Recipe: Pickled Eggs

Posted on May 10, 2024 by Burnt My Fingers
Pickled Egg

Pickled Egg with bonus beet slice.

Pickled eggs are a good way to use the perfect hard-boiled eggs you make in the Instant Pot. If you don’t have your own recipe, please use ours. Peeled hard-boiled eggs are quite perishable, but once pickled these should last a week or so in the fridge.

Ingredients:
Dozen hard-boiled eggs, shelled
14.5 oz can sliced beets (don’t buy pickled, just plain sliced beets)
1 c (approx.) distilled white vinegar
1 T sugar
1 T pickling spice
Sliced onions (optional)

Method: drain the liquid from the beets into a container; reserve the beets. There should be about 1 c beet liquid; mix with an equal amount of distilled white vinegar. Add sugar and pickling spice and stir until sugar is dissolved. Transfer to a quart jar or equivalent container then start layering eggs. Add back the reserved beets between layers of eggs. We like to add some thin-sliced onion as well. If eggs are not fully submerged after layering, add a 50/50 distilled white vinegar/water mixture till covered.

Refrigerate several hours, then rotate eggs in the mix to eliminate any white spots where the eggs have not contacted the pickling liquid. Eggs are ready to enjoy after 24 hours.

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Recipe: Tomato Jam

Posted on May 4, 2024 by Burnt My Fingers
Tomato Jam Crackers

Tomato Jam with brie on crackers.

Tomato jam would make a nice accompaniment to our onion jam if you’re putting together a fancy sandwich. It also goes great on a cracker with a smear of brie. No need to peel or seed the tomatoes; everything will meld in the delicious mush you’re about to create. Makes a scant 1 c.

Ingredients:
2 lbs meaty tomatoes (Roma or San Marzano preferred), cored and coarsely chopped
2 T lemon juice
2 T dark brown sugar
2 t crushed ginger
1 t Kosher salt
½ t cumin (seed or ground)
½ t cinnamon
A generous grind of black pepper (maybe ¼ t)
½ t cracked red pepper (optional)

Tomato Jam

We don’t worry about the occasional bit of skin or seeds because it’s jam, not jelly.

Method: mix all the ingredients in a saucepan and cook on low heat, stirring frequently. Initially the tomatoes will throw off a lot of liquid, then they will begin to break down. Reduce heat to a very low simmer and continue to cook, stirring frequently to avoid sticking in the pan, until liquid is almost gone. This might take as much as 2 hours. Cool and refrigerate until used; will probably keep for a couple of weeks in the refrigerator.

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My day in the city with Baldor Bites

Posted on April 30, 2024 by Burnt My Fingers
Kwame Onwuachi Baldor Bites

Chef Kwame Onwuachi is interviewed at Baldor Bites.

Ever heard of Balducci’s in Greenwich Village? When I was a wee lad on my first trip to NYC, I made a pilgrimage to this legendary Italian deli and was stunned to find it has closed. But it actually morphed into a very different identity, as a supplier of fresh foods and fine dining staples throughout the five boroughs called Baldor.

Baldor Bites is a biannual event to celebrate Baldor customers with generous food and drink samplings and a program of mostly panel discussions featuring chefs and influencers. This year it was held at the emerging basketball center at South Port which is for now a hall surrounded by construction barriers. No matter, we got there and everybody had a great time.

Baldor Audience

Not your typical white collar audience…

The audience was almost entirely chefs or chef-trainees in some sort of culinary education program. The profile of the now and future chef: probably not Caucasian, gender fluid, very large and covered with tattoos. Interesting people in other words and they were very active in the panel discussions asking many questions. The best attended session featured controversial celebrity chef Kwame Onwuachi who, after some early career missteps, now helms the top rated Tatiana at Lincoln Center. At least half the questioners asked “how can I get a reservation” and were referred to his hapless interrogator.

Baldor Bites also featured a session in which Dan Barber of Blue Hill at Stone Barns interviewed Joseph Lofthouse, a seed developer and author of Landrace Gardening. Lofthouse started his career working for a pesticide company and had an epiphany after he realized his company was responsible for the anthrax that went in the mail a few decades back. He took a vow of poverty, stopped wearing shoes and now focuses on hand-developing the best seeds can based on a/how good does it taste and b/how well does it thrive in his harsh environment in Utah. They mentioned Row 7 Seeds, a company following the same principles that exhibited at the show and offers seeds by mail order.

Paella at Baldor Bites

Now that’s a lot of paella!

Also interesting to me was an international panel discussing how global trends are influencing restaurant menus today. David Shim, an early 2000s graduate of the Culinary Institute of America, commented that today’s curriculum is completely different from what he took a few years ago. Fariyal Abdullahi, also a CIA grad, said the school has consulted her about designing an injera unit. In a plug for the sponsor, Ayo Balogun said his favorite Baldor order is a guinea hen because though he does not feature it often, he can get it overnight when he does.

Baldor Tuna Demo

A 100-lb tuna was broken down in a demo at Baldor Bites. Cups at left are for sampling.

And yes, there were lots of “bites”. Many of the vendors were those who show up at the Fancy Food Show but here they limited their presentation to the high end stuff. It helped that the facility is a good half mile from any public transportation (hopefully this will remedied before actual basketball arrives at the center) so one had the opportunity to walk it off.

We left with the impression that Baldor is a very positive influence for good in the food service clients they work with. Check out the wide selection on their website and see if your favorite restaurant or purveyor works with them.

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Food for Thought: Mangia Betta

Posted on April 21, 2024 by Burnt My Fingers
Chickpea Fritters Mangia Bedda

Panelle (Chickpea Fritters) from Mangia Bedda.

You can get food inspiration for free by reading up on the dishes prepared by favorite chefs and hole-in-the-wall ethnic restaurants. Such was the case with a recent FB post by Ric Orlando, an inventive local chef. He’s been leading tours of Sicily and shared a vegetarian sandwich he had made with two Sicilian dishes, Panelle (Chickpea Fritters) and Cazzilli (Fried Potato Croquettes).

What? A search for recipes for these two hitherto-unknown products led us to Mangia Bedda, a wonderful blog by Nadia who is “documenting my mother’s recipes in order to preserve them and pass them on to future generations” and augmenting them with discoveries from her own travels in Sicily. I will warn you this is a heavily monetized website in which the preparation descriptions are drawn out to make room for lots of advertising, but in this case much of the filler material is actually useful.

Hazelnut Cake Mangia Bedda

Hazelnut Cake from Mangia Bedda.

A good example is this recipe for Sicilian Hazelnut Cake which describes the heritage of Sicilian hazelnuts from the Neroni and advises us on the best texture for grinding the hazelnuts to create a dessert which is meaty and not too sweet. I have a couple of bags of hazelnuts and you can bet I’m going to try this one.

Seafood Aranchini and Cipolline Catanesi (Sicilian Onion Puff Pastry Tarts) are two more that made it on my must-try list. Or simply dive into the recipe index. You surely can eat better with Mangia Bedda, so check it out.

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Recipe: Marinated Artichokes and Hearts of Palm

Posted on April 18, 2024 by Burnt My Fingers
Marinated Artichokes and Hearts of Palm

Marinated Artichokes and Hearts of Palm.

Stores sell marinated artichokes, so why not marinated artichokes and hearts of palm? They’re both mild vegetables that contribute more texture than taste, and they absorb the flavor of a marinade beautifully. You do need firm hearts of palm which will hold up when you slice them; we found just what we wanted at Walmart for a little over $2 for a 14.5 oz can and quartered artichoke hearts for about the same price in a supermarket house brand. Makes about 2 cups marinated artichokes and hearts of palm, enough for several salads.

Ingredients:
14.5 oz can hearts of palm in water pack, drained
14.5 oz can quartered artichoke hearts in water pack, drained
1 T plus 1 t lemon juice
¼ c good olive oil
½ t Kosher salt
¼ t ground black pepper
1 t finely chopped garlic (optional)

Loaded Salad

Now that’s a salad!

Method: combine the dressing ingredients and mix thoroughly; taste and adjust seasoning to your liking. Cut hearts of palm into ¾ inch logs. Add artichoke hearts and hearts of palm and toss to coat all surfaces with the dressing. Rest for at least 2 hours before serving as an appetizer or with tossed salad. You can refrigerate for storage, but bring them out before serving so any solidified oil will liquify. We prefer to just leave them on the counter; they should be good for a couple of days and will likely be gone by then.

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Taste test: marinated mushrooms

Posted on April 13, 2024 by Burnt My Fingers
Marinated Mushroom Taste Test

Marinated mushrooms four ways.

I hoovered some delicious marinated mushrooms from the charcuterie board at a recent event and resolved to make them myself. Researching online recipes, I found a surprising variety of methods and even definitions of what “marinated mushrooms” implies. As executed, our marinated mushrooms taste test includes four preps with a focus on a/how flavorful is the mushroom itself and b/how well do the marinating ingredients complement the mushroom.

I worked with ordinary brown mushrooms (cremini) from the supermarket and trimmed the ends of the stems then quartered them (or halved in the case of smaller ones), I used good olive oil and a reasonable amount of salt and pepper for flavor balance plus some spices as noted below but was not going for a completed product, just a best practices technique.

Sautéed Marinated Mushrooms

Test #1: sautéed then marinated.

Test #1: sauteed then marinated. This is the method used in an NYT recipe and it might be argued the mushrooms aren’t really marinated but simply cooked then doused with vinegar before serving (not unlike that famous Rao’s chicken dish). I sauteed them lightly in olive oil with garlic then added vinegar to the warm skillet.

Boiled then Marinated Mushrooms

Test #2: boiled then marinated.

Test #2: boiled then marinated. This is a technique I ran across on the Mediterranean Dish blog. Boil the mushrooms 5 minutes, then drain thoroughly and toss with marinade. It’s counterintuitive because you’d think the objective in preparing mushrooms is to reduce their water content, not give them the opportunity to absorb more. But they retained their texture and flavor and were not waterlogged at all.

 

Boiled then Pickled Mushrooms

Test #3: boiled then pickled.

Test #3: boiled then pickled. I used the same boiling technique as test #2, then immersed the mushrooms in a pickling brine with half and half white vinegar/water, a bit of salt and pepper and sugar and a teaspoon of Penzey’s pickling spices. Also added a dash of olive oil, which I regret. These were refrigerated a couple of days before tasting.

Balsamic Marinated Mushrooms

Test #4: raw in marinade.

Test #4: raw mushrooms in marinade. I ran across a balsamic marinade recipe I liked and wanted to do something with uncooked mushrooms. Balsamic and red vinegar, olive oil, salt, pepper and a bit of thyme were heated to boiling then removed from heat and tossed with the mushrooms.

The results: a 2 ½ -way tie! The sauteed-then-marinated mushrooms in test #1 were closest to my charcuterie experience and were delicious. Boiling the mushrooms turns out to be a great solution: they retain their shape and texture while developing flavor and absorb the marinade without getting soggy. #2 was just as good as #1 yet with a completely different mushroom profile. #3 only gets half credit because I should not have added oil; will try again and expect an excellent result. #4 was a non-starter, with much less mushroom taste and an unsatisfying texture. I immediately recognized the dispiriting mushroom profile encountered in salad bars and poorly designed main dish salads.

Next test: I will tinker with #1 sauté, but start with boiled mushrooms as in #2. Look forward to having mind blown!

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Lunch at Le Bernardin

Posted on April 8, 2024 by Burnt My Fingers
Gold Leaf Gelee Le Bernardin

Lunch at Le Bernardin features flecks of gold leaf in a sublime seafood geleé.

I live 3 hours from one of the great restaurants of the world, so there was no excuse for not trying it at least once. My Yelp friend Louise G facilitated the reservations for lunch at Le Bernardin, which must be made on the first day of the month for a date in the month following. She got a 2 pm slot on a Friday and we were on our way, though not without a few planning sessions in which we perused and discussed the online menu.

This is a restaurant with a dress code for men: gentlemen must wear a button down shirt; of course jeans and sandals are out. Before the pandemic, I understand, a sports coat was required. No such restriction for women who are assumed to be better behaved. Also, if you don’t show up for your meal there is a $150 penalty. That got my attention.

The menu for lunch at Le Bernardin rarely changes which is why we were able to plan our meals in advance. As we ate we debated whether this is a good or a bad thing. Louise felt it must be dispiriting to prepare the same dish over and over again, day in and day out. I likened it to a carpenter putting together a dovetail joint: though the process is the same each piece of wood (or seafood) has its own personality so no two results are exactly the same.

Oyster Uni Le Bernardin

Oyster-Uni at Le Bernardin.

I started with “Oyster-Uni”. This was preceded with an unannounced smoked salmon spread with baguette toasts, and accompanied by various breads that were refreshed throughout the meal. In a masterpiece of understatement, the dish is described as “Sea Urchin-Oyster Medley; Nori Cracker Seaweed Gelée” without mentioning the gelee included flecks of gold leaf. It was formally, beautifully composed yet the taste was everything I love about seafood—seaweed, oysters, sea urchin and the fish used to make the fumé—in a single bite.

Hiramasa Le Bernardin

Hiramasa at Le Bernardin.

My main was “Hiramasa” which turns out to be a type of yellowtail which is popular in Japan. “Grilled Hiramasa; Roasted Maitake Bone Marrow-Red Wine Bordelaise” describes the experience. I happen to be a big fan of bone marrow and red wine served with fish; the marrow was a little skimpy (it was not anything so obvious as the usual split marrow bone, but rather a scoop of marrow mixed with the mushrooms) but overall the dish did not disappoint. I have read that Eric Ripert likes to serve a generous ladling of sauces so guests can spoon it or sop it up with bread, which is exactly what I did.

Le Bernardin Dessert

Dessert at Le Bernardin.

The dessert menu is not online but as I recall I had a “baba” soaked in whiskey infused with exotic spices and coated in a buttercream, accompanied by a scoop of an intense chocolate ice cream. There were also three perfect digestifs: a mini-macaron, a tiny raspberry biscuit and a wee chocolate tart.

The service was unobtrusive but omnipresent. I was seated facing a curtain wall, and at one point I turned my head to survey the dining room; immediately a server appeared to ask if she could help me. When ordering, Louise said she was considering two apps and the server declined to make a recommendation, but when she told him her entrée choice he volunteered that one of the apps was most frequently chosen by diners ordering that entrée. When she commented to another server that she admired the pattern of the silverware, the server said “I like it too.” In short, the servers facilitate and support the dining experience, but never guide it. Oh, and this: I was gauche enough to spill a drop of my demiglace on the white tablecloth, and a server carefully covered the spot with an unfolded white napkin and pressed it in place before serving dessert.

This menu at lunchtime was $127, which is certainly a fair price considering that the price for not eating would have been $150. The $395 evening tasting menu was also on offer, and many nearby tables were ordering it. There is also a slightly different menu at $95 with a donation to a local food kitchen. If you consider 33% to be an appropriate food cost, I expect the ingredients on my plate easily exceeded that amount and you are also paying for multiple servers and many changes of tableware. For my budget this is a very occasional treat, but if I could afford it I might eat here weekly.

Loise quoted a food writer, who I thought was contemporary but may have been Escoffier: when you enjoy your food, you say “that was a good meal”. When you have had a great meal, you say “that meal made me happy”. Lunch at Le Bernardin made me happy, and the pleasure lingers in remembering it.

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Taste Test: Trader Joe’s Peanut Butter Cups

Posted on April 2, 2024 by Burnt My Fingers
Trader Joes Peanut Butter Cups

Trader Joe’s Peanut Butter Cups from tub (l) and bag (r).

We are huge fans of dark chocolate Trader Joe’s Peanut Butter Cups. Here you have a perfect candy: a good quality chocolate shell with just the right amount of rigidity to resist then crack when you bite into it, enrobing a smooth filling from a peanut butter master. But hold on, there are two very different product configurations: a small package of cups wrapped in foil for 99c currently, and a plastic tub with unwrapped cups for $4.49.

Does the bigger size provide a better value? Are they the same cup or, as it would appear, two different configurations for different customers: the small package near the checkout for impulse buyers, and the larger tub over the freezer section for serious snackers? To answer the first question, the tub contains 16 oz while the small bag is 3.5 oz. Do the math and you’ll see the difference in price per piece is infinitesimal.

Peanut Butter Cups Crossection

Cross section from tub (l) and bag (r).

As to the second question, I enlisted two small but experienced tasters who told me there definitely is a difference. The chocolate may be the same but the filling in one is grainier than the other. I wanted to confirm this for myself and found no difference whatsoever. I consulted the ingredient lists on the packages and found that each lists the same exact ingredients in the same order. I’m calling it a tie. Except…

If you look at the suggested serving it’s two candies for the tub but 3 candies for the small bag! This is probably because there are 9 candies per bag and the Trader wanted an even distribution, but still. Why eat 2 pieces when you are allowed to eat 3 for the same amount of guilt? Add in the bonus foil wrap (which is probably to protect the candies, assuming the package might end up in a backpack or lunchbox0, and we have a clear winner. Trader Joe’s dark chocolate peanut butter cup in the 3.5 ounce bag, you are now the official chocolate candy of Burnt My Fingers!

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Recipe: Cuban Slaw

Posted on March 27, 2024 by Burnt My Fingers
Cuban Slaw

Cuban Slaw.

This new version of Cuban Slaw resulted from a happy accident. I shredded the cabbage and mixed it with salt, then had to stop the cure after 20 minutes to get back to a family activity. The cabbage had softened and sweetened but had not yet thrown off any liquid; this as compared to a sauerkraut or sour slaw prep in which I’ll leave the salt on the cabbage longer then (in the case of the sour slaw) rinse it out before proceeding. Do try this at home! The tart white vinegar and oregano will remind you of Cuban flavors and Cuban Slaw could become a condiment on a sandwich as well as a side dish. Makes 6 servings.

Ingredients:
Medium head green cabbage, about 2 lbs
½-1 t Kosher salt*
¼ c neutral oil
3 t distilled white vinegar
¼ t ground black pepper
½ t dried oregano
1 t finely chopped garlic

Method: shred the cabbage with your preferred method (we use the coarsest side of a box grater). Toss the cabbage with ½ t salt and massage it in with your hands so all surfaces come into contact. *Taste; if it is under-salted add more, but by no means add salt to the point that it is “salty”. Cure for 20 minutes then mix in other ingredients. Refrigerate for 2 hours or more to let the flavors meld, then serve.

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Food for Thought: searching for culinary origins

Posted on March 19, 2024 by Burnt My Fingers
Saratoga Spoon

Saratoga Spoon for dipping Saratoga (potato) Chips, available from Replacements, inc.

Elizabeth Weil wrote an arresting culinary origins story a few years ago which was published in Saveur. It seems that Weil’s grandfather invented the Reuben Sandwich in the 1920s when he oversaw the kitchen at the Blackstone Hotel in Omaha, Nebraska. Some poker players needed a late night snack and he came up with a sauerkraut-swiss cheese-corned beef-thousand island dressing combo and served it to a guy whose name, of course, was Reuben. Guess what, Reuben loved it and it soon became a menu staple.

Weil’s article references an earlier, shorter origin story published in the New York Times in 2013. The NYT got a number of letters in response to that piece including one from food historian Andrew Smith, which insisted in a rather strident way (the actual letter from Smith is not available; the link in the Saveur article actually leads to Weil’s original piece) that no, the Reuben was invented in New York in a deli run by a guy named, you guessed it, Reuben.

Weil had heard this before (she mentions the NYC theory in her article) and let it pass. But Smith was itching for a fight. He began researching old menus and cookbooks for references that would point to a New York origin. While not letting his foot off the gas, he did acknowledge over time (there were lots of exchanges between Smith and Weil) that the NYC Reuben had actually been made with coleslaw, not sauerkraut, which would make it a completely different animal; as a side note we will point out that heated coleslaw in a griddled sandwich sounds hurl-inducing. But the touchstone was the old menus; Smith challenged her to come up with a Nebraska menu listing a Reuben sandwich prior to 1941, the earliest recorded mention he could find in his New York mecca.

Which Weil, or rather her husband Dan, did. The Nebraska State Historical Society produced a menu from the Blackstone Hotel’s coffee shop in 1937 which included the Reuben and soon after, the Douglas County Historical Society came up with an even earlier menu.  Presented with incontrovertible evidence, Smith graciously conceded defeat.

This passion for culinary origins and arguing about the past reminds us of the story of the origin of Guss’ Pickle on the Lower East Side, which unfolded right here on Burnt My Fingers a dozen years ago. To abbreviate, one individual bought the historic Guss’ pickle store on the Lower East Side of Manhattan but another individual acquired the name, which had never been trademarked. She moved the pickle shop to a new location in Brooklyn, then  they went to war. Please do read through the many comments which demonstrate the battle had by no means ended and I expect continues to this day.

Also, let’s talk about the origin of potato chips! Anyone who lives in my vicinity knows they were invented right here in upstate New York, at a resort alongside Saratoga Lake. Doubters have challenged this claim including Jim Leff, the founder of Chowhound and now a friendly freelance curmudgeon. To him and other skeptics I have proof that is even better than historical menus: the Saratoga Spoon. This is a broad spoon, perfect for scooping up potato chips by those too genteel to use their fingers, which was standard in sterling flatware sets in the 1870s. Local antiquities dealer Mark Lawson has a nice story on the chips and the scooper here.

In the future, food historians may look for the culinary origins of Thanksgiving Stuffing Pudding or Chili Crisp Ice Cream and find them right here. Or, maybe not.

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