tomato, after all; the food police would be at our door in two shakes of a lamb's tail).

an eating vacation

IN WHICH she travels to Italy, eats a lot of cheese, reads Marcella Hazan, fries flowers, and makes decadent pork cutlets

the famous cheese sign; please forgive my lame faux-constructivism

Earlier this month I was fortunate enough to spend two weeks in Italy with Andrew and his family. To celebrate their thirtieth wedding anniversary, his parents rented a house in Emiglia-Romagna and invited their friends and family to visit them there. No one I've spoken to has known where Emiglia-Romagna is, which is probably why we saw no English-speakers while we were there. It's the pink region that spans the beginning of the skinny part of the boot--below Lombardy (the blue region) and above Tuscany (the orange region).

It is also where the Parmigiano-Reggiano is made. In fact, when we first drove from the airport to the village nearest the house, his parents told us to meet them under that giant P-R sign you can see in the first picture. What an omen!

The house was spacious and comfortable, with a cozy, low-ceilinged kitchen that reminded me of a hobbit hole. Almost every night we ate dinner on a porch overlooking the little valley:

We bought cheese and cured meats from the store beneath the cheese sign, but we bought produce and most other things from a grocery store. The grocery store had multiple cartons of quail eggs, which we had to try. Here they are hard-boiled, adorning a salad of watercress, fennel, and pink grapefruit (with tomatoes only around the edge).

I also invented a bruschetta topped by mascarpone, lardo, and a fried quail egg. It was not very good, but it was politely eaten.

At the cheese store, we picked up a tiny promotional booklet of recipes involving parmigiano-reggiano. Though the instructions were less than clear, we decided to make these little pork cutlets: they are wrapped in prosciutto, dipped in egg, rolled in grated cheese, and baked. They don't LOOK extremely appetizing, and I wouldn't call them midsummer food, but they were, as you might imagine, succulent and tasty.

I do not have the original recipe, but it wasn't much help anyway. We could not read the cuts of meat at the grocery store, so we bought what looked like a tenderloin--about 10 inches long--and cut it into 1/2 or 3/4 inch slices. We wrapped each slice with a very thinly sliced piece of prosciutto, dipped the whole thing into one beaten egg, and coated it in Parmigiano-Reggiano (you will need about a cup and a half grated). The finished slices went into a buttered baking dish; the baking dish went into a 400 degree oven for 15 minutes. The original recipe said not to cook them for longer than 10 minutes, but this didn't seem as if it could be right, since the slices of pork were not so thin. In any event, if you try this, I would advise you to rely on your own experience with pork OR to check frequently.

When we did find the twice-a-week market (which emphasized cheap shoes and dishtowels, not food), the first stall we saw was...meat and cheese! But we did find some vegetables eventually.

      

These zucchini blossoms did not come from the market, though--they were right at the grocery store. Marcella Hazan (whose wonderful Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking I had never looked into before--now I will all the time) had a recipe for fried zucchini blossoms that we had to try. If it sounds odd to you, don't be put off. They were delicious, interesting to look at, and easy (of course, Andrew handled the boiling oil, not I).

I do not have the cookbook with me, but you could use any tempura-style batter. I believe Marcella's was 1/4 cup flour vigorously beaten into 1 cup of water. This was supposed to gain a sour-cream like consistence, which mine never did, so I added some extra flour...and it came out fine. After each flower was dipped in batter, Andrew laid it into 1/2 inch of hot vegetable oil, browned each side (perhaps 1 minute and a half total?), and  put it on paper towels to drain a bit.  You sprinkle them with a bit of salt and eat them while they are hot. It's kind of like the popcorn of the gods.

   

We made many other wonderful things that I unfortunately do not have pictures of. Here, Andrew and his father make deliciously cheesy gnocchi that is baked instead of boiled. That is not a specialized gnocchi cutter you see in Andrew's hand; he is improvising with a decanter.

This is the plate of a very sad girl who wishes there were more gnocchi on it!

a proper august

Where have I been? Well, I spent a healthy amount of time lying in this hammock in Italy:

and since I got back to New York, I've been going to the Greenmarket every weekend. I have eaten more strawberries this summer than I ever have before!

Obviously, I am also experimenting with keeping the camera steady while the flash is off. My gas has yet to be turned on, so I am still confined to oven-cooked meals. But I have many things to show and tell, and over the next few days I will.