Let’s talk about Saratoga County Restaurant Week

Posted on March 23, 2023 by Burnt My Fingers
Saratoga County Restaurant Week Food

Some of the dishes featured in Saratoga County Restaurant Week 2023. Photos supplied by participating restaurants.

Restaurant weeks are promotional periods during which local establishments offer a special menu at a fixed price to attract more business. To us the fixed price is key. If it’s $35 for dinner, let’s say, I want to see what the restaurant can do for that amount of money. If it’s a special entrée and accompaniments not ordinarily on the menu and the price is appealing, I’ll be there when the door opens.

Saratoga County Restaurant Week 2023, currently underway, introduces a twist: no fixed pricing. Susan Mangini, who moderates a terrific food group on Facebook, clicked on each of the 50 restaurants listed on the website and found pricing from $16 to $50. Restaurants are listed in the order they signed up so it’s not easy to find a given place you’re interested in. (The early bird, Patricia Novo, was “happy to have top billing since I worked my butt off to submit our menu in a timely fashion.” She’s a shrewd marketer as well as a great restauranteur.)

I followed Susan’s lead and found several deals I’m interested in. Eddie F’s will give you a cup of chowder, a clam strip roll with slaw and fries and a cannoli at lunch for $15; this is definitely a deal since the excellent New England style rolls are regularly $15 on their own.  I’m also attracted to Fat Paulie’s offer of a sub with porchetta, fresh mozz and arugula for $12; this is a special sub not normally on the menu and they’ll throw in a soda to wash it down. At the other end of the spectrum is that $50 deal from Morton’s Steakhouse; that gets you starter, a 6 oz filet or other entrée, a side and dessert and is a relative bargain considering the 8 oz filet is $53 on its own on the regular menu. (The 8 oz steak is available for a $12 upcharge during restaurant week.)

I’m less interested in places that appear to featuring a regular menu at regular prices with a drink or a cookie thrown in; not naming names but you can find them easily on the Saratoga County Retaurant Week website. And am frustrated by Dunning Street Station, which publishes an appealing Italian menu without a price. I’d jump at the bargain at $25, probably consider it at $35, would pass at $50. That’s the frustration of a restaurant week without price categories.

Tom Thibeault, who has appeared on these pages as the purveyor and installer of our BlueStar stove, replies in Susan’s thread that “These people work so hard to bring us amazing restaurant experiences. Food pricing is at an all time high, inflation is thru the roof and there is labor shortages. Have you seen the rent in Saratoga County? If you need to nickel and dime people to eat out, you probably should re-evaluate your financial choices/short comings, and just stay home. You’re paying for so much more than the food.” All of which may be true but the issue is not the pricing but the difficulty of shopping the selection. A restaurant needs to skate the razor’s edge of attracting business without losing money, and throwing hurdles in the customer’s path doesn’t make it easier.

Do you have restaurant weeks where you live? What are your thoughts?

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My grape jelly secret

Posted on March 16, 2023 by Burnt My Fingers
McDonalds Grape Jam

My secret grape jelly stash from McDonald’s.

Actually I have two grape jelly secrets. The first is that it is a surprising ingredient in our Mystery Mayo, the doenjang dressing in Koreatown A Cookbook and in this collection which aptly describes it as “bright, lightly colored and super fruity”. (I’m very close to trying her Grape Jelly Ritz Cracker Icebox Cake which is just what it sounds like.)

But I’m unlikely to use grape jelly as a condiment, not when I have Frog Hollow Orange Marmalade and some sunny apricot jam made from fruit picked at its peak in a Northern California orchard. And there’s no room in my pantry for a product used only occasionally and in small quantities. Which brings me to the second secret:

Grape Jelly Open

Yes, I know it is really grape jam (because it has pulp in it vs being strained) but “grape jelly” sounds more appealing.

You can get grape jelly FREE with the McDonalds mobile app. In fact, it appears you can order it as a condiment, add it to your bag, then check out with nothing else which means “no payment necessary “ per the checkout screen. But that’s too much chutzpah even for Burnt My Fingers. So we request 3 packets each time we get the excellent McGriddle with bacon and cheese or with sausage and cheese and stash them away for future use. Pretty soon I’ll have enough for Crockpot Meatballs with Grape Jelly Sauce!

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What’s the best city for pizza?

Posted on March 11, 2023 by Burnt My Fingers
Whitman Detroit Pizza

Does Detroit-style pizza make it the best pizza city? Photo courtesy Walt & Whitman.

What’s the best city in the USA for pizza? According to this source it’s Detroit, for the second year in a row. Diving into details:

  • Detroit is America’s best city for pizza, with low prices and the highest online search activity for pizza.
  • Americans think New York is the best pizza city, with 41% listing it among their top five pizza cities. Los Angeles (40%) ranks No. 2, and Chicago ranks No. 3 (35%).
    • Americans are the least impressed with Oklahoma City, Providence, Rhode Island, and Columbus, Ohio — just 2% consider them top five pizza cities.
  • Phoenix is the most improved pizza city, rising to No. 4 in our rankings from No. 42 last year because of its high Yelp ratings for pizza restaurants and a strong showing in our pizza reputation poll.
  • Pennsylvania is the surprising best state for pizza, with Philadelphia and Pittsburgh each making the top 10.
  • San Diego’s pizza restaurants have the highest average Yelp rating at 4.2 stars.
    • Memphis, Tennessee, has the lowest average at 3.1 stars.
  • Buffalo, New York, has the highest rate of pizza restaurants per capita, with 17.9 pizza shops per 100,000 residents.
    • Dallas has the lowest rate, with just 2.7 pizza restaurants per 100,000 people.
  • Cleveland has the most affordable pizza prices. A large cheese pizza costs about $12.40, nearly 3x cheaper than the $30.67 you’d pay in New York.
  • San Antonio is the worst city for pizza, with high prices and very little interest in pizza, according to online search activity.

At this point you’re probably asking, who sez? The rankings come from Clever, which does research for real estate companies. (If you are thinking about moving to a new city, or want justification for staying where you are, localized factoids are probably of great interest.) Here’s their methodology:

The cities in this study are ranked according to six different factors, which were independently weighted and combined to produce our final results. The factors are:

  • A Pollfish survey of 1,000 Americans, who identified cities with a great pizza scene (30.8%)
  • Our “pizza passion” score — a combination of Google search volume for 25 different pizza terms (30.7%)
  • Average price of a large cheese pizza (15.4%)
  • Average price of a large pepperoni pizza (7.7%)
  • Average Yelp rating of pizza restaurants in the city (7.7%)
  • Pizza restaurants per 100,000 people (7.7%)
Detroit Pizza Edge

Detail of the crispy edge on a Detroit style pizza. Photo courtesy our Yelp friend Roger K.

Data sources include Yelp, Google Trends, the U.S. Census, our own survey data, and numerous individual pizza restaurant websites.

Notice anything missing? Yep, the standardization on “large cheese pizza” and “large pepperoni pizza” assumes that all pizzas everywhere are the same which they certainly are not. Detroit features a distinctive style with the pie baked in a well-oiled sheet pan, so the edges become crispy. (Our photos come from Walt & Whitman in Saratoga Springs NY, which prides itself on its fidelity to the original.) It’s very different from the Greek style pizza at Campisi’s in Dallas or the chicken enchilada pizza which was ranked as a top choice by San Antonio Magazine.

It’s fun to make lists like this and just as fun to find fault with them. We’re especially cranky because our benighted Capital District is not included, since Clever focuses on the biggest cities in each state and Albany is #6 in New York. Which means New Haven CT, which actually is the best city for pizza, does not make the cut. Sorry, Frank Pepe.

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Taste test: How to keep bean sprouts fresh

Posted on March 8, 2023 by Burnt My Fingers
Fresh Bean Sprouts

Big bag of bean sprouts as it came from the store.

In the frozen tundra where I live, it’s a half hour drive to the nearest Asian market selling fresh bean sprouts. Consequently, I always buy more than I need. And the unused portion slowly turns into a sad puddle in my fridge.

But does it have to be that way?

My current Asian market only sells prepackaged fresh bean sprouts, vs the other market that lets you grab them out of a bin with your hands. The bags of sprouts looked very fresh and healthy on my recent trip, but the lightest bag weighed almost 2 pounds. Rather than face certain spoilage, I decided it was time for a Burnt My Fingers Taste Test.

Blanched Bean Sprouts

Bean sprouts blanched for 1 minute, after 1 week.

Most ol the sprouts were scooped out of the grocery store bag (intentionally leaving a few, as a control in our test) and thoroughly rinsed.

Group 1 was submerged in water without further ado, to see if exposure to air was the problem.

Group 2 was microwaved on High for 1 minute in a 1600 Kw microwave.

Group 3 was blanched: water was brought to a boil, sprouts were dropped in, waited for water to return to boil and simmered exactly 1 minute then plunged into ice water.

Group 4 was blanched same as group 3, then placed in the freezer. The other groups were placed in covered dishes in the refrigerator.

Microwave Bean Sprouts

Bean sprouts microwaved for 1 minute, after 1 week.

One week later, we returned to review the results. Mung bean sprouts have a mild vegetal taste, but the main thing they add to a dish is texture. They crunch when you bite into them and pop with the liquid inside. That’s the standard our preserved sprouts would have to achieve.

Each of the preservation methods above was recommended on the usually reliable internet as the best way to keep bean sprouts fresh. Yet microwaving, blanching and blanching+freezing yielded an unusable product, at least for dishes where a crispy bean sprout is required such as pad thai. They might be okay folded into a pancake or egg foo yung, except for the defrosted test batch which was a sodden mess.

Frozen Bean Sprouts

Bean sprouts which were blanched, then frozen for 1 week, then thawed. Yuck.

Thus, the runner-up award goes to the bean sprouts that stayed in their original package. Ye,s there was some moisture in the bottom of the bag, but I could have picked out a few usable sprouts. This is 9 days after purchase—2 until I got around to setting up my test, then another week for the experiment,

And #1? The bean sprouts which had been submerged in water the entire time. The water got a little cloudy over a week but once drained and allowed to dry out the sprouts were virtually the same as when we started. Still plenty of crunch and no off taste. So there you have it: storing in fresh cold water is the best way to keep bean sprouts fresh.

Bean Sprouts in Water

The winner: bean sprights stored in fresh water, after 1 week.

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Recipe: TikTok Cabbage Pickle

Posted on March 5, 2023 by Burnt My Fingers
TikTok Cabbage Pickle

TikTok Cabbage Pickle.

TikTok Cabbage Pickle is pretty, versatile and easy to make. (I transcribe the recipe in a few minutes and regret I did not capture the name of the original poster.) It’s a cross between sauerkraut and the curtido served with Salvadorean pupas: still crunchy, but with the funk that comes with the beginning of lactofermentation, Try it on a burger or other sandwich or as (or in) a side salad. This would be fun to make with kids because the steps are easy and logical and the results are great to look at. Makes about 1 pint.

Ingredients:
½ of a medium green cabbage, shredded
1 red bell pepper, cored and seeded and sliced into rings then into strips
1 large carrot, peeled and shredded
1 T kosher salt
1 c water
2 T cider vinegar
1 T chopped garlic (optional; makes the result extra funky)
½ t crushed red pepper or 1 jalapeño, seeded and sliced into rings (optional, if you like it hot)
Lemon slices

Method: combine cabbage, red bell pepper and carrot in a large bowl. Add salt and mix with your hands till all surfaces are exposed. Add optional garlic and hot pepper. Stuff into a 24 oz wide mouth Mason jar, or an equivalent leftover takeout container with a tight fitting lid. Add water and cider vinegar and top with two lemon slices. Seal the jar tight and shake. Leave on counter for 3 days, shaking and flipping the container bottoms-up ever few hours, then taste. If it’s not intense enough for your taste (it probably will be) leave on the counter for an extra day of fermentation. Refrigeate and enjoy within the next week.

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Vitamix 5200 review

Posted on March 2, 2023 by Burnt My Fingers
Vitamin 5200 Cornmeal

Popcorn ground into cornmeal with Vitamin 5200.

I have long lusted after a Vitamix blender because of the mystique surrounding the brand. It can make soup! It can grind anything!  It’s ridiculously expensive but worth it! And so on. Last year I finally bought one when there was a sale during Amazon Prime days. My choice was the Vitamix 5200, a no-nonsense model without a touchscreen, on the recommendation of this Serious Eats article.

Vitamin 5200

My Vitamin 5200, scratches and all.

I didn’t fire up the Vitamix till a couple of months ago but have been using it regularly since then. And guess what? It’s a blender. Yes, it’s high powered, but other features make it only marginally better than my existing Waring Blade that currently retails for less than half the price of the Vitamix. (I have an older model but the features on the above seem similar.)

Blending? I enjoy a daily smoothie which includes peanut butter and frozen fruit, and both the Vitamix and the Blade do a good but not perfect job of blending everything to a thick liquid. Both generally leave a couple of big chunks intact. One time Trader Joe was out of the smooth peanut butter I love so I had to buy chunky. The Vitamix made the chunks completely disappear while the Blade left small (and unobjectionable) shards, so points to the Vitamix for its grinding ability.

Making soup? Here’s what the Vitamix will do, and the Blade will probably do as well: if you put 2 cups (no more than that) of viscous liquid in the blender and run it for 5 minutes on high (instructions somewhere say this won’t harm the blender but it’s an electric motor and that has to take a toll on its coils) the soup will get hot through friction. And that’s it. You could get the same results in a microwave, faster.

Blade Cornmeal

Popcorn ground into cornmeal with Waring Blade. Similar results to Vitamin, but with a lot of poweder.

Grinding solids? A pretty good cookbook came with the Vitamix and it includes a cornbread recipe where you grind popcorn into cornmeal. Both the Vitamix and the Blade did a credible job of producing uniformly slightly coarse cornmeal. The Blade did it faster but threw off a lot of powder which is wasteful and a cleanup issue. I’ll give the edge to Vitamix on this one.

Kneading bread? I followed the rather tricky instructions to knead a small loaf in the Vitamix and ended up with a sticky mess underneath dry ingredients. With time I could probably improve my technique and maybe even succeed in the final step, where you are supposed to pulse the kneaded ingredients for 2 seconds to make the dough rise off the blades so it comes out cleanly. (Note that this doesn’t really work in the video.) But since it’s easy enough to knead (a much larger amount of) dough by hand or in a Kitchenaid mixer if you get lazy, this isn’t something I’m going to continue to work on.

Self cleaning. This wouldn’t deserve a mention except that Amazon includes the phrase in its product name. All blenders are self cleaning: put a drop of detergent and a bit of liquid in the container, run it briefly, and it will dislodge much of the stuff on the bottom. But the Vitamix does seem to do a better job than the Blade which sometimes gets peanut butter stuck under its blades.

The Tamper. When I opened my Vitamix box I was surprised to discover a formidable black rod nestled inside the packaging. Vitamix calls this The Tamper and you can insert it through a hole in the top while the Vitamix is running to encourage ingredients to engage with the blades (it has a ridge that makes it stop just short of contacting the blades). To me this is a solution in search of a problem. Seems easier to do what most cooks would do instinctively: stop the machine briefly, open the top, and adjust the contents with a wet spatula. (That’s what the guy in the above video does.)

Vitaxmix Tamper

Vitamin 5200 Tamper

The user experience. Wondering if I had bought an expensive set of nonexistent emperor’s new clothes, I went on Facebook and signed up for several Vitamix groups. I wasn’t encouraged by what I found. Whereas the Instant Pot Community group (to give one example) has helpful newbie advice and good recipes, the Vitamix users seem mainly interested in add on products (you can buy a separate “dry” canister that goes with the “wet” canister that came with your blender, but as we saw with popcorn, the wet canister works fine for grinding) or how to keep your Vitamix looking new so you can display it on your countertop. That last made me crazy. Like any decent cook, I believe a beat up product is a good product because its wear is a sign of daily use.

Summing it up: I’m not sorry I bought my Vitamix 5200, but with its marginal benefits over other blending and mixing devices I probably wouldn’t buy it again.

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Food for Thought: Hebbar’s Kitchen

Posted on February 27, 2023 by Burnt My Fingers
Hebbars Kitchen

Poori Paratha in progress, from Hebbar’s Kitchen.

My friend Minita is quite the polymath. She’s a tenured college professor, member of my local city council, author of best-selling lesbian romances, and an excellent Indian vegetarian cook. When she told me Hebbar’s Kitchen was her favorites source of recipes, I had to take a look.

You may not have heard of Hebbar, but she has over 9 million Facebook fans, 7 million YouTube subscribers and 3 million Instagram followers.  And nearly as many recipes, it seems like. You want paneer? There are 10 pages of paneer recipes, with as many as 8 recipes per page.  Want a nice crispy dosa? 9 pages of dosa recipes await you.

Hebbar's Kitchen

Our Smoky Indian Eggplant (Baingan Ka Bharta), based on Hebbar’s recipe.

Hebbar’s Kitchen was the source for our Smoky Indian Eggplant (Baingan Ka Bharta) recipe, which we modified very slightly with substitutions for hard to find ingredients. She alternates between calling the product eggplant, brinjal and baingan which is initially a bit confusing but ultimately a useful language lesson. (The blog is available in Hindi and Kannada as well as English.)

The recipe posts are full of repetitious language intended for the search engines (there is also a Hebbar’s Kitchen app for iPhone and Android, with fewer ads and less clickbait) but it’s easy enough to scroll down to the actual recipe and there are plenty of useful how-to photos. Next up for us: Poori Paratha, the flaky Indian cousin of the croissant. Check it out.

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A soup noodle tour of San Francisco

Posted on February 19, 2023 by Burnt My Fingers
San Francisco Noodle Soup

Guilin Rice Noodle Soup at Chồng Qing Xiao Mian.

The Bay Area Eats (dine-in / take-out) Facebook group came into existence on April 2, 2020, in the very darkest early days of the pandemic. As the world turned upside down it became a culinary lifeline, chronicling what restaurants and food resources had closed and which were still available for takeout and delivery (that’s where we found the remarkable takeout meal we experienced from Benu).

As the local dining scene slowly recovered, the group has evolved into a brighter role in reporting members’ local food recommendations as well as posts from food purveyors with their offerings. It was in this spirit that frequent contributor Albert Cheng recently posted “a partial list of my 12 favorite Asian soup noodle places in San Francisco”. Reading the list made us want to try them all—not just for the noodles, but as a do-it-yourself San Francisco soup noodle tour of ethnic cuisines and neighborhoods. We sampled three spots on a recent trip and will be back for more.

Our first stop was Chồng Qing Xiao Mian on the edge of Chinatown, for their Guilin Rice Noodle Soup. This is a classic hole in the wall with a few tables, no adornment and a single cook at work in a small kitchen, The soup was distinguished by a massive beef rib bone with lots of meat attached. There were two quail eggs, lots of tender bok choi and peanuts. The shelled peanuts seemed an odd addition (the server asked if I wanted my soup with or without) but worked very well. Though unpretentious, this place has become popular due to some recent reviews and there were several non-Asian diners in mid afternoon.

A soup noodle tour of San Francisco

Bahn Can at Tu Kim Coffee Shop

The next day (all visits were for lunch) we went to Tu Kim Coffee Shop for their Ban Cahn. Tu Kim is in the heart of the Tenderloin and some folks may be put off by the street life outside, though I did not feel unsafe. It’s a narrow space with small tables opposite a counter/kitchen, and nearly every seat was occupied by an older Vietnamese man having coffee. We were informed that the soup could only be ordered to go, but by the time it was ready the management had relented and we were allowed to take a seat. Lots of shrimp and cubes of pork blood in a fresh-tasting broth, with noodles that were like udon but fatter.

A soup noodle tour of San Francisco

#13 at Thai Nghiệp Kỹ Mi Giả .

Thai Nghiệp Kỹ Mi Giả was the least satisfying of the three places we tried, yet the one I most want to try again. Cheng’s writeup provided only Chinese characters but the server identified the recommendation as #13, Nghiep Ky Egg Noodle Soup. According to Albert it should contain kidney and tendon in a tomato broth. The server said they were out of kidney (something that happens frequently, according to Yelp reviews) and they would substitute fish balls. Our soup also had lots of shrimp including one that was presented on a crouton-like raft, roast pork bits and vermicelli noodles but no tendon. It was too mild until we dumped in a good amount of the provided jalapeños in vinegar. The place was packed and many of the other tables had an appealing cucumber/carrot side dish which the server said is only offered with brisket dishes, So we’ll return and try that next time.

Here is Albert Cheng’s complete post from Bay Area Eats (dine-in / take-out), shared with permission:

A partial list of my 12 favorite Asian soup noodle spots in San Francisco. Please share yours.

  1. Happy Family Gourmet (Shandong Deluxe) 泰和山東水餃手拉麵 1042 Taraval Street, San Francisco, CA

Combination Seafood Spicy Soup 炒馬麵 with hand-pulled noodles, shrimp, calamari, fish, pork, chicken, and mixed vegetables

  1. Thai Nghiệp Kỹ Mi Giả 蔡業記麵家 ＇1427 Noriega Street, San Francisco, CA

Tendon and kidney over flat egg noodles in a rich tomato-based soup.

3.,Beijing Restaurant 北京小館 1801 Alemany Boulevard, San Francisco, CA

Beijing Style Noodles With Brown Sauce. “Dalumian 打鹵面),” hand-pulled noodles in a thick rich brown savory saucy soup with wood-ear fungus 木耳, dried bean curd 腐竹, mushrooms, egg, and pork.

  1. Bạc Liêu Restaurant 3216 Mission Street, San Francisco, CA

Bun Mam. The signature famous broth of Bac Lieu in the southern tip of Vietnam. Fermented fish and noodle soup with shrimp, fish, calamari, and fresh vegetables.

  1. Chồng Qing Xiao Mian 重慶小面 915 Kearny Street, San Francisco, CA

Guilin Rice Noodle Soup 桂林米粉 continues to be my favorite. It’s loaded with rib meat, pickled veggies, daikon radish, quail eggs, peanuts, etc. in a thick rich savory broth.

  1. Zazang Korean Noodle 2340 Geary Boulevard, San Francisco, CA

Zazang Korean Noodles for “jjamppong 짬뽕,” a Korean Chinese noodle soup with red, spicy broth with a variety of seafood and vegetables over house made fresh noodles.

  1. Ming Tai Wun-Tun Noodle 海皇粥麵 2455 Noriega Street, San Francisco CA

Hong Kong style wontun 雲吞 and suigow 水餃 dumpling noodles soup

  1. Yuanbao Jiaozi 元寶餃子 2110 Irving Street, San Francisco, CA

House Special Spicy Beef Noodles 秘制牛肉辣麵

  1. Pho Recipe (formerly Quận Ngon) 2511 Noriega Street, San Francisco, CA

Chicken Noodle Soup “Pho Ga.” Rich tasty broth. Perfectly cooked moist tender smooth chicken and innards over rice noodles.

  1. Tu Kim Coffee Shop 609 Ellis Street,San Francisco CA

“Banh Cảnh.” Vietnamese thick round udon-like rice noodles in a savory clear broth with pork trotters, lean pork, shrimps, congealed pork blood, and condiments. CAVEAT: This spot has NO menu. You have to ask for it.

  1. My Cảnh 626 Broadway, San Francisco, CA

“Bánh Canh Cua.” Rich thick crab noodle soup

  1. Chili House 川流不息 726 Clement Street, San Francisco, CA

“Fish Fillet Pickled Vegetables Pig Intestine Noodle Soup 魚片酸菜肥腸.” A popular fish of Chengdu 成都 in Sichuan Province 四川省, China.

King Thai Noodle Soup

King Thai #3 beef stew with flat noodles and special chili sauce.

P.S. You are perhaps wondering how these places stacked up against the #3 Beef Stew Noodles at King’s Thai #1, which we’ve previously reported as the best food we’ve ever eaten. We made a return visit for comparison purposes and it still reigns supreme. But you can’t eat the same thing every day. Variety is the spice of life!

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Buying crab off the boat in San Francisco

Posted on February 15, 2023 by Burnt My Fingers
Cooked Dungeness Crab

Fresh off the boat Dungeness crab from Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco.

On my February trip to San Francisco I was able to buy a live Dungeness crab directly off the fishing boat at Fisherman’s Wharf. This is news: first because the crab season is frequently curtailed by insufficient breeding stock (this winter it didn’t begin till the end of December) and second because direct sales from boat to consumer weren’t allowed before last year.

Crab Delivery Fisherman's Wharf

Delivery of my crab off the boat at Pier 45.

I purchased my crab from Shawn Chen Flading, who docks right next to The Grotto at Pier 45. I could have found two other crab boats by proceeding further down the pier, or the previous day I could have purchased from Fv Plumeria Matt Juanes, who docks next to Scoma’s Restaurant on Pier 47. The quality of crabs is identical as is the price, currently a reasonable $8 per pound. I brought my crab back to my kitchen-equipped hotel room at Ghirardelli Square and popped it into the refrigerator till I was able to cook it a few hours later by steaming for 7 ½ minutes per pound.

This video has great tips for humanely dispatching crabs, cooking them and harvesting the meat, from a chef who used to prep 80 of them a day in a fine dining restaurant. I didn’t watch it beforehand so missed out on her tip for dispatching the crab with a whack to its nerve center, but the time in the fridge put mine in a comatose state so it did not react when it hit the steamer (steaming not boiling to produce more flavorful meat). A few tips:

–use a blunt object (in my case a jar of pasta sauce) rather than a cracker to get at the claws, because the cracker is more likely to break shell off into the meat.

–use the tip of one of the pinchers to poke out the meat that lurks in knuckle joints.

–don’t worry about the very small amount of meat in the smaller leg pieces because you are going to make CRAB STOCK.

Dungeness Crab

My crab yielded maybe 12 oz of delicious meat (with a bit of shell mixed in).

That’s right, crab stock. After I finished the meat picking process I discarded the gnarly bits and used the shell fragments and little legs to make an intense stock that was employed to make a cioppino with much of the crab plus some other seafood. Cooked it down by 50% over an hour, strained through a towel, and the result was delicious.

When I was in college, I would come to San Francisco on school breaks and buy a cooked crab and a loaf of sourdough bread from one of several sidewalk vendors outside the restaurants on Fisherman’s Wharf. The crab came with a setup of cocktail sauce and lemon juice and I would sit on the seawall overlooking Aquatic Park and eat the crab along with the bread dipped in the sauce. It was a treat at the time but cocktail sauce is way too blunt an instrument for this sweet, delicate meat.

Dungeness crab meat is special because of the complex flavor it offers without any adornment, after feasting on various objects found on the ocean floor washed down with mineral sea water. This crab was alive on the boat at 10, in my refrigerator by 1045, in the steam pot around 6 pm and on my plate by 10 the next morning. Technically you could cut a few hours off but this was full of briny flavor without any dilution from longer storage.

I sampled it unadorned (fantastic), with drawn butter (maybe even better) and with Meyer lemon juice and a butter/lemon juice combo (too complicated and a distraction from the native flavor of the meat). My 2+ pound crab yielded maybe 12 oz of pure crab satisfaction (with a tiny bit of shell mixed in).

If you’d like to enjoy a similar crabbing experience, your first step should be joining the San Francisco off the boat sales Pier 45 and Pier 47 Group on Facebook. This is where the crabbers post their schedules for the week. (During season there’s nearly always somebody there Friday, Saturday and Sunday and possibly in the middle of the week.) The group also offers tips like this from Matt Juanes on cleaning your crab. It’s a fine experience on many levels and one of the marvels of San Francisco that real commercial fishing boats ply their trade within a few yards of the tourist shops of Fisherman’s Wharf.

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Recipe: Smoky Indian Eggplant (Baingan Ka Bharta)

Posted on February 9, 2023 by Burnt My Fingers
Smoky Indian Eggplant

Smoky Indian Eggplant (Baingan Ka Bharta).

Smoky Indian Eggplant Baingan Ka Bharta) figures prominently in Happy Endings, a new book by my friend Minita Sanghvi. The smokiness really does come through even if, like me, you roast the eggplant on a gas stove rather than over a wood fire. The eggplant reduces quite a bit when cooked, so a whole eggplant will make a dish for 2-4 when served with other foods. Recipe adapted from Hebbars Kitchen.

Ingredients:
1 large eggplant, a little less than a pound
3 cloves garlic, each sliced in half lengthwise
2 T neutral oil, plus a bit for cooking the eggplant
1 t cumin, ground
½ t red pepper flakes (or less if you don’t like it spicy)
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1 T ginger, chopped
1 medium onion, chopped
½ t Kashmiri chili powder*
1 t coriander seed, ground
1 medium tomato, chopped
1 t Kosher salt (start with ½ t and taste before adding more)
½ t garam masala
2 T chopped cilantro leaves

Method: poke slits all over the eggplant and insert a garlic sliver into each. Rub the eggplant with oil and roast directly over a gas burner or wood fire, turning to expose all sides to the heat. The eggplant will soften and shrink as it cooks. When done, a knife inserted near the stem (the part that cooks slowest) should go in easily, Cool, then peel off skin, coarsely chop, and quickly blitz with a mini-chop so the flesh separates into chunks but is short of a puree.

Heat oil in a skillet. Add cumin and pepper flakes and heat till they become aromatic. Add chopped garlic and ginger and sauté  for a couple of minutes, then add onion and sauté until wilted. Stir in chili powder and coriander and cook till fragrant, then stir in tomato and cook until it reduces. Stir in eggplant and a little salt; taste and add more salt if necessary.

Serve hot or lukewarm with roti or over rice. Just before serving, stir in chopped cilantro and garam masala.

*Hopefully you have some left over from when we made Pav Bhaji. If not substitute smoked paprika, but the flavor is not quite the same.

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