How to win at Saratoga Chowderfest

Posted on February 6, 2018 by Burnt My Fingers
Saratoga Chowderfest 2018 Crowds

Morrissey’s and Salt & Char had the longest lines at Saratoga Chowderfest 2018

Saratoga Chowderfest 2018 is in the books. But I suggest you bookmark this post (as well as similar advice published in 2017) and come back to it prior to next year’s event so you can make the most of your experience and avoid some buzz-killing mistakes.

2018 attendance was allegedly 30,000 vs 40,000 last year, the difference probably due to bitter biting winds. Some of the rules were relaxed. You no longer have to get stamps on your ballot to earn the right to buy a t-shirt; just fill it out to your liking. This takes some of the rigor out of the voting process and renders the results somewhat fluid. Why is it that Thirsty Owl, a restaurant on the far end of downtown at Broadway and Lincoln, wins both Best on Broadway and People’s Choice year after year? Next year I am going to make the trek there and find out.

Ramen Chosder

Ramen Chowder from Buddha Noodle… outstanding.

As usual, I flagged after half a dozen tastes. My favorite was the Ramen Chowder at Buddha Noodle—essentially their excellent miso broth married with a chowder base. A close second was the Chicken Pot Pie Chowder at Morrissey’s on Broadway. This place and its sister, Salt & Char, also had the longest lines.

Which brings me to my first tip: don’t just get in/on a chowder line. Instead, measure your desire for that chowder against the opportunity cost of missing out on other chowders while you are standing in line. Sometimes the line will be quite short, in which case you should jump on it. $1 for the chowder sample is all you have to lose. To fine tune the process, check the Discover Saratoga website for an incomplete list of who’s serving what kind of chowder.

Pot Pie Chowder

Pot Pie Chowder from Morrissey’s… delicious.

Second tip (should be first, chronologically) is to be in downtown Saratoga, queued up for your first sample, when the tasting starts at 11 am. The lines generally grow longer as the day progresses, and many establishments may run out of chowder so you get nothing for your procrastination. Also, an early arrival gives you a fighting chance at a parking spot. There were still plenty of spaces downtown as 11 am arrived and, bonus tip, there were more spaces west of Broadway than in the neighborhoods to the east where most cars were looking to park.

Sadly, there’s another reason to get there early: to avoid the drunks (as much as possible; many folks seem to arrive pre-drunk). Chef Dominic Colose wrote a vivid post about this on his Chefsday blog; he had people trying to break the lock on his men’s room and he wasn’t even serving chowder.

It probably helps to stay out of interior spaces (mostly on Caroline St) that are also serving alcohol and to calibrate the mood of the crowd when you arrive at an establishment; Druthers had lots of beer drinking going on in their patio but people were civil.

Chef Colose declares he’s done with Chowderfest (which he calls Chowderwreck). I’m not. It’s still one of the biggest non-track events in Saratoga, and you can’t beat the price.

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Taste Test: Oven-Fried Wings with Baking Powder Brine

Posted on February 1, 2018 by Burnt My Fingers

 

These wings look fried but they’re actually oven-cooked with a baking powder brine.

We’d heard good things about coating wings with baking powder and cooking them in the oven to produce the equivalent of fried without the deep fryer. With National Wing Day, aka the Super Bowl, coming up it was time to do a taste test.

According to Serious Eats, this “slightly alkaline mixture raises the skin’s pH levels, which allows proteins to break down more efficiently, giving you crisper, more evenly browned results. Simultaneously, it combines with the bird’s natural juices, forming carbon dioxide gas that leaves you with a layer of tiny bubbles. It’s these bubbles that increase the skin’s surface area, allowing it to develop a crunchy texture once cooked.” Be sure to use a baking powder that does not contain aluminum, which produces a bitter aftertaste for some people. We used Argo brand though would have preferred Rumsford, the original baking powder which like many other things was invented in Troy, NY.

We tested the Serious Eats formula of 1 part baking powder to 3 parts salt, the Kenji Lopez-Alt blend of 1 part baking powder to 1 part salt, and a recipe we found on Yummly with 3 parts baking powder, 1 part salt. You don’t need a lot of the mixture to coat the wings; a couple tablespoons for a couple pounds of wings is ample. After dredging they were transferred to a wire rack sitting on a half sheet pan, then cured uncovered in the refrigerator for 24 hours—the equivalent of dry brining. Then they were cooked in a preheated 450 degree oven for 30 minutes, flipped over, and cooked another 15-25 minutes to golden but not burned doneness.

Wings Taste Test

From left: Serious Eats, Yummly and Kenji formulas for the salt/baking powder coating. The results are pretty similar.

You can see the fresh-out-of-the-oven results here (after somebody had snitched a few wings). The morsels were indeed crisp with a crackling, juicy skin, just what you want. I initially rooted for Kenji’s because they were the only one that did not stick to the rack when it was time to turn them over, but all were equivalent at the end with an evenly crisp exterior. We tasted some without sauce, and doused the rest in the standard mix of 1 part melted butter to 1 part Frank’s Red Hot Sauce.

I found all the wings salty in taste (but appealingly so), regardless of how much salt was actually used. One of my tasters immediately voted for Kenji’s because the flavor balance was good and one of the others (probably the Yummy) had an odd aftertaste. The texture of the wings was pretty consistent from one formula to the next, but Kenji’s seemed a little tougher to me, requiring more mastication.

For the Big Game, I would recommend making these with 2 parts salt to 1 part baking powder. That is a good balance between the ratio of Kenji and his editor that should produce a crisp yet tender result. Sauce them with the butter/Frank’s mixture, or if you are more adventurous try one or the other of our Korean fried chicken sauces.

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Cannabis edibles at Fancy Food Show

Posted on January 30, 2018 by Burnt My Fingers
Cannabis Edibles

Assorted cannabis edibles observed at Grass Roots in San Francisco

No, there weren’t actually any cannabis edibles on the floor at the Winter Fancy Food Show in San Francisco. But it would have been easy enough for a show attendee to investigate one of the newly legal recreational cannabis outlets, by taking a Muni bus or a Lyft or Uber. Our correspondent did just that, hopping the 38 Geary to visit Grass Roots at 1077 Post Street (between Polk and Larkin).

Grass Roots is probably typical of the new emporia in that it was formerly a medicinal cannabis outlet and has simply added a retail license. It gets good marks on Yelp for service, variety and value. One waits in a shortish line and surrenders one’s driver’s license briefly on entry to be recorded in a database. (In a worst case scenario, one supposes the U.S. Attorney General could subpoena the database and throw all of California’s recreational users in jail.) Another brief line, and one is at the counter talking to a knowledgeable salesperson.

Cannabis edibles come in baked goods, gummies, mints and possibly some other configurations. You can see the complete selection on the Grass Roots website. Each package is marked with the amount of active agent it contains, eg 100 mg THC. (If you are a recreational buyer in San Francisco you are limited to 100 mg per package; medicinal users can buy more. However, there’s no limit on the number of 100 mg packages you can buy.) A 100-mg pack of gummies indicates it contains 4 doses, so 25 mg per dose. Our correspondent’s salesperson said that 25 mg is indeed a good rule of thumb for a typical dose but a new user should start with a smaller amount, then augment it as needed. UPDATE: our correspondent now reports that a little under 10 mg THC is an effective dose for an adult male.

The edibles our correspondent reviewed were categorized as sativa, indica or hybrid. (There are also pure CDB and THC and a “TKO” but those are for medicinal users only.) The counter person confirmed that indica is by far the most popular. This is the relaxing, pain-reducing strain of cannabis as opposed to the euphoria-inducing sativa, so perhaps those who are concerned about legalization will be relieved buyers are using it for legitimate medicinal purposes, vs just getting high.

The advantage of edibles, as opposed to loose marijuana or prepared joints (“prerolls”), is that they can be consumed inconspicuously pretty much anywhere. The disadvantage is that it takes a while for them to take effect. (A pack of gummies advertises “60 Minute Activation Time”.) The retail price of a 100 mg 4-pack of Kushy Punch gummies is $16.00 which makes this a much cheaper experience than beer or wine. So a low bar, price-wise, if one wanted to do some experimentation.

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Hot and not at the Winter 2018 Fancy Food Show

Posted on January 26, 2018 by Burnt My Fingers
Serrano Ham Barbie

Serrano Jamon Barbie, in one of the many cured ham displays from Spain, Italy and the U.S.

There were several clear trends at the just-concluded Fancy Food Show in San Francisco. Coconut water and other coconut vehicles continued their march to world domination. Artisanal salt was big. There were 20 booths offering small-batch ice cream flavors, a phenomenon of modern refrigerated delivery. More worrisome, at least 20 booths offered some kind of popcorn snack. The world can’t absorb that much popcorn.

I ran into a guy who had discovered a rare citrus genome in the UC Berkeley botanical lab and is marketing it commercially. “Finger Limes” have green skin with the color, taste and texture of lime but break the fruit open and it is full of little flavor beads. He proposes its use in cocktails and ceviche. Another booth had K-Pop Sauce, Korean gochujang with a thinner consistency so it can be dispensed from a bottle instead of scooped out of a tub. This is such a good idea one of the big sauce companies is probably planning to copy it, but for now you can order K-Pop Sauce on Amazon.

Finger Lime

Finger Lime exuding its pearls, good for exotic drinks etc.

And cured ham! Serrano and prosciutto were everywhere, often carved from a haunch mounted on a stand in the booth. I made it my job to sample every one I found. The flavor differences are in the muskiness of the meat and the amount of salt, with most vendors being too timid on each. While I confirmed there is no such thing as a bad country ham, I was pleased that my favorite came from La Quercia, the Iowa outfit that gets many of its pigs from Niman Ranch.

Sea Bass Ceviche

This ceviche in the Peru booth was the best thing I tasted at the show.

The Fancy Food Show, if you’re new to the concept, is a twice-yearly event where distributors of specialty gourmet goodies connect with their retail audience. That would be small stores like Putnam Market in Saratoga, and also specialty supermarkets like Healthy Living. There is a secondary appeal to restaurants and other foodservice concerns looking for new ideas. Tasting is mandatory, and the floor is not organized by food group so you need to be able to choke down an exotic chocolate, followed by a piece of jerky, then chase it with some salty chips and maybe goat milk.

Popcorn

Too much popcorn!

My favorite edible was a ceviche at the Peru booth. Sustainable sea bass and conch were marinated in lime juice and dressed with dried corn kernels, hominy, red onion and a little square of cooked sweet potato. Got to try this at home. In general the seafood offerings, and prepared food overall (vs samples doled out from a package) were sparser than in previous shows. This may be less a trend than the result of some new restrictions on food preparation. Also, they changed the sampling policy to thwart lookie-loos. The admission price was raised from $30 to $95 and they no longer screen show visitors at the exits to be sure they aren’t sneaking out stuff. This took a bit of the fun out of it and caused many booths to just put out a bunch of samples, since they’re less worried about being plundered by the man in the street, instead of curating them.

Two days of this, and I’m ready for my New Year’s Diet.

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4505 Chicharrones are melting in my mouth

Posted on January 23, 2018 by Burnt My Fingers
4505 Chicharrones

4505 Classic Chicharrones with chili and salt; Jalapeño and BBQ also available.

Anybody who visited the old 4505 Meats stall at the San Francisco Ferry Plaza Farmers Market knows the addictive power of their chicarrones, or fried pork skins. If you do the prep work right, these literally melt-in-your-mouth treats are surprisingly easy to make at home, but the quality is entirely dependent on the pig you started out with. 4505 Meats says they are the first vendor to use 100% pork that is humanely raised (i.e. no factory pens) without added antibiotics or hormones. The end product is mighty good indeed.

Whole Smoked Pig

Porky goodness at the 4505 Meats press party

I was re-introduced to 4505 through a welcome after party at the end of the first day of the 2018 Winter Fancy Food Show in San Francisco. There was a whole pig being carved into tacos, a d.j. spinning porky cuts, and plenty of bagged chicharrones to remind us of their goodness. 4505 also has a retail smokehouse on Divisadero in San Francisco that is well worth a visit (especially because Josey Baker’s breads are made right across the street at The Mill). But the best news for out-of-towners  is that 4505 Chicharrones have wide distribution; I checked the map and confirmed I could buy them at the Whole Foods in Albany.

Prep tip from my teenager: open your package of pork skins, douse them liberally with Frank’s Red Hot sauce, close the bag to shake vigorously, enjoy. He does this with lesser chicarrones from the Dollar Store, but I see no reason the same technique would not benefit 4505’s.

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We now have an official paper towel, and it’s Viva!

Posted on January 18, 2018 by Burnt My Fingers
Viva Paper Towels

My Viva is strong and soft… like cloth!

We use a lot of paper towels at Burnt My Fingers. To mop up spills, handle the general mess around a smoker or outdoor grill, blot the excess fat off the top of a soup stock, and also to substitute for many of the standard duties of a side towel. So it’s surprising I’ve taken these ubiquitous clean-up aids for granted. I know to stay away from the generic brands that don’t actually sop anything up, and have tried the earnest recycled brands but been disappointed. I generally buy bulk, whatever name brand is on sale, and I forget what it was by the time the supply is gone. (Strange that paper towels, also toilet paper, don’t put their logos inside the cardboard rollers, no?)

All this time, there’s been an alternative primly waiting on my counter, like a shy but confident girl minding her own business in the classroom. (Times being what they are, I’m going to stop the analogy right there.) This roll might have been brought in by a guest cook, or left over from the folks who sold us our house. It’s different… tightly wound rather than loose and flabby like those supersized lumberjack rolls. And instead of the end of the roll lolling loose, or spewing sheets across the kitchen if I have an mishap, it tucks itself in, somehow clinging to its base until it’s needed.

The other day I had a spill and grabbed for a towel off this roll and to my surprise it did a great job cleaning up and held its shape while I was wringing out and could have returned for another wipe. I realized I had a paper towel crush. And a google for “paper towel that clings to the roll” quickly revealed her name was Viva, a Kimberly-Clark brand. I had to get some more! Viva is surprisingly hard to find at retail,  but I picked up a single roll for $1.99 at Hannaford and confirmed this was indeed the paper product of my dreams.

One (critical) Amazon reviewer described Viva as “like cleaning with a Hermes handkerchief” while another (positive) reviewer said it was “soft enough to blow your nose if you need to, but strong enough to soak up spills and dirt and still be rinsable for reuse.” I’m so happy with this discovery that I’m proclaiming Viva the official paper towel of Burnt My Fingers. No, they haven’t paid me a cent, though maybe when they read this they’ll toss a roll or two my way.

Best way to buy is probably this 24-pack from Amazon which currently costs around $1.20 per roll. That’s under $30, shipped with Prime, for enough paper towels to mop up a year’s worth of spills and (thanks to the static-cling feature) make next Halloween’s mummy costume. What are you wanting for? Go get some now!

 

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Take the white sauce challenge!

Posted on January 16, 2018 by Burnt My Fingers
White Sauce

Not yet Halal Guys white sauce

The other night I made shish kabob and wanted some white sauce to drizzle on the accompanying pilaf. You know, like the Halal Guys white sauce dished out from their truck in Manhattan. But not exactly. I also wanted it to be light and refreshing like a traditional Greek tsadziki (but without the pureed cucumber which makes it too watery). And it wouldn’t be bad if it had a family resemblance to the garlic spread (thicker than a sauce) at Goood Frickin’ Chicken in San Francisco.

For my baseline effort I assembled ½ c mayo, ¼ c greek yoghurt, 1 very large garlic clove, 2 T white vinegar, ½ dried dill weed and a pinch each of sumac and white pepper. Whirled until puréed with an immersion blender. The result was too thin, but otherwise not bad at all. Use it as a starting point if you would like to play along; we will be returning to this challenge periodically during 2018.

By the way, if you want to have some Internet fun google “Halal Guys White Sauce Recipe”. You will be delighted with the range of emollients and spices in these experiments, many apparently goaded on by the Halal Guys themselves. It isn’t actually that great a sauce to begin with, so we definitely will do better.

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Food for Thought: Ottolenghi on Kindle

Posted on January 12, 2018 by Burnt My Fingers

The other day I discovered that Yotam Ottolenghi’s eponymous first book is just $2.99 in the Kindle edition. What a great deal! This book did not get the attention of his two subsequent books, Jerusalem and Plenty, but it’s loaded with good stuff and is in many ways more accessible because it’s a pastiche of recipes served at his restaurant, not all of them Middle Eastern, in general using more familiar ingredients.

For example, here’s an adaptation of “Cucumber and poppy seed salad”: peel, halve and core 1 lb (2 large) cucumbers then cut on the bias into 1-inch slices. Mix with two mild long red chilis, seeded and cut lengthwise into thin strips; if you can’t find such peppers, substitute 1/2 red bell pepper cut into thin strips. Add 3 T finely chopped cilantro, 1/2 c safflower or other mild oil, 4 T rice vinegar, 2 T sugar, 2 T poppyseed. Mix thoroughly then add salt and pepper to taste. Serve immediately; if any is left over drain the liquid that will accumulate before serving. See? Easy and good!

I think in general Kindle cookbooks are more practical than paper because you can prop up your tablet in an accessible but safe location and refer to it as you cook. A couple of my chef friends disagree; they like the tactile pleasure of the physical book. But I think they would then adapt the recipes to their own method rather than following them to the degree a home cook would.

Anyway, Ottolenghi on Kindle is such a great bargain you”ll have money left over to get the hardcover if you like. Check it out!

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Recipe: Mom’s Tangy Lemon Bars

Posted on January 9, 2018 by Burnt My Fingers
Tangy Lemon Bars

Mom’s Tangy Lemon Bars. You can blot the top with a paper towel while still warm to remove the froth, but I like it the way it is.

My mother loved the lemon bars from Putnam Market in Saratoga Springs, so in honor of her 100th birthday I whipped up a close approximation based on a recipe from Alice Medrich. These are really easy to make and very, very good. Makes 16 two-bite bars.

Ingredients:
1 stick (8 T) unsalted butter, melted
2 T sugar
3/4 t vanilla extract
1/4 t salt
1 c AP flour

For the topping:
1 c + 2 T sugar
3 T AP flour
3 large eggs
1 1/2 t finely grated lemon zest*
1/2 c fresh squeezed lemon juice, strained**

Method: Line an 8×8 inch baking pan with parchment paper. Preheat oven to 350 degrees with a rack in the bottom third. Melt butter and mix in vanilla, 2 T sugar, salt and 1 C flour. Transfer this crust/batter to the baking pan and use a spoon or your fingers to spread it so the pan is evenly covered to the edges. Bake 25-30 minutes until edges are brown and center is a golden brown.

Lemon Bars

Lemon Bars after slicing

While the crust is baking, whisk eggs until well beaten and mix in other ingredients. After the crust is done, lower oven temperature to 300, pull out oven rack for access and pour lemon/egg mixture over crust. Bake 20-25 minutes until eggs are firm and no longer jiggly. Cool completely before slicing into 16 2-inch squares or larger or smaller bars as you wish. Medrich advises that if you don’t want a foamy top (as pictured) you can blot gently with a paper towel and you can also sift on powdered sugar.

*This is a lot of lemon zest, harvested from two good-sized lemons using a microplane. But don’t stint because this is key to the recipe.
**You can also substitute Lakewood Organic Lemon Juice for some or all of the fresh squeezed lemon juice.

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Recipe: Pickled Turnips Mediterranean-style

Posted on January 4, 2018 by Burnt My Fingers
Pickled Turnips

Pickled Turnips Mediterranean-Style

The pickled turnips at Falafel’s Drive-In in Cupertino, CA were so good I’d order extras on the side. Here’s my re-creation, with help from the Jerusalem cookbook. (I’ve tweaked Ottolenghi’s recipe which I feel is not sour enough.) A good accompaniment to hummus or shish kabob, or as a component of a mezze platter.

Ingredients:
2-3 lbs turnips of similar size
1 medium or 2 small beets
1/2 jalapeño, sliced thin (optional)
1 3/4 c distilled white vinegar
3 c water
Kosher salt

Method: peel the turnips and beets and cut into 1-inch chunks. Place in a non-reactive bowl and sprinkle with 1 T salt, then toss with spoon or with your hands (which will turn pink) till all surfaces are coated. Cover with a plate and cure overnight. The next day, transfer the vegetables and their juices to a large jar. Add chiles and 3 T salt, then vinegar and water; close the jar and shake to dissolve the salt. Add more water and vinegar in a ratio of 7 parts vinegar to 12 parts water to cover the vegetables. Place in a well-lit spot for 4 days. The pickles will be ready when they have a nice tang and no longer taste raw. Will keep in refrigerator for a couple of months.

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