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  • Maral Pastry’s Tahini Cookies

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    I was beginning to wonder if maybe I'd hit some sweet spot – a Bermuda Triangle of good recipes, great recipes even. After all, when was the last doozy I made? I can't even remember. We've been eating well around here lately.

    And then. I attempted to make the tahini cookies that Charles Perry raved about in last week's LA Times. I wouldn't call them a disaster, because something tells me they turned out just as they should have, but they were abso-loo-tely, defi-nit-ely not my kind of cookie.

    (I guess now is the time I should confess that I don't really like tahini. I have it in my fridge because of the glories of homemade hummus. But after Charles waxed so rhapsodic about the Armenian cookies, I thought I might have found a way to use up the rest of the tahini, and I hoped I could possibly find a soft spot in my heart for the gluey stuff.)

    (No.)

    I made one batch of the spiraled cookies (I'm not even going to get into the fact that I found them difficult to roll and that tahini oozed all over my Silpat making the rolling and slicing even harder and that the oven just made the cookies slightly tough, burned on the bottoms and still not-browned-enough on top), let them cool for a bit and then tried the smallest one. Hrmph. The cookie part was tough and bready, and the tahini filling was in no way transformed, the way I'd hoped it would be. It was still its pasty, slightly bitter self.

    So much for that.

    In other totally thrilling news, however, the Greenmarket had both ramps and fresh spinach today, heralding spring. This evening I heated olive oil in a pan, threw in a quarter-pound of cleaned, sliced ramps, let them saute for a bit over high heat, then added a pound of washed spinach and let everything cook down into a vibrantly green, sweet pile of vegetal goodness (don't forget a good sprinkling of salt on top).

    And if that wasn't enough to rejoice about, my latest visit to D'Agostino's (which I usually only visit grudgingly) found me gyrating with glee in front of the refrigerated section where, inexplicably and improbably, Giovanni Rana's fresh pastas had appeared. (Remember my Sicilian uncle? He is my Personal Food Authority and, according to him, this is the only commercial fresh pasta you should deign to eat.) Up until recently, Rana was only available in Italy and was thus entirely out of my reach.

    So beside the rampy spinach tonight, we had artichoke tortelloni, dressed with melted butter and sage from my grandfather's garden in Italy, and they were (woody artichoke piece and all!) delicious. The tortelloni made me think of my family, too, which made them taste extra-nice. And begged the question: who needs cookies when you've got artichoke tortelloni?

    Tahini Cookies
    Makes 24 to 32 cookies

    2 2/3 cup bread flour
    1 teaspoon active dry yeast
    1 cup sugar, divided
    1/8 teaspoon salt
    1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon vegetable oil
    3/4 to 1 cup tahini paste, divided

    1. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, combine the flour, yeast, one-half cup sugar and salt. Add the vegetable oil and mix at a low speed to combine.

    2. Fill a liquid measuring cup with 1 cup warm water. With the mixer speed on low, start adding the water slowly — just enough for the dough to come together (we used just shy of 1 cup water), neither too wet nor too dry. Continue to mix at medium-low 2 to 3 minutes until the dough is evenly combined and smooth. Be careful not to overmix. Cover the dough with plastic film and allow to rise until doubled, 2 to 3 hours.

    3. Heat the oven to 350 degrees (for either a convection oven or regular oven). Divide the dough in half and place one half on a floured work surface. Flatten it gently with the palm of your hand to a general rectangle shape; continue flattening it with a rolling pin until the rectangle is about 18 by 10 inches. Do not worry if the dough bubbles slightly while it is rolled out. Brush 5 to 6 tablespoons of tahini paste all over the rectangle to get a thin layer and then sprinkle 4 tablespoons sugar over the tahini.

    4. Roll the rectangle up lengthwise and trim the ends. Cut the roll into 1- to 1 1/4 -inch lengths; you will have 12 to 16 pieces. Place each piece between your hands, cut sides against your palms; press to flatten into a disc (they will look like rosettes).

    5. Place the discs on a parchment-lined cookie sheet and bake until deep golden brown, about 15 minutes in a convection oven or 18 to 20 minutes in a regular oven, rotating the cookie sheet halfway through. Repeat with the remaining half of the dough.

  • Amanda Hesser’s Revueltos con Chorizo

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    This is the only thing I've cooked since Thursday (not including Ben's birthday cake, but more on that later). It's been a busy couple of days around here! Surprise out-of-town birthday guests, a dinner for 24 people, the advent (at last!) of spring so glorious that I felt like a puppy when we went outside, just itching to rub my body up against the sunshine.

    But back to the eggs. I can't find the actual recipe (from the NY Times Magazine a few years ago, when Amanda also wrote about Fluffy Orange Shortcake, remember?) for these that I clipped and then stashed away somewhere. It's driving me a little nuts. But I sort of remember the general gist of it and I keep telling myself you won't mind if I wing it for you. You won't, will you? It tasted awfully good when I winged it (wung it?) on Thursday, so here goes nothing.

    You take some of your dried Spanish chorizo lying in your fridge. (Doesn't everyone have a link of Palacios chorizo hanging out in there? If not, you should. Don't make the mistake I made once of letting my chorizo sit in the cupboard for a week or two or three only to find it then entirely covered in an even white layer of fuzzy mold. Right as I was about to start cooking.) You slice 9 or 10 small discs of the stuff. You put these in a pan (nonstick or stainless steel, whatever your poison), turn the heat on low and let the fragrant, orange fat render out for a bit. In the meantime, you very lightly beat together two or three eggs (depending on your age, height and sex, I suppose). Let there still be some nicely separated globs of yolk and white. When there looks to be enough fat in the pan, pour in the eggs. Using a rubber spatula, turn the eggs and the chorizo together a few times. Let the curds develop on the larger side, then turn off the heat when the eggs still look moist. The whole process shouldn't take more than a minute or two.

    The scrambled eggs will be plump and streaked with orange. The dark red chorizo discs will peek out from the billowy folds of egg. You'll pile the lot on a plate (for me, it goes without saying that this is a single-girl's or guy's dinner, but I'm sure there are many of you out there with partners who would happily eat this for dinner, too), settle down on the couch with a glass of wine (or a heel of crusty bread), and dig into the creamy, salty, porky eggs that have soft pockets and crispy edges and satisfy your hunger entirely.

    Delicious.

    And that birthday cake? Comes courtesy of Martha Stewart, and fulfills many people's expectations of the quintessential chocolate birthday cake (three layers, glossy frosting, crazy chocolate flavor). The first time I made this, I brought it to Central Park for my friend Emily's birthday. The Met was performing in the park and the place was crammed with people. Near where my friends and I had set up camp, a few couples sat and entertained a toddler. After I pulled out the candle-bedecked cake, we realized that the little toddler had waddled over to us and was standing behind our circle, transfixed by the towering cake. Mesmerized.  Couldn't take her eyes off the thing. We asked her parents if we could give her a piece of the cake, and they said it was fine as long as they got to have some as well.

    Before long, the cake was being eaten by a far larger crowd than I had originally expected. My head got fat with everyone's compliments while opera singers warbled in the background and New York felt like a little village filled with happy people. It was Emily's birthday, but I felt like I had won the lottery.

    It was July 2001.

  • Suvir Saran’s Spicy Roasted Chicken Thighs

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    I'm cutting straight to the punch today. This chicken recipe is delicious. Ben wouldn't stop talking about how good it was. The last time he was this enthusiastic was when Amanda Hesser's Lemon Chicken entered our lives, and we all know how good that was (don't we?).

    It's simple (you process a bunch of spicy, aromatic ingredients and smear the paste onto raw chicken thighs, then roast them until they're juicy and fragrant, and a gorgeous little gravy has created itself at the bottom of the pan) and very tasty, makes for stellar leftovers, and is cheap, cheap, cheap, considering that chicken thighs cost less than practically everything else in the market.

    (Can I stop here and ask what steps any of you contact lens-wearing jalapeno-eaters take when the time comes to deal with these things? I always end up having fiery fingers for at least a day or two, which makes contact insertion and removal nothing short of torturous, but I can't bring myself to use surgical gloves. Am I being foolish?)

    I have a feeling we'll be making this again and again – it's just one of those staple recipes you can't help but revert to all of the time. But do you know what's even more exciting that discovering something as good as this hidden in a clipping about cooking with chicken thighs from none other than Mr. Minimalist? (The recipe comes from an Indian chef, Suvir Saran, whose restaurant is mere blocks from where I live and work, so it is a total mystery why I haven't gotten myself there yet. I'm stumped. And hungry. Consider this problem solved quite soon.)

    Millet! That's what's so exciting. That fluffy, pale yellow pile of toothsome grains underneath the spicy chicken thigh is no pedestrian accompaniment, oh no. It's the glorious ancient grain, millet, my new favorite pantry stale. Move over, rice. Take a hike, couscous. We've fallen head over heels for millet, and think it's here to stay.

    I used Nigella Lawson's recipe (but left out the cumin) and it turned out fantastically. The cooked millet was nutty and substantial, holding up well to the strongly-flavored chicken thighs. Plus, it had the added benefit of making us feel virtuous as we ate. I quite like that feeling.

    This morning, I used up the remaining millet to make Mollie Katzen's Crunchy Millet Muffins and I'm pleased to tell you all that I seem to have finally found a muffin that doesn't make me feel like a larded animal after I've eaten one (is it just me? Don't muffins give you a stomach-ache, too?). They're very plain, spiced with just a fillip of cinnamon and a small amount of brown sugar, but the millet goes into the simple batter raw, and the muffins bake up into soft, yet crunchy domes that go quite nicely with a glass of orange juice or a mug of milky tea.

    Millet for breakfast, millet for lunch, millet for dinner. Millet! I think I love you.

    Spicy Roasted Chicken Thighs
    Serves 4

    8 chicken thighs, with skin, pierced all over with a small knife
    5 cloves garlic, peeled
    1 2-inch piece fresh ginger root, peeled
    1 small jalapeño pepper, seeded
    Juice and zest of 1 whole lemon
    2 tablespoons tomato paste
    1/2 teaspoon salt, or to taste
    1 teaspoon cumin powder
    1 teaspoon coriander seeds or ground coriander

    1. Heat oven to 400 degrees. Put chicken thighs in a bowl. Mince garlic, ginger and pepper. Toss with all remaining ingredients or put in a small food processor, and grind to a paste. (It is O.K. if the coriander seeds are not fully pulverized. They will add a little crunch.)

    2. Rub mixture thoroughly into chicken. At this point, you can cover, and refrigerate for up to a day.

    3. Put thighs, skin side up, in a roasting pan. Roast for 45 minutes or until done.

  • Random Thoughts Upon My Return

    Flying through a Nor’easter into New York anytime soon? I don’t recommend it. Three hours later, and I’m still eyeing my airsickness bag (I took it with me) and quaking in my boots. Good lord, what an end to the weekend.

    Through the worst of it, though, when the plane was pitching and careening through the skies, I found myself having the oddest of comforting thoughts. A plane carrying Anne Willan, Madhur Jaffrey and Marcus Samuelsson (if it wasn’t him, it was his double) couldn’t possibly crash, could it? No, of course it couldn’t. In fact, I should consider myself lucky to be on the same plane. Perhaps it was the ghost of Antoine Careme or Brillat-Savarin or just some very good piloting, but we landed safely and soundly and it was all I could do to keep myself from kissing the ground in some faintly hysterical, mad show of gratitude.

    But back to the matter at hand. I attended the conference for work, let’s just get that out of the way right now. I didn’t leave Ben alone on his 30th birthday because I’m a cold-hearted wretch, and yes, those were brownies I made as an apologetic, pre-birthday treat. (The proper cake comes later, but shhhhh! Please hope with me that Ben continues to never read this site.)

    A big thanks to all those readers who made valiant guesses as to what that strange brown crater was, but only one of you got it right: Mary from Ceres and Bacchus. Congratulations, Mary! The brownies were Dorie Greenspan’s French Chocolate Brownies, from her fantastic book, Baking: From My Home to Yours (which was, in my humble opinion, totally robbed when it didn’t win this weekend. Hrmph.). Dorie told me in Chicago that Julia Moskin left out the rum-soaked raisins in her original recipe, so if you want to try that one, head on over to Dorie’s site.

    Ben loves a cakey brownie – fudgy and dense isn’t really his thing – and these were perfect. That lovely, caramel-colored, crackling top shattered gently under the knife, and a light, moist, chocolate-y brownie that almost melted in our mouths waited underneath. I packed a pretty little tin full of them for Ben, and then froze a few more for, well, post-flight snacking. I think I deserve a small reward after surviving Flight 687.

    I didn’t get a chance to see Chicago at all, though I did have a totally transcendant meal at Blackbird with my colleagues. Not only was the food delicious – really, really (think velvety split-pea soup with little shreds of peekytoe crab, slivered onion and crunchy breadcrumbs), but the place itself was just so groovy and…for lack of a better word, Chicago-y. I know, my powers of description are truly world-class today.

    And if there’s anything I learned this weekend, it’s that American country ham not only holds a candle to the Italian stuff, it sometimes blows it right out of the water (hold that metaphor!). Can you imagine that? Thanks to Ari Weinzweig, I now know about Broadbent’s 15-month old country ham and La Quercia’s 12-month Niman Ranch-sourced ham. Which makes me wonder: do I really need to buy my prosciutto from clear across the ocean when there’s good stuff right here at home?

    (My notes on Broadbent’s: melt-in-your-mouth, mild, smoky, tender…)

    Now that I am home, I think I need to go unpack, pay attention to my 30-year old boyfriend, and eat a brownie. While listening to the cozy rain outside. And thinking of the pale blue edge of Lake Michigan I saw from the air this morning. And planning a return trip. Yes, I’ll be back, Chicago!

    Ta.

  • Chicago!

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    I’m running to catch a flight to Chicago where I’ll be for the next few days. I leave you, and Ben (who turns 30 this weekend! Without me around to celebrate. Sob. Happy birthday, honey!), with this little treat.

    Can you guess what it is? (The more specific you get, the more – um – points you get.) I can’t promise that the winner gets a Chicago hot dog, but there will be a prize! Scout’s honor.

  • Nancy Silverton’s Pappardelle with Bagna Cauda, Wilted Radicchio and an Olive-Oil-Fried Egg

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    I've been eating pretty well lately. More than pretty well, spectacularly even. You already know all about my delicious adventures in Los Angeles and, frankly, my kitchen's been quite good to me lately, too. It's almost too good to be true. From honey dates and kumquats to gai lan and braised fennel, I have been bandying about the superlatives with an uncharacteristically heavy hand. Which makes me a little nervous. Because what if you, my dear readers, start to question all this enthusiasm? Have I been waxing too rhapsodic lately? Am I still credible if I rave, yet again, about something that might be the most delicious thing I've ever tasted?

    I guess I have to hope that you trust me. And tell you that if you don't listen to me on this one, you will seriously be missing out on a meal that had me practically laughing with glee as I ate it last night. Is that the corniest thing you've ever read? I swear it's true. It was that good. Unbelievably good.

    I-can't-believe-my-taste-buds good.

    I got the recipe from Sunday's New York Times Magazine, where Christine Muhlke reviewed Nancy Silverton's latest book, A Twist of the Wrist. I now covet this book with a burning lust. (Well, to be honest, I did before I tried the recipe, too. But now? My lust has reached alarming heights.) Because if this dish was so ridiculously good, who knows what else is hiding in there? I have to find out. I simply have to.

    But while I'm off ghosting around the aisles of the bookstore, do me a favor and get yourselves to the kitchen, post-haste, to make this for dinner. Even you anchovy-haters! I promise up, down and side-to-side that you will love this, too. I know it. (Just make someone else cook it for you, so you don't get all squee-ed out by the hairy fish factor.)

    You melt a bunch of anchovies into some olive oil (I left out the butter – it seemed like too much fat for me) with what seems like an inordinate amount of minced garlic. The key is to do this over low heat, so the garlic barely colors and the anchovies really disintegrate. One minute little fish fillets are fizzing about in your pan, the next minute they've just…melted into aromatic nothingness. You turn off the heat, add lemon zest, lemon juice, minced parsley and shredded radicchio and stir it around until the radicchio is slick with oil and everything is well-combined.

    You then toss boiled noodles (I used regular egg noodles, in the spirit of Nancy's "convenience cooking") in the pan with the anchovied radicchio until the sauce is fragrant and the radicchio is wilted (extra pasta water ensures that nothing dries out). Each plate is topped with grated Parmigiano and a fried egg with a molten yolk. This means that when you use your fork to break the egg, the yolk oozes all over the pasta and binds it together with this luscious, golden, savory sauce. The salty anchovies, the sweet garlic, the acidic lemon, the fragrant peel, the bitter radicchio, and the rich egg all meld into a spectacular combination of flavors that you can't really identify when they're harmonizing together in your mouth.

    It's quite remarkable. In fact, I'm really kind of in awe. How did Nancy figure this one out? This creation is proof (if the myriad restaurants and bakeries, previous books, and other related ventures weren't already) of serious, serious talent. Trust me when I say this is among the best things to ever come out of my kitchen. I'm laminating, Hall-of-Faming this one. Oh, yes. I think you will, too.

    You won't be able to help yourself.

    Egg Pappardelle With Bagna Cauda, Wilted Radicchio and an Olive-Oil-Fried Egg
    Serves 4

    For the pappardelle and bagna cauda:
    ¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil
    15 anchovy fillets
    8 large garlic cloves, minced
    ¼ cup finely chopped flat-leaf parsley
    12 radicchio leaves, torn into small pieces
    Grated zest and juice of half a lemon
    Kosher salt
    Freshly ground black pepper
    8 ounces egg pappardelle

    For finishing the dish:
    ¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil
    4 large eggs
    Parmesan cheese
    1 heaping tablespoon finely chopped flat-leaf parsley

    1. To make the bagna cauda, place a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the olive oil, anchovies and garlic and cook, breaking up the anchovies with a fork and stirring constantly, until the anchovies dissolve and the garlic is soft and fragrant, about 2 minutes. Turn off the heat, stir in the parsley, radicchio and lemon zest and juice. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

    2. Prepare the pasta by bringing a large pot of water to a boil over high heat. Add enough kosher salt until the water tastes salty and return to a boil. Add the pasta and cook, stirring occasionally, until al dente.

    3. To finish the dish, heat the olive oil in a large nonstick skillet over high heat until the oil is almost smoking, about 2 minutes. Break 1 egg into a small bowl and pour into the skillet. When it just begins to set around the edges, break the second egg into the bowl and pour into the skillet. (By waiting a moment before adding the next egg, the eggs won’t stick together.) Repeat with the remaining 2 eggs. Cook until the edges are golden, the whites are set and the yolks are still runny.

    4. Use tongs to lift the pasta out of the water and transfer it quickly, while it’s dripping with water, to the skillet with the bagna cauda. Place the skillet over high heat. Toss the pasta to combine the ingredients and cook for 1 to 2 minutes more.

    5. Using tongs, divide the pasta among 4 plates, twisting it into mounds. Grate a generous layer of cheese over each. Place an egg over the cheese. Sprinkle the parsley over the pasta and serve with more grated cheese and pepper.

  • Sam Sifton’s Sesame Noodles

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    I seem to be a woman of empty threats. Because even though I made it seem like one more day without a plate of Sesame Noodles would be a dire one indeed, I actually survived for four more days thereafter. (Is that the sound of a thousand people falling over in shock at the news? I know, unbelievable.) But after four days of fruitless searching, and just as many grocery stores, I decided this morning that I'd had enough. I got in the subway to go down to the source itself, Chinatown, to finally lay my hands on an apparently elusive creation, the fresh Chinese egg noodle. What I got in return was something far, far greater.

    Isn't that exciting?

    But first things first. At the Dynasty Supermarket on the corner of Elizabeth and Hester, I found my noodles. Well, actually, not really. But close enough. You see, the refrigerated fresh noodle section was crammed with all sorts of noodles, but infuriatingly, none of them were labeled in a manner that would appease the little Type A in me. There were noodles galore, for sure, "Shanghai" noodles and "shrimp" noodles and "vegetable" noodles and, maddeningly, "plain" noodles. Some of them had eggs in them, some didn't. But were there any labeled "egg" noodles? No.

    The closest I got was with a bag of "lo mein" noodles that had eggs in them, but were far, far skinnier than the 1/8th of an inch Sam Sifton called for. Noodles in his size were only available eggless. I mulled my choices for far too long, decided the world would not end if I made Sesame Noodles with 1/16-inch wide noodles and got on with my day (and thank goodness I did, because otherwise I think I might still be there, dithering away).

    (And here I have to stop and just quickly mention the whopping 98 cents I paid for that pound of egg noodles. 98 cents! When will fresh Italian egg pasta ever be that cheap?)

    As I made my way up Elizabeth, I kept my eyes peeled for a vegetable stand. Something about the early morning air and the atmosphere of hungry shoppers and pushy sellers had me feeling adventurous. Actually, it's how I usually feel when I'm in Chinatown, like I'm standing on the precipice of some huge, unknowable mountain of information about really, really good food that I simply can't decipher, but very much want to. Usually I satiate my curiosity by eating at a Chinese restaurant, but that never really solves the problem. So today, instead of going home and buying wilted broccoli from D'Agostino's, I decided I'd buy some real Chinese vegetables and cook them myself.

    The vegetable stand I stopped at had several rows of good-looking greens, baby bok choy and green beans being the only ones I recognized. I pointed to what I thought was Chinese broccoli and asked the grocer to confirm what I was buying. I might as well have been speaking in, well, English.

    She pointed to the price and nodded nicely. I tried asking her a few more times, even prodding her with the word for Chinese broccoli (gai lan), but this received no reaction. Just a few more points to the sign, decidedly less friendly by the minute. So I acquiesced and bought a pound of the stuff. (For $1.60! And this after I spent $5.99 per pound on Mr. Spear asparagus at Balducci's on Friday.) (I know, I know, I always say I'll never go back there and then I do. What can I say, I'm a woman of low moral fiber.) The grocer pointed me towards another vendor working there as I pocketed my change, as if to say "that guy, he'll know what you're trying to say, now move along, there are people who actually make sense waiting to order".

    The other grocer did seem to understand that I was asking what the vegetable I'd just purchased was called and kept repeating "toi sam" (spelling, obviously, not guaranteed by yours truly) over and over, nodding. So I assumed I'd bought a pound of toi sam. Delicious! But at home, the internet produced precious little information on toi sam and insisted on telling me that the vegetable I'd purchased was indeed none other than Chinese broccoli.

    What was the point of relaying every step of my purchase to you? I was trying, I suppose, to make you realize how exhilarating the whole exchange was. It felt like I was navigating that aforementioned huge mountain of knowledge with a dinky, little, rudderless boat full of enthusiasm and good intentions but very little else. I wish I had a guide to bring with me to Chinatown every day, to slowly and carefully teach me about all the vegetables on display at those overwhelming sidewalk stands: how to cut them, how to prepare them, how to serve them. (Don't even get me started on the fruit offerings or fish.) What does serving bok choy with mushrooms signify? Will I ever have the courage to purchase loofah or bitter melon? Why do Chinese scallions come in so many different forms?

    I guess that Chinese food just totally bewitches me (thank God for Fuchsia Dunlop, who has at least given me some insight into Sichuan food, though that seemed totally indequate today). But before I go all starry-eyed and make Fuchsia adopt me to teach me the rest of what I have to learn, let me quickly tell you about the food I actually cooked.

    First, Sam Sifton's sesame noodles. Which are fine, I guess, though I think the dish's appeal lies more in the sensuous mouthfeel of dressed noodles than in the taste. You mix together a pungent sauce of various oils and vinegars and sauces and nut butters, throw in some grated ginger, minced garlic and whisk it all into a dark sludge. The egg noodles are boiled briefly, then rinsed in cold water, dressed with the sauce and topped with chopped peanuts. They're spicy, to be sure, and relatively nuanced – zesty might be the word I'm looking for. But what I really liked was the texture – chewy and silky and slithery and cool, with little bits of peanut adding a pleasing crunch here and there.

    The real revelation of the day, though? Was the Chinese broccoli. Oh yes. I made this recipe and have decided that it might be my new favorite thing in the world to eat. It is so good and so totally, entirely easy. Which made my day even more. Not only did I buy my first Chinese vegetable (well, I have bought baby bok choy before, but that was at Whole Foods and so doesn't count) today, but I made a dish so delicious it tasted like the vegetables do at my favorite Chinese restaurants. Yes, that good! I'm speechless with joy.

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    Ben and I ate our noodles dutifully, but then set upon the savory-sweet Chinese broccoli like a pair of starving urchins. I am alternately proud and embarrassed to admit that we finished the entire pound in one sitting. How could I have been so short-sighted? Next time, two pounds, at least.

    I think this means that I have to get myself to Chinatown more often. I need to explore and discover and learn. If Americanized sesame noodles brought me to Hong Kong-style gai lan, then who knows what the future will bring? I can't wait to find out.

    Takeout-Style Sesame Noodles
    Serves 4

    1 pound Chinese egg noodles (1/8-inch-thick), frozen or (preferably) fresh, available in Asian markets
    2 tablespoons sesame oil, plus a splash
    3½ tablespoons soy sauce
    2 tablespoons Chinese rice vinegar
    2 tablespoons Chinese sesame paste
    1 tablespoon smooth peanut butter
    1 teaspoon sugar (the original recipe calls for 1 tablespoon)
    1 tablespoon finely grated ginger
    2 teaspoons minced garlic
    2 teaspoons chili-garlic paste, or to taste
    ¼ cup chopped roasted peanuts.

    1. Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Add noodles and cook until barely tender, about 5 minutes; they should retain a hint of chewiness. Drain, rinse with cold water, drain again and toss with a splash of sesame oil.

    2. In a medium bowl, whisk together the remaining 2 tablespoons sesame oil, the soy sauce, rice vinegar, sesame paste, peanut butter, sugar, ginger, garlic and chili-garlic paste.

    3. Pour the sauce over the noodles and toss. Transfer to a serving bowl, and garnish with cucumber and peanuts.  

  • Dinner Frustrations

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    It was all meant to end a little differently. Without that floppy, pallid slice of pizza, if you’re wondering. After all, I had plans. Plans to cook, of course. Things like Chinese peanut noodles or a spring vegetable soup. I’d be looking forward to making them for days. But there was that pesky rain at lunch that prevented me from going grocery shopping, and then the after-work event that wasn’t pesky in the least, on the contrary, it was totally great, but it meant my visit to Whole Foods wouldn’t happen until after 9 pm. And then it’d have to be with aching feet, hands jittery with hunger and a small dose of impatience that only got worse after I realized that the four simple things on my list were simply not to be found.

    No way, no how.

    Feeling intrepid (bedraggled, but intrepid), I made a valiant attempt at another grocery store. Wouldn’t it just serve the Whole Foods colossus right, I fumed as I clickety-clacked my way across 7th Avenue, if the little, local chain had all the things I needed for dinner? And a speedy dinner it would be, because the jitters were only getting worse and I was starting to talk to myself, which is never a good sign.

    But the joke was on me. Even though I stood stubbornly in the aisle at Garden of Eden and willed the bottle of hot sauce I was searching for and the fresh egg noodles that were nowhere to be found to simply appear, it seemed they had other plans.

    What could I do?

    Not much, besides collect my indignant, trembly self (it goes downhill by the second when it’s that far gone, my hypoglycemia. I’m just happy Ben wasn’t around when it was happening – it’s always worse when there are loved ones present to snap at in your hunger-addled state of mind), walk down the misty avenue, and ponder my options.

    I could fix myself a bowl of cereal, but cereal for dinner is really only appealing when I’m in the midst of heartbreak and food is but a distraction. (That’s when my jeans fit infuriatingly well. Later, when I’m happy again and my jeans are always just a little too tight, I find myself wondering about the strange ways of a universe that have me wishing, just for a split nanosecond, for a teeny tiny dose of that heartbreak again so that I can have nothing but cereal for dinner and always, always look good in jeans. And then I realize what a fool I am for not finishing the plate of pasta in front of me. With bread. To mop up the sauce. And a piece of cheese after that. And isn’t there something sweet in the house that needs to be finished? Yes, I thought so. Hand it over.)

    Instead, I bought myself a slice of pizza and brought it home, where, along with two cleaned radishes and a glass of milk, it would have to do as dinner. And it was okay, actually. That slice of pizza wasn’t bad,
    especially with the late-night mist falling and the sounds of the city
    outside my window. There are worse things, I told myself, as I chewed my slice quietly at the table and felt my jitters subside.

    After all, there’s always tomorrow. When I’d better find those damn egg noodles, Or Else.

  • Florence Fabricant’s Asian Seafood Risotto

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    What a night it's been! First, I feared I'd totally offended the gods – or at least the one God that counts on this particular night. Then I tasted sweet relief when Wikipedia came to my rescue. Then the rest of the internet dashed my hopes for an entirely damnation-free evening. And I had such good intentions! Such is the path of the unrighteous. Let me explain.

    You see, this evening I was host to an old friend who didn't want her usual Passover feast. Life had semi-recently gotten complicated, in the way it sometimes does, and she realized a few days ago that all she wanted tonight was a good meal and, perhaps more importantly, easy company. No family, no rituals, just her own quiet way of being grateful.

    Having been brought up a bit of a heathen, and being in no mood on a plain old Monday night to cook everything from matzo ball soup to haroset, I thought up a simple meal for the two of us – an Asian-tinged risotto chock-full of pink shrimp, and a delicate little salad of shaved fennel and radishes dressed with sharp cider vinegar and crunchy little flakes of salt. With a crisp glass of white wine and plenty of fodder for a catch-up chat, I thought we were golden.

    Until, of course, I started to wonder about the kosher-ness of the rice in my risotto. Wasn't there some kind of distant memory left over from the seders I was invited to as a child in Brookline, something about grains being forbidden and the Jews crossing through the dessert with nothing but matzo crackers and definitely, absolutely no grains of any kind? Unfortunately, it was a bit late for this kind of thinking. After all, the rice was stewing away on the stove and Becca was sitting happily and expectantly at the kitchen table.

    Then Wikipedia swiftly came to the rescue, telling me that as long as wheat, oats, rye, spelt and barley weren't involved in my dinner, I wasn't leading my friend down a dark path. What sweet relief! I had myself a glass of wine.

    But, of course, as perhaps many of my readers are chortling to themselves this very instant (it's not nice to make fun, you know), rice is a ridiculous thing to worry about when you've got shrimp, those dirty little bottom-feeders, resting plumply and placidly in their white and creamy starch-bound risotto beds, practically smug with pinkness and really, truly, totally un-kosher to the core.

    Yes, that's right. I made my dear friend eat shrimp on Passover. I might just be on the express train to hell.

    In my defense! I had no idea! I was all fixated on not feeding her any bread! Or forbidden grains! I'm not a very good half-Jew. In fact, technically, I'm not really one at all. I couldn't possibly have known!

    Sob.

    (Luckily – though I don't really want to get into it here, you know, wrath of the gods and all – the risotto was quite good, even though there's something about Asian flavors that really require sort of crisp, sharp textures and risotto, of course, is anything but crisp and sharp – it's like the world's most famous comfort food and is, therefore, by nature pillowy and soft, so I'm not entirely convinced that the flavor profile and the textural character of the dish is something to write home about, but I can't complain, really, because at the end of the day, I served shrimp on Passover and the fact that I wasn't smitten down at the table must have had something to do with the food. Or?)

    (By the way, the salad was fantastic, but I don't think it's getting me a Get Out Of Jail For Free card anytime soon.)

    I suppose I should note that Becca ate her dinner happily and with gusto. She had no problem with the bottom feeders and questionably immoral grains on her plate. In fact, she seemed grateful for the evening and the meal. She's such a good friend. Which leads me to my next question: if she vouches for me when we get to The Big Dinner Table In The Sky, do you think I'll be okay?

    Asian Seafood Risotto
    Serves 4

    2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
    2 bulbs fresh lemon grass, chopped
    1 tablespoon minced ginger
    2 cloves garlic, minced
    1/4 cup finely chopped shallots
    2 cups unsweetened coconut milk
    2 cups fish stock
    1 cup dry white wine
    1 tablespoon nuoc mam (Vietnamese fish sauce)
    Juice of 2 limes
    1 1/2 cups Arborio rice
    1 pound medium shrimp, shelled and deveined
    3 tablespoons minced mint
    Salt and ground white pepper

    1. Heat oil in a heavy saucepan. Add lemon grass, ginger, garlic and shallots, and saute over low heat until soft. Meanwhile, place coconut milk, stock, 1/2 cup wine, fish sauce and lime juice in another saucepan. Bring to a gentle simmer.

    2. Add rice to saucepan with lemon grass and cook, stirring, a minute or two. Add remaining wine and cook, stirring, until it is absorbed. Add 1/2 cup coconut milk mixture and stir until it is absorbed, then continue adding the mixture, 1/2 cup at a time, stirring constantly. Rice should be al dente after 20 minutes.

    3. Stir in shrimp; cook until they turn pink, 3 to 5 minutes. Fold in mint. Season with salt and pepper and divide among plates. Serve hot.

  • Jill Santopietro’s Braised Fennel with Meyer Lemon and Parmesan

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    I was smitten by the close relationship that I witnessed between farmers and chefs in Los Angeles last week, and I wonder if that feeling wasn't underlined by an article I'd read a month earlier in the New York Times Magazine. The Lee Bros wrote a profile of Ben Friedman, one of the men who supplies New York City's top restaurants with the same produce that the L.A. restaurants have right in their own backyard (figuratively speaking).

    I wonder, was I the only one who felt a little bad for Mr. Friedman? He seemed so harried, so nervous that the chefs he supplied would turn on him in an instant. The constant rush to be number one, the constant fear that his baby radishes or white potatoes would be rejected in favor of someone else's, the nerve-wracking judgment calls about what chefs will want before they even know themselves – that is a level of stress I can't really imagine. And it stood in such stark contrast to the relaxed nature of the transactions I saw last week.

    Oh sure, I know that a lot goes on behind the scenes that I don't know about, that farmers' lives are more difficult – in entirely different ways – than Friedman's, and that it's silly to make sweeping generalizations about a world that I know little about, even if it does interest me more and more each day. But still, taken superficially, I think I'd rather be a Southern Californian farmer than a Manhattan produce supplier any day.

    The article was capped by a simple recipe for braised fennel that barely caught my eye. It seemed too simple for a recipe, more like something that you might have learned from your grandmother, perhaps, and committed to memory from the many times you watched her make it. I put the recipe aside and promptly forgot about it. But after my 10-day food marathon in Los Angeles, in which precious few meals were cooked at home, I realized that that simple recipe might be just the thing to ease my way back into the kitchen again.

    And it almost feels a little silly to write about here, because there's barely anything to it. But I have to tell you about it because, after all, though the recipe says that it serves four people, I ate the entire dish myself last night. And don't you agree that something like that warrants mentioning? Even if it does come at my own expense. (That I, ostensibly, ate four portions of vegetables perhaps mitigates my gluttony somewhat, but only barely.)

    The recipes proceeds much like a beloved braised endive recipe that my father taught me years ago and that, almost quite literally, kept me alive when I lived in Paris. You brown some sliced fennel in a pan (though don't heed the recipe – use a cast-iron pot instead of a fry pan, unless you're lucky enough to own something like this, with sides and a top, you lucky dog), then deglaze the pan with chicken broth, Meyer lemon juice, and Meyer lemon zest. The heat goes down, the top goes on, and half an hour later you've got yourself a silky pile of tender fennel, transformed into creamy, luscious spears of vegetal goodness and spiked with the sweet-sour flavor of Meyer lemons (they are not crucial, I have to say – regular lemons would work just fine, too, though then you'd have to add a sprinkle of sugar to balance the acidity a bit. Just a sprinkle.).

    The final touch, which really fine-tunes this dish, is a scattering of Parmigiano shavings (though gratings would be fine, too) on top. There's something about the rich, salty cheese bound into the slightly acidic sauce and mellowed fennel that elevates this into something special. It's simple and quick, but I wouldn't shy away from serving this at a dinner for friends, even. As it was, I topped a plain filet of tilapia (bread-crumbed and pan-fried) with the braised fennel, and though it seemed (before I took a bite) that this meal would end up one of those weird Monday night experiments that never end very well and where health and protein requirements win out over inspired flavor combinations, this actually was quite a delicious pairing. The fish, so mild and delicate, needed a lemony kick and some body to round out the meal, and the vegetables did the trick.

    I was quite impressed with myself, and so, so happy to be cooking again. Tonight, unfortunately, while there's leftover tilapia for dinner, it sits naked and fennel-less on my plate. Sadly, I have no one to blame but myself.

    Braised Fennel With Meyer Lemon and Parmesan
    Serves 4

    2 fennel bulbs, fronds attached
    Extra-virgin olive oil
    Salt and freshly ground black pepper
    ½ cup chicken broth
    Grated peel and juice of 1 Meyer lemon
    Parmesan to taste

    1. Trim the fennel and roughly chop 1 tablespoon of the fronds. Halve each bulb through the core, then cut lengthwise into 1/2-inch-thick slices.

    2. Place a large skillet over medium-high heat and add just enough oil to coat the pan. When hot, cook half the fennel, without moving, until browned, about 3 minutes. Flip and cook 1 minute more. Transfer to a bowl and season with salt and pepper. Repeat with the remaining fennel, adding more oil to the pan if needed.

    3. Return the skillet to medium-high heat. Add the fennel, broth, lemon rind and juice and bring to a boil. Simmer, covered, until tender, about 10 minutes. Using a slotted spoon, transfer to a bowl. Raise the heat to high and reduce the sauce until syrupy, 3 to 5 minutes.

    4. Fold the sauce and reserved fronds into the fennel and top with Parmesan. Serve warm or at room temperature.