Summer of Seafood

It’s been upwards of 90 degrees outside for the last few days (although a woman I work with insists that it’s “a thousand”) and at times I’ve thought that unless I plunge myself into the ocean immediately, I won’t be able to go on. There isn’t a very accessible ocean around here, but seafood is pretty easy to get to, so instead I’ve been plunging myself into that.

First, there was the Swedish Midsummer Festival. The lawns at Battery City Park filled with blond heads wreathed with flowers, sipping champagne and flowery Swedish spirits, dolloping pickled herring onto crackers, and enjoying the view of the water (though unfortunately it wasn’t the kind of water you can jump into). The food vendors had all sorts of specialties – meatballs, cured salmon, new potato salads – but the lines were unfathomably long, and our stomachs dictated that we choose the shortest one, which meant we were getting korv: hot dogs. The hot dogs were served plain or topped with skagen, a shrimp salad with mayonnaise and dill, and as a waited impatiently in line, I realized that I’d much rather have a skagen sandwich than a hot dog with skagen on top of it. I requested this, a little nervously, when I finally reached the front of the line, and they very obligingly made my special order. The cool, creamy salad was the perfect end to a sweltering day.

The next afternoon I headed out into the sun again, to check out something that had been on my to-do list for several months. The food vendors at the Red Hook ballfields have gotten a lot of press lately, and their set up has changed since the Health Department forced them to give up their tents and move into trucks. But the food and the atmosphere seem to have remained intact: the shady sidewalk on Bay Street feels like an escape from the rest of the city, and the cooks are still turning out authentic Latin American food, at a pace that suits them. The shrimp ceviche was perfectly sweet and tangy, with a nice heat from the green hot sauce that they add just before serving. I was also excited to try pupusas, a Salvadoran dish of fried maize flour cakes filled with cheese and vegetables or meat. The pupusas platter was an unbelievable deal: one pork pupusa, one cheese and loroco flower pupusa, a pile of chicharones (fried cubes of fatty pork), and a side of bright purple cabbage slaw, all for only seven dollars. The pupusas were the best part; the mild cheese and soft dough were a decadent combination.

Two servings of shrimp in less than 24 hours seemed like impressive seafood consumption, but I was about to get much, much closer to the fruits of the sea. When I arrived at Talei’s apartment that night, everything seemed fairly normal: spotless as usual, some friendly faces standing around, an open bottle of wine. Except that the sink was full of live crabs. They clawed vaguely at the sides of the sink and at each other, possibly trying to reach the ones neatly stacked on a platter to ask them why they were so…pink. Talei bravely took on the task of transferring the live ones to the pot, but after lifting one of them out of the sink to find that it was gripping the detached claw of a different crab, she declared that they “had personalities” and she didn’t want to kill any more herself. I volunteered to kill one crab, testing out how I felt about my recent decision not to become a vegetarian. In the end, most of the food preparation was done expertly by Paul, who had more seafood experience than the rest of us.

After an informative demonstration by Hien on How to Eat Blue Crab, the twelve of us started grabbing specimens from the two enormous heaps in the middle of the table and cracking into them ourselves. Crab juice, crab guts, and flecks of crab shell flew everywhere. It was hard to get at the meat, but what I did manage to pry out was delicious: subtly sweet and seasoned by the broth it was boiled in. The orange eggs were easier to find; they had the texture of hard-boiled egg yolk, but with a slightly bitter aftertaste. I don’t know how long we stood around the table, our hands dripping with clam juice, prying open crab after crab. We went through at least three large platters before getting tired of it. And then moved on to oysters.

This seafood-filled weekend was a reminder of the advantages of sticking to coasts, never straying too far from the ocean.

National Picnic Day

Happy National Picnic Day! Have you had a picnic yet today? You’ve got half an hour left. I celebrated by eating lunch on the fire escape, feasting my eyes on the view of the BQE onramp (and, to be fair, the distant top of the Statue of Liberty).

I should have gotten to this post sooner, to offer advice for those already planning picnics and to inspire the rest to get up from the computer, go outside, and eat something. But I think what they always say about Earth Day applies here too; therefore, “Every Day Is Picnic Day,” especially at this time of year. Take a look at these pictures and recipes from picnics past, and pack one for tomorrow. There’s no chance of rain.

Gado gado: peanutty potato salad.

Chips and dips are always a good idea.

Flowery cookies to eat amidst flowers.

Does a snack count as a picnic? These spiced cashews were a good accompaniment to reading in Carroll Gardens Park. Combine chili powder, cayenne pepper, dried rosemary, and salt and grind with a mortar and pestle. Spray roasted cashews with cooking spray and stir with spice mix.

Sometimes picnics are best without recipes. A few carefully selected ingredients made a good spread on Governor’s Island. Crunchy vegetable + cheese + bread/crackers + fruit is usually a good combination. And if it’s not enough, there’s always the Dippin Dot vending machine.

Lebanese Festival

When I showed up at Henry and Remsen for the Our Lady of Lebanon church festival, things were just starting up. While volunteers were still busy constructing tents and taping down tablecloths, the grills were already hot, the food tables laden, and the music blaring. These people know how to prioritize.

A long buffet offered all kinds of meat and vegetable options: lamb and chicken kebabs, kibbeh (ground meat and spices) pressed into a huge casserole, dolmas, flaky savory pies, grilled corn, and all the side salads you'd expect. We got a sampler platter with lamb, muhadarra, tabloule, green beans, and fatoush, then lined up for some sajj bread.

The sajj cooking stations were metal domes heated from inside by coals or some other kind of roaring fire, and standing next to them in 90-degree weather tested your true desire for some sajj. The volunteer cooks made it look irresistible, though, laying thin discs of dough onto the hot metal and slathering them with different appetizing fillings from meat sauce to cheese to zaatar paste. When the underside was crispy and slightly blackened, they’d fold them in half and serve them straight off the stove: a Middle Eastern quesadilla. A friend got one of the meat-filled versions, and I asked for a plain piece, just to try it out.

We sat down at one of the long tables and started in on our food, pausing only when some people had to stuff a tablecloth underneath it. Though the platter was more expensive and less generous than most of the Middle Eastern restaurants in the area, it did have a noticeable homemade quality that set it apart. The dressing on the fatoush salad had the buttery sweetness that emerges from the right proportions of lemon and olive oil, and the muhadarra, a mix of lentils, rice, and sautéed onions, was extremely flavorful, much better than many versions I’ve had at restaurants, which tend to be a bit dry. The saaj was different from baked pita, chewier and less bready (which is why the sajj at Fatoush made such good breakfast tacos).

I was too full to reap all the benefits of the dessert table, but I sampled a few bites of a Lebanese pudding flavored with almond and cinnamon and sprinkled with coconut flakes. I wish I could have tried the namoura (also called basbousa), a semolina cake soaked in sweet syrup that I discovered earlier this year at my birthday dinner at Waterfalls, but I might try to make it for an upcoming birthday to make up for this missed opportunity.

I passed by the festival later in the afternoon while doing errands, and it was still going strong. By then the bouncy houses were fully inflated and filled with children, and there was still plenty of food and drinks to occupy their parents for many more hours. I could sense a dance party coming on, since I’m sure everyone was drawn to the event, as I was, by the flyer’s promise of a “DJ ALL THREE DAYS.” I didn’t wait around to find out, but I think the block partied late into the evening.

Fifth Avenue Fair

By far, the best part of summer is being outside most of the time, and an important sub-part of that is eating and drinking outside. If, like many urban dwellers, you don’t have a backyard, it can be slightly more difficult to arrange these kinds of activities. Some countries make it easy, and the summer I spent in Paris was full of night-picnicking on the steps of Sacre Coeur or on the lawn of the Champ de Mars with a slab of Comté, a few baguettes, and several bottles of wine.

But this Puritan nation of ours is less accommodating (in more areas than this), and we have to be more surreptitious here. Except on those lovely days when the city fences off a length of an avenue for the most delightful of summer events: the street fair.

The 5^th Avenue Fair, which happened a few weekends ago, includes many of the less exciting aspects of those generic street fairs that pop up on blocks of the Village every weekend between May and October, but it goes far beyond Mozzarepas and fake silk scarves. All the local restaurants make an appearance, and there’s a lot of good food to choose from. We started out at the Bierkraft stand, which was selling gigantic pulled pork sandwiches and watermelon beer. The beer tasted like a yeasty Jolly Rancher, which was actually very refreshing in the heat.

I had considerable trouble deciding between the many Greek and South American food carts, but was very happy with the hummus wrap I settled on, a sun-dried tomato tortilla filled with hummus, kalamata olives, tomatoes, and feta. We then met up with a few more friends, who were coming from brunch and didn’t need more food, but had a different excellent idea: margaritas.

Naturally, I had already identified the cheapest margarita stand, so we all lined up there. As we each successively took a first sip from our to-go cup, the same reaction passed over each of our faces, an expression of the thought, “Oh, this is much stronger than I had expected.” We continued down 5^th Avenue, sipping our sour tequila, slowly fading into a sun-soaked daze. It was a beautiful day, and one of those prized opportunities to walk around in a slightly heightened state in a crowd of several thousand happy Brooklynites of all ages, shapes, and colors.

Stay tuned for more summer food festivals: The Lebanese, Greek, and Swedish Midsummer Festivals are all coming up.

Swedish Fish

I have my doubts that words can express the awe and excitement of all those present at the dinner I attended last night. Actually, it was more of a spectacle than simply supper; it was Hakan Martenson applying the artistry and precision that he usually uses on chocolate to several slabs of raw fish. It was Sushi Night.

Sushi is visually impressive by nature: jewel-toned cuts of fish resting on pearly rice, black bands of nori encasing intricate arrangements of avocado, cucumber and more fresh fish. But to watch the tiny delicacies take shape from beginning to end, in the very same kitchen where you regularly snack on pop tarts and pretzels, is humbling. After arranging his radiant cuts of tuna, salmon, and scallops in an enormous sun pattern, Hakan wilted leeks in boiling water and used them to create beautiful green-and-white-striped serving platters. Once a huge pot of rice was ready, he began assembling long strips of cucumber and green mango for the maki, along with more surprising ingredients like teriyaki chicken strips and cream cheese, and dabbing a grid of perfectly formed ovals of rice with wasabi.

As the leek-lined surfaces filled up with sushi and maki, those of us who weren't Swedish chefs watched and salivated. The whole place had that good-sushi-is-served-here smell found in the best sushi restaurants, a strangely refreshing sweetness, which I've figured out is a combination of wasabi and pickled ginger. When everything was complete (and after a well-deserved round of applause), we readied our chopsticks and soy sauce receptacles, and faced the challenge of being the first person to take the first perfect piece of sushi off the first perfectly configured platter, of bringing ourselves to eat something too beautiful to eat.

The challenge was quickly overcome, and was worth it since everything tasted as good as it looked. For me, the highlight of the spread was an oblong ribbon of nori stuffed with scallop ceviche and black roe. The chicken-cream cheese maki was also a surprising favorite; the teriyaki seasoning added a deep flavor that you don't usually expect in sushi, but it worked well with the smoothness of the cream cheese and sticky rice.

The sense of astonishment at what we had just experienced lingered after the platters had emptied. Hakan had turned the apartment into a garden of tastes, textures, and colors, a Willy Wonka figure with a buzz cut and a hachimaki headband. I suppose this means that sushi is like candy for 20-somethings – not too surprising. I just hope he's willing to give many repeat performances.

Hot Food

Not only have we begun a new year, but a new decade as well, and media sources everywhere are telling us What’s Hot and What’s Not for all imaginable arenas of interest. Naturally, commentators on the culinary world have had a lot to say about it – I’ve read that while 2009 was the year of bacon, duck fat will be much more important in the coming year. My experience with duck fat does not qualify me to weigh in on this statement, but I am always searching for new and entertaining ways to stock my cupboards and refrigerator. So I’ve come up with five things that have impressed me recently, that I think will be key figures in 2010. Here they are, in no particular order.

1. Herring. While at home for Christmas, my cupboard excavations turned up a number of tins of this stuff, and their slim pocket-size and eternal shelf life made them a smart addition to our supplies for a weekend at Stinson Beach. I’ve made a lot of excellent meals with anchovies and sardines, but I discovered that these kippered fillets don’t need much accompaniment at all to constitute a satisfying dish. People who eschew canned fish citing cat food comparisons need to get over themselves. A piece of crispbread topped with herring chucks is a beautiful thing.

2. Roasted chestnuts. The kind that come in colorful air-tight packages sold at Asian convenience stores are nothing new, but personally roasting them in their shell over an open fire (like a fireplace – that counts, right?) is new for me. And lots of fun. Cutting slits in them gives you something to do as the fire gets started, and engineering a roasting receptacle out of two pie tins and a wire hanger produces a rustic and resourceful feeling that really compliments the fire. Actually, I'd recommend any kind of cooking over a fire – the chestnuts were done after about 50 minutes of sitting under the grate that held the fire, and we moved on to marshmallows and hot dogs and a number of creatively constructed heating devices. Burning chestnut shells and course catalogs also provided a lot of entertainment. I predict fires will be very hot in 2010.

3. Grapefruit. My mother always served us grapefruit halves sprinkled with brown sugar and heated in the microwave for a few seconds until the juices started to seep out and form a syrup on top. Until recently I thought grapefruit was inedible without this coating of sweetness, but I learned better when my sister encouraged me to peel the whole thing and eat the segments plain, like an orange. Of course, my orange-eating technique produces an incredible mess, as I like to peel off most of the membrane around each piece to reveal the juicy jewels of pulp inside, but my grapefruit addiction has gotten to the point that I’m willing to undergo the humiliation of performing this process at work.

4. Hazelnuts. From Sahadi’s, whole, roasted, and unsalted. These were discovered in late 2009 but aren’t going anywhere. It may be an illusion due to my considerable nutella consumption over the last two decades, but I swear these things taste strangely like chocolate.

5. Roasted cacao beans. I got a box of these a few months ago, but only just realized their potential for adding unexpected flavor to both sweet and savory dishes. I had been snacking on them occasionally, but if eaten plain their bitterness builds up and coats the mouth with a unique, but not entirely pleasant, flavor of soot. On the basis of an Alice Medrich recipe I happened to see, I added a few crushed cacao beans to some haricots verts with feta and balsamic vinaigrette. The sweetness of the balsamic and the creaminess of the feta dampened their intensity and allowed the nuttiness to come through, creating a sort of smoky green beans almandine. I plan to try them out in some dinosaur cookies soon, possibly combined with coconut and an earthy sweetener like maple syrup.

Closer runners-up were cauliflower, tomato jam, and Hot Toddies. And an honorable mention goes out to the block of quince paste that my mom made over a year ago. It started as a sticky mess and was abandoned in the fridge for 15 months, and during that time matured into an aromatic and toothsome slab that's much easier to slice and pairs perfectly with hard cheeses. 2010 is sure to be its year. As for What’s Not Hot, frozen pizza from Trader Joe’s could probably use a rest; I’d like to see their 99-cent raw pizza dough make a comeback in my kitchen. Also, 2009 saw a few too many carrots – sure, they’re undeniably tasty and ridiculously cheap, but if you want some vegetables to use as vehicles for dip, endive leaves and fennel slices are a nice change. Lastly, apples are out (of season). It’s a tragedy, but I’ve had too many disappointing apple experiences recently to risk many more. In the meantime, I’m sticking to pears, and citrus of all kinds.

What's for Pudding?

Most meals in the Elliott/Dolan household of my childhood ended with an aura of defeat, followed by cries of “What’s for pudding?” This would confuse any poor non-family members who happened to be present, who had already been confused enough by whatever my mother had put on the table, whether it had been a heap of ungarnished shredded carrots, a pile of baguette cubes with a side of olive oil, or an inconsistently microwaved TV dinner. “What’s for pudding?” must have seemed syntactically jarring, and the thought of being forced to accept a pudding cup in a flavor that my mother found “interesting” was probably almost too much for our pitiable, uninitiated tablemates.

They needn’t have been so worried. “Pudding” is just what the English call the dessert course, and there never was any. Every Christmas, however, my mother would buy a packaged Christmas pudding, a tough, dense dome of dried fruits and stickiness. Years of store-bought Christmas puddings convinced me that I didn’t like them, but my grandmother’s homemade pudding, flambéed and doused in brandy butter, was a real revelation. This year I wanted to try making one myself, and I thought persimmon would be a nice seasonal flavoring. Little did I know, steamed persimmon pudding cake is actually a traditional American dessert, therefore (I thought) perfect for our cross-cultural British-American vegetarian Christmas.

Steaming a cake on the stove is actually no more difficult than baking it, and because my attempt succeeded so well, I’m convinced it’s foolproof. The batter is fairly typical, moistened by persimmon puree and lightly spiced with ginger and cinnamon. I folded in walnuts and raisins at the end, and poured it into a buttered Pyrex dish fitted with a lid. I raised the dish off the bottom of a large pot using the cylindrical part of a jar lid, and then filled the pot with water to halfway up the side of the Pyrex dish. The water should have been added before the dish, since some of it got in through the top, but it didn’t make much of a difference – remember, the whole thing is eventually inverted onto a plate anyway. The pudding took a little over two hours to steam and was ready to be taken out and cooled just before we sat down to dinner. Forty-five minutes later it came out of the dish without incident, a caramel brown color and deliciously moist. It is lovely with heavy cream or ice cream, but we were very fortunate to be able to dunk it in Rob’s homemade eggnog.

The only problem with this pudding was that there weren't nearly enough leftovers. Next time I’ll use a bigger dish, maybe for a fig and honey version. You can find the recipe for the original here.

[Other highlights of our vegetarian Christmas included a stuffed turban squash topped with a forest of romanesco. Unfortunately all of the pictures of it turned out a bit blurry, and don't capture the prismatic spikiness of romanesco.]

Making Meatloaf for (Mad) Men

I’m sure I’m not the only one who recently rewatched all of Season 2 of Mad Men in preparation for the third season’s premier. Seeing it all again, this time without commercials and in epic late-night three-hour chunks, the central message of the series came through loud and clear: having a successful husband and a house in the suburbs isn’t enough to satisfy a woman, so if you are female, be grateful you weren’t born in 1945.

Yes, it is infuriating when Joan’s fiancé orders her to get him a glass of water as if the idea of turning on a tap himself was never a possibility, and it makes me cringe whenever the wives on the show act like airline stewardesses in their own homes. How tragic that all Betty has no choice but to drown her misery in red wine as her family slathers ketchup on the meatloaf she slaves over every day and generously places on the checkered tablecloth.

Seriously, Mad Men would have you believe that all people ate in 1960 was meatloaf. Maybe we’re supposed to feel liberated from meatloaf too, grateful for a Vegetarian Entrée Liberation that occurred some time during the 90s. But this one doesn’t quite resound for me like the feminist message. Instead, it just makes me want meatloaf. And this Sunday, I decided that I am liberated enough to make it as part of a nice, home-cooked meal for some hardworking men on the occasion of the premier of Season 3.

Meatloaf seems to have gone out of style, but it shouldn’t have. It’s wonderfully easy, since it involves only two culinary skills: mix and shove into oven. And I have a feeling that it’s fairly foolproof – I’m not convinced that adding or leaving out an egg, or using more oats or less breadcrumbs will make too much of a difference, at least not a negative one. You thought it couldn't get better, but wait – you also get the delightful sensory experience of sticking your hands in a bowl of ground up meat! (If you were a sixties housewife, of course, this would be the only joy in your day.) For this one I wanted to test out a basic recipe I could add on to in the future, so I kept the seasonings simple. But I have lots of ideas for future loaves: roasted squash, mushrooms, curry, gorgonzola….

This one seemed to be a success – the three guys who tried it all had second helpings. Since it’s 2009, my opinion counts as well, and I can say I was very happy with it. It also made a very tasty sandwich the next day.

 

Mad Men Meatloaf

1 ¼ pounds ground turkey
¾ cup oats 
1 medium onion, minced (reserve a few slices for top)
1 carrot, minced 1 clove of garlic, minced
dash of hot sauce
2 (generous) tablespoons tomato paste
1 egg, lightly beaten
1 ½ teaspoons fresh sage, chopped
pinch of salt, dash of pepper

For rosemary balsamic glaze:
½ - ¾ cup ketchup
2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
1 teaspoon fresh rosemary, chopped
¼ teaspoon chili powder

Mix all ingredients for meatloaf together and form into a loaf on a greased baking sheet. Stir together the ingredients for the glaze and brush about a third of it onto the loaf, then top with the onion slices. Bake at 350 F for an hour, glazing it two more times during baking. Let it rest for a few minutes after removing from the oven (it will stay warm for an impressively long time).

Rye à l’Ikea, or Bread From a Box

Since the advent of Ikea, everything you could ever need can be carried home in a cardboard box. I didn’t realize until my last trip that this extends to authentic Swedish rye bread.

I’m not opposed to the idea of Ikea as a food purveyor, and here’s an interesting fact: the Ikea Café in Red Hook is at the top of the list when you search for Brooklyn restaurants by customer rating on Menupages. While I’m sure this is not reflective of any real truth, I will say that Ikea has some good selections and has probably provided millions with their first taste of lingonberry jam and meatballs. I’ve had less mass-produced versions of some amazing dishes at Fika, a Swedish café in midtown, thanks to the generosity of my good friend who works there (theirs are not exactly “Ikea prices”), and I’ve found that the Swedes have figured out how to make food that is rich and satisfying without being stodgy, as I often find German food to be.

Shortly after that Ikea trip, I had another very Swedish day at the Midsummer Festival in Battery Park. The festival was truly idyllic: as we entered we were each handed a bunch of flowers on long stalks, and taught by a jovial blond woman how to fashion them into head garlands with ivy and twine. The lawns were flooded with flowery heads, and an epic tug-of-war game was orchestrated for the kids. People everywhere were lounging beside impressive picnics of potato salad, fresh fruit, and pickled herring on crisp rye bread. The vendors’ offerings looked extremely similar to what people had brought from home – an encouraging sign that it was authentic and carefully produced. We tried korv, a hot dog topped with skagen (shrimp salad with lemon and dill) and fried onions. The skagen was a perfect example of the Swedish talent of balancing richness with acidity (and, of course, incorporating seafood). A cold bottle of lingonberry Kristal was a welcome refreshment after a hot day of trekking through New York. We wore our flower wreaths on the subway home and enjoyed the attention they drew, and I wished that summer solstice happened more times each year.

After that afternoon, I was eager to produce some Swedish stuff in my own kitchen, and extremely curious about how successful the shake-and-pour process can be in producing satisfactory rye bread. Most of us have found that assembling the contents of Ikea boxes is not as universally foolproof as they want you to think, so I had a feeling the bread might not turn out to be exactly as advertised. But thankfully, this ended up being a relatively painless project. The 45 seconds of “vigorous shaking” after pouring the water into the carton were more strenuous than I had anticipated – a heavy, glutinous mass forms fairly quickly inside the container, but it’s important to keep agitating it to make sure that all of the dry mix gets incorporated. Then there’s the question of getting the goop out of the carton and into the loaf pan: a little daunting, but by hitting the sides and end of the box I was able to get most of it out.

After an hour in the oven, the dough (it looked more like batter, actually) had turned into a hot, dense block of oats and rye. The outside was very crunchy, but the inside stayed moist and somewhat chewy. It’s an incredibly hearty bread – not very useful for sandwiches, but delicious with butter and other spreads. It has a rich, nutty flavor that doesn’t really need anything added to make it an interesting snack.

So, bread from a box is a success, overall. Once again, the Swedes bring us good quality with easy assemblage.