Breakfast Of Champions

I had some tasty things at Roberta's last night, most notably a spicy ramp pizza featuring charred ramps.  (In their cheeky way, they called the pizza the Stephen Hawking, a tart joke I didn't exactly find funny.)  Afterwards, I stopped at a deserted Italian ice store in Maspeth--fyi, driving to Bushwick is easier than taking the train--and had myself a rainbow ice like the kind my dad used to buy me at the Park Slope pizza joints when I was six or seven.  But enough about that. 

When I woke up and tried to convince my boyfriend to take me out to brunch, he countered with a request for breakfast in bed.  Um, no.  I do NOT like the idea of food anywhere near my clean sheets.  But I did agree to raid the fridge and make breakfast/brunch for us both. 

I had three eggs.  I whisked them together with a little half and half (no milk in the house), some sea salt and cracked black pepper.  In a small frying pan, I heated some chopped prawns, asparagus, and red chili oil leftover from Chinese takeout night (Tuesday).  I added the eggs and, voila.  Spicy shrimp scrambled eggs.  

Next up, pork belly fried rice.  I chopped the leftover sliced pork belly and also used the chili oil from that dish to start the sautee.  Then I added a carton of brown rice and cooked it until the rice began to adhere to the bottom of the pan.  In Spanish cooking, the burnt brown ends are considered the prize of the paella.  

Finally, I threw halved whole-wheat English muffins under the broiler until they were just short of black.  These I served with kimchi butter that I bought at Momofuku Milk Bar last Sunday.  The kimchi butter was spicy.  It also had rendered bacon in it (I kind of feel like they should have told me this before, but whatever).  My companion claimed it tasted like a Slim Jim.  I'm not sure if I disagree, but it doesn't really matter; it was still good.  

Asian leftovers may be the best equipment for a spontaneous meal, assuming you can handle the spice in the morning.  As for me, I have an iron stomach.  

Wedding Gift

My cousin, who would never by any stretch of the imagination consider herself a foodie and who does not, for all intents and purposes, enjoy cooking, is getting married.  She's getting married to a man who kinda cooks but neither one of them feels this pull towards the kitchen the way I do.  They don't like getting their hands dirty. 

I decided that part of my wedding gift to my cousin would be cooking lessons.  She could choose the dish and I would teach her easy techniques, how to cook without recipes, and how to work with what you have.  I actually chose the first dish because I knew it would be something she'd like and because I knew we'd need a little advance preparation for lesson one.  

I chose chicken parm.  But part of my goal here is to turn ordinary dishes into really good dishes and, as an extension of that, to make empirically unhealthy dishes very healthy.  So the first thing I made her do was make breadcrumbs.  By hand. 

I wouldn't have made her crush the crumbs by hand if she'd had a food processor, but she didn't.  So, instead, I told her to toast four pieces of whole-wheat bread to deep brown, a firm toast.  She removed them from the oven and broke them into crumbs with her hands.  We mixed that wheat crumb mixture with a quarter cup of fresh grated parmesan cheese, good old Italian seasoning from the bottle, salt, and pepper.  

She said, "We have tons of tomato sauce in the cabinet."  I said, "You're going to learn to make your own."  I showed her how to chop a shallot and how to bruise garlic with the back of a knife.  I added a tablespoon of olive oil to the bottom of a saucepan and sweated the two down.  "This is what they are supposed to look like," I told her.  

"Clear?" she asked. 

Exactly. 

Next up, two large cans of peeled Italian tomatoes, salt, pepper, wine (I brought a Chianti), a few tablespoons of balsamic vinegar, a tiny bit of sugar (I would have used agave nectar, had I thought better of it), fresh basil, and fresh oregano.  They had no bay leaves so I skipped the step.  I left the pot uncovered.  She asked if the sauce was supposed to be shrinking.  I said that was exactly what I wanted it to do. 

We bought a head of broccoli.  She had never cooked fresh broccoli before.  "Break off the florets," I told her.  "Put them on a baking dish."  Her engagement gift spice rack of filled spices gave us chili powder, coriander seeds, and cumin.  She covered the broccoli with, admittedly, a little too much olive oil.  I sprinkled the spices on top.  

I told her to separate three eggs.  She knew how to do this.  We seasoned the egg whites and dipped the chicken breasts in them.  The breasts went from egg to breadcrumbs to baking pan and into a 350 degree oven along with the broccoli. 

"You're going to make your own salad dressing," I told her.  She scooped a teaspoon of dijon mustard into a bowl and added a few tablespoons of balsamic vinegar.  

"Give me the whisk," I said.  

"I don't have one," she told me.  

"I'm looking at one," I said.  

"Oh.  I didn't know we had that."  

I taught her to emulsify.  "Pour while I whisk," I said.  "The mustard helps bind the oil to the vinegar to the oil, since vinegar and oil constantly want to separate."  I added salt and pepper and put the dressing to the side. 

Next up, garlic toasts.  I minced four cloves of garlic and heated them in a saucepan with a few turns of olive oil and three tablespoons of a low-cholesterol butter spread the had in the house (good for consistency and only 50 calories per tablespoon).  I added a chiffonade of basil and oregano.  When the mixture was just short of a simmer, I took it off the heat and spooned it over three split whole-wheat English muffins,  and put the muffins inside the toaster.  

Thirty minutes into cooking time on the chicken, I removed the trays, topped the breast with thinly sliced fresh mozzarella, basil leaves, oregano leaves, and an ample helping of the tomato sauce.  I returned the chicken to the oven to melt and continue cooking.  

We served the chicken parm, which, by the way, tasted unhealthy enough, with whole-wheat pasta, our garlic toasts, a simple salad, and the roasted broccoli.  Both my cousin and her fiance seemed amazed that we had conquered it all on our own without screwing up.  My cousin was particularly impressed with my refusal to go by any book or recipe.  I told her that all you need is a general understanding of how things work and you can succeed in the kitchen.  

But the real problem was that she viewed the product of cooking--the actual meal--as the point, and I don't abide by that philosophy.  For me, the trip to the market, the creative process, the time getting my hands dirty, these are all therapeutic elements in and of themselves.  I enjoy the whole process of cooking, from start to finish.  I like knowing that I can be inspired by produce at a grocery store and that cooking doesn't always mean being armed with an ingredient list or a list of instructions.  

I was hoping that bringing her in touch with her food would inspire in her a new desire to want to cook, to want to create things that she could be proud of.  And she did take pride in the accomplishment of the completed meal.  I'm still hoping that the result of this ongoing project will be an increased drive to get her hands dirty, to love food a little more than she currently does.  On that point, the jury is still out.  Stay tuned.  

I'm No Harold McGee

But man, do I work hard with what I have.  

On Monday, I walked down to one of the fish markets on 30th Avenue, looking for bay scallops.  The first market I happened upon was selling the baby scallops, for a paltry $5.99/lb.  Yes, you read that right.  I paid a scant $3.00 for my half pound of bays.  

Next door, I hit up the vegetable market, allowing myself to succumb to whatever looked fresh.  That afternoon, it was baby bok choy, tiny yukon gold potatoes, green beans, fresh shitake mushrooms, and one hearty leek.  

At home, I made foil packets and chopped the veggies (minus the green beans, which I steamed separately, and the potatoes, which I boiled until fork-tender) and tossed them with toasted sesame oil, salt, pepper, ground ginger, tamari, olive oil, and rice wine vinegar.  I sliced the cooked potatoes and added them to the mix.  Finally, I seasoned the scallops, divided them between two packets, and added them to the veggies with a healthy pour of sake.  I sealed the pouches and put them in a 400 degree oven for just under 30 minutes.  

Here's the thing: the veggies steamed perfectly and the scallops were cooked through and just short of turning rubbery.  And the veggies tasted good, though I should have added more salt at the start.  But the scallops?  They were terrible.  Inedible.  So fishy that I couldn't understand why I hadn't noticed it before I'd cooked them.  

Bay scallops are generally sweeter than divers, but these reeked of bad and still salt water.  I had to throw the half pound away to salvage the vegetables, which, now lacking protein, didn't provide as satisfying a meal as I'd originally hoped.  

Well.  You can't win them all.  Last night, I opted for foods that were already in my refrigerator.  I mixed ground chicken (leftover from last week's stuffed peppers) with worcestershire sauce, salt, pepper, minced onion, and minced garlic and formed them into two patties.  I cut two russet potatoes, skin-on, into thick fries and tossed them with olive oil, kosher salt, and fresh-ground pepper.  I put the patties and the fries on a baking sheet and in a 400 degree oven and left them for 15 minutes.  In the meantime, I sauteed wide rings of Spanish onion in a little olive oil, allowing them to char on the bottom.  Then, I added ketchup, Frank's hot sauce, and molasses.  Cooks beware: tomato products burn on high heat, but this was what I was looking for, a variation on a barbecue sauce replete with the burnt taste of actual barbecue.  

I flipped the chicken burgers and fries and kept them in another 10 minutes or so, long enough for the juice to run clear from the burgers' center (you can't cook ground chicken to medium-rare; it has to be cooked through).  I ate the burger atop a whole-wheat English muffin with those ketchupy onions and a half-sour pickle. 

I'm not blaming myself for the fiasco that was scallops-gone-bad.  I honestly believe it was quality of product that marked this dish's failure.  Next time, I'll hit up a different fish market.  As for the chicken burgers, I'll keep that fly-by-night recipe for later low-fat use.