Best. Burger. Ever.

Of course, the healthy eating resolution went right out the window the next day when we wanted burgers.  I've made fancy asian-style chicken burgers and italian-style turkey burgers, but never really perfected the classic beef burger. For a dish that is seemingly so simple, it was always something I'd order outside.  I think, besides good ingredients, it's much more about the technique than the crazy toppings all these new places are advertising.  It feels like every other week there's a new burger joint opening in my neighborhood - all claiming to be the best and "most famous."  But I think the best may be this one from Julia Child.  

The key is sautéing shallots in a little butter and mixing that into the ground beef.  For condiments, we kept it simple with American cheese (2 slices), pickles and some more of that whole grain mustard I'm growing very fond of.  And I mustn't forget to mention the potato rolls.  YUM.

A New Year

I'm ashamed at how long it's been since I've updated.  The last year was full of events that required more of my attention that I normally would have spent experimenting with recipes and exotic ingredients.  But this year has been off to a good start, in more ways than one.  New inspiration to cook new things, a new someone to share them with. M says food isn't sold for the single person.  Which is true, unless you count frozen food.  The good thing about buying fish is you can get just the amount you need.  To start the year off right with an attempt at healthy eating, I bought salmon for the first time at the local international supermarket.  Served over a bed of quinoa and bok choy, it sure beat Celeste pizza for one.

The salmon was almost ridiculously easy.  For two, I bought 3/4lb fresh salmon.  Season with salt and pepper and a squeeze of lemon juice.  Then make small cuts throughout the fish and insert thin slices of garlic.  Spread a good whole grain mustard over the top and drizzle with olive oil.  Bake in a preheated oven at 375 degrees for about 15-20 minutes until the center is opaque.

Ingredients:

3/4 lb salmon

salt and pepper to taste

lemon juice

2 cloves or garlic

whole grain mustard

olive oil

Comfort Food

I've been bad. It's been almost two months and I've done enough cooking to fill up an entry each day. Something my friends and I have been noticing, is that Christmas commercials have started earlier and earlier each year. I think the first one I saw was out before Halloween. Not that I don't like Christmas, it's always been a special holiday for me, though as I get older it's more bittersweet than the sheer joy it was when I was a kid. But by the time Christmas comes around and you've been watching the layaway commercials since mid-October and hearing music in the stores since before Thanksgiving, you're just sick of it. And that's wrong. So this year, I decided to embrace the long holiday season, which has led to me being so busy cooking and baking I haven't had the energy to post. I baked and brined my first turkey. (Pictures to come). I've made dozens and dozens of cookies and still dozens more to go. But what I'm going to leave you with are two comfort foods I've managed to successfully recreate, despite my fear of attempting Chinese cuisine. Just to give you a break from all the Christmas cheer.



The first is chee cheong fun. Thin wide rice noodles rolled up, steamed and so delicious with a hoisin/peanut sauce, tabasco and sesame seeds on top. A memory from my childhood, where for $1 you would go to a tiny food cart in Chinatown and get a little styrofoam box full of these noodles. These carts seem to have disappeared, but you can still by the noodles plain to flavor yourself. But I wanted to see if I could make them from scratch.

The second are soy sauce eggs. Basically hard boil eggs, remove the shells, and simmer submerged in a broth of lots of light soy, dark soy, brown sugar and slices of ginger. You will never think of a hard boiled egg the same way.

Gougères (Cheese Puffs)

Cheese puffs. Need I say more? Okay, maybe a little. I've been wanting to make pate a choux for awhile. It's a versatile dough that can be used for savory or sweet treats (cream puffs anyone?) I prefer savory, and had some gruyere in the fridge and made my version of David Lebovitz's gougères. I made mine about the size of a donut munchkin, so I ended up with half the batch than his recipe, and within a few minutes out of the oven, they were almost gone.

Tomato Tart Take 2

For someone who once said she hated tomatoes, I've been buying them a lot this past summer. They're growing on me. I think it's to blame on a first bad experience with a watery, flavorless tomato as a child who mistook it for watermelon, bad watermelon. So the idea of watermelon tomato salad kind of disturbs me. I like tomato sauce (homemade), sundried tomatoes, salsa, so what's the deal? I figured with all the flavorless tomatoes out there, I've only liked them when the flavor is concentrated enough to be what a tomato should be - acidic and sweet at the same time. And so I must cook them.

This is a second attempt at my tomato tart from two posts ago. The crust is exactly the same but I didn't take any short cuts this time and it came out completely different - that is to say, what a tart crust should be. After skimming through a long article on how to make pie crusts, I learned that to make a flakier crust, you need to mix in the water by hand. Last time, I cheated and cut the butter into the flour with the food processor, and just poured the water/egg in til the dough formed. But that resulted in a dense, albeit, tasty crust that was more like a cookie than pastry. This time, I still used the food processor to cut the cold butter into the flour, but removed to a separate bowl to mix in the water. And with my fancy new non-stick tart pan, I successfully made my first tart crust. To make things interesting, I changed up the filling with pesto, gruyere cheese and tomatoes and it was like a fancy pizza. Who would've known I'd be drooling over tomatoes.

Chicken and Rice for the Soul

I bought a giant family pack of chicken breast this weekend to make soup for a cold that snuck up on me Friday night. The soup was good, flavorful and comforting. The most soothing part of making it, I think, was sitting around actually relaxing while my first homemade stock simmered away. I followed some of Barefoot Contessa's recipe, minus the whole chicken, since bone-in skin on chicken breasts were cheaper. And my cold is gone! Coincidence?

With about 3 pounds of chicken left, I was worried I wouldn't be able to use it up in time. Then it hit me, of course, chicken and rice! The infamous late night meal of clubbgoers found almost everywhere in New York, but non-existant anywhere else. Within the past year, more recipes have popped up on the internet for a dish that can't be found anywhere but a New York street cart. I tried out a recipe I found on Huffington Post because it had tons of spices which would mean tons of flavor. It was very tasty, especially the yogurt based "white sauce," but I didn't use dark meat like the streets cart do, and did not marinate overnight, two things that I think would have made my dish taste even more authentic. Something to try next time! And find a recipe for the hot sauce. Not to say it was all for nothing, because there are no leftovers today.

Tarts

It's been a little while, so excuse me as I bombard you with photos of food! I finally started using my food processor, so recipes that I've been collecting that called for one have been on the top of my list. Above is a free form tomato tart from David Lebowitz's blog. It was my first "tart" dough and came together SO easy with a food processor. I am in need of a tart pan, so I made it free form as he suggests. It was very tasty with some heirloom tomatoes from the Union Square Farmer's Market, and the dough was still crispy despite the tomatoes sitting on top. My only qualm was the crust wound up being more like a cookie crust than the flakier one you might expect in a tart.



The second photo is my version of the classic quiche lorrraine adapted from Smitten Kitchen. The dough was similar to the tomato tart, but was harder to handle as it kept crumbling when I was putting it in the pie plate. It also came out more cookie-like and dense, possibly a result of over rolling the dough. It was pretty tasty considering 1) I substituted organic skim milk for the usual heavy cream and 2) I forgot to put the cheese (gruyere) IN the egg mixture so wound up sprinkling it on top near the end. I think next time, I'm going to have to give in try the heavy cream...



Lastly, after a semi-successful first quiche attempt, I tried this insanely easy plum clafouti recipe. This was my first clafouti and thankfully, does not require a tart crust, and it came out great. All you have to do is slice the plums, and mix the rest of the ingredients in one bowl, pour over and pop into the over for about an hour, and voila! It looks much more impressive than the effort and made me feel a bit better about the quiche lorraine faux pas of earlier in the day.