Smoked Salmon Burgers and Not-Ciabatta

Posted on January 20, 2013 by Chelsea

In 2009, as N. and I were working through the Oral Examination phase of our graduate program – one of the most difficult aspects, as far as I’m concerned – a little restaurant opened on the south side of town. Sharing space with a small bakery called the Humble Bagel, and run by the bagel shop owners’ daughter Anni and her husband Ari, the Humble Beagle quickly became our favorite restaurant in Eugene. The feel is an intriguing blend: casual neighborhood gastropub, seasonal local food, layered with Israeli influence. Macaroni and cheese, Caesar salad with amazingly lemony dressing, or penne with fresh pesto share menu space with shakshuka, house made pita, and lamb pizza dolloped with labneh. In the summer, weekly specials are determined by what is producing best in Ari and Anni’s backyard garden. In the winter, Ari makes his own pastrami and quick pickled cabbage for their take on a reuben. The beers on tap are mostly from Oregon, and even the soft drink selection is carefully chosen for its local, natural ingredients. The check comes with homemade, sugar dusted shortbread cookies. It’s a pretty good example of the slow food movement in delicious action. If you want a quick meal, don’t bother. You’ll be there at least two hours. If you want a place to bring your sixteen unannounced relatives, don’t show up without reservations. This is a small, local pub, not a diner or high volume chain. If you want tasty, thoughtful, belly-warming food at a relaxed pace, get in your car right now. For a while, as N. and I neared the dates of our respective exams, we were going to the Beagle every Friday evening for dinner. Almost without exception, I got the Fisherman’s Stew, a lovely collection of shellfish and moist, flaky halibut in a tomato and fennel broth with garlic aioli melting achingly over the top. We could barely afford the luxury of these weekly visits, but we also couldn’t stay away.

The Beagle entertained us for the next three years. We went there for birthdays – N.’s 30^th, when Ari let me bring a cake I’d made at home, gave me the biggest chef’s knife I’ve ever seen to slice and serve it, and then took a leftover piece back to the kitchen where he shared it with the cooks. We went there for the yearly day-after-Thanksgiving meal with my family. One year, fifteen minutes into the meal we were the only patrons, and it was like our own private restaurant. Ari came out and told us stories about his family’s holiday, and we were suddenly not in a restaurant anymore, but in the home of our friend. We went there for dinner after my dissertation defense too, and even though we ended up being an annoying group – people arriving late and leaving early, special menu substitutions and requests, perhaps slightly-too-boisterous behavior – our server said it was okay, and that Ari had told him we were royalty.

On their Summer 2010 menu, the Beagle introduced an item I was instantly drawn to and still haven’t gotten enough of: the Smoked Chinook Patty. This was a salmon burger on fresh ciabatta (made in the bakery next door), but what pulled me in was its blend of fresh and smoked salmon. It’s immediately richer, deeper, brinier than any other salmon patty I’ve tasted.

This week, needing both a new dough challenge and a taste of that chilly, rain-soaked, allergen-laden city I still think of as home, I decided a recreation was in order.

The Beagle’s patty comes on freshly made, perfectly crusted, well-toasted ciabatta rolls. Looking in Ruhlman’s Ratio this week, I noted that the only difference he gives between ciabatta and a standard baguette or boule is the shape and cooking time. This seemed promising and so, despite my claims last week about fear and being unready, I decided to dive in. What else is a Thursday morning for?

I dutifully mixed, then kneaded, bread flour, water, yeast, and salt. I tore off a chunk to perform the windowpane test, and I cuddled my ball of smooth, elastic dough in an oiled bowl to rest and rise.

Ruhlman doesn’t give any suggestion of how long to bake individual ciabatta rolls, only a full loaf, so I went to the internet for help. I quickly discovered that what I was making wasn’t going to be the bread I’d had in mind: the tremendous bubbles that bake into cavernous holes, the flour-dusted, almost gravely crunch of the crust, and the soft, perfectly chewy texture of the interior are achieved through a slightly different ratio of ingredients, and a more involved process, as this article on The Kitchn depicts. Since I was starting on the day of baking and didn’t have a biga waiting in the wings, I was just going to have to work with my mix.

Ultimately, though what resulted was more like a super crunchy, slightly flat mini boule, it was crisp and buttery golden delicious and an excellent vehicle for the smoky/briny/rich/tastes-like-home burger it enclosed.

Not-Ciabatta

10 ounces bread flour (or 2 cups)

6 ounces warm water

1 teaspoon salt

½ teaspoon active dry yeast

Sprinkle the yeast over the surface of the water and set it aside for five minutes or so to come back to life.

While you wait, whisk flour and salt in a mixing bowl. Make a little well in the center and pour in the yeasted water. If using a stand mixer, beat with the paddle attachment just until things come together, then switch to the dough hook and knead at medium speed for 10 minutes. I had never executed this switch between tools before, but it worked really well.

After 10 minutes, the dough should be stretchy and lovely and firm, and all traces of unincorporated flour on the sides of the bowl will be gone. Do the windowpane test to see if the bread is ready. If it’s not, continue kneading. If it is, transfer the ball of dough to a lightly oiled bowl and place in a warm, draft-free place to rise. I like to put it in an oven that’s been warmed for five minutes, then turned off for five minutes.

Let the dough rise until doubled in size – mine took 1 hour and 45 minutes.

Punch down the dough gently and then knead it on a floured board for a minute or two to deflate it a bit.

Let it rest for 15 minutes.

At this point, divide the dough, shape it into the bun shapes you want, and let it rise on an oiled baking sheet for another 1½ – 2 hours. I ended up with seven mismatched, homely little balls, but I lovingly covered them with a clean kitchen towel and went about my business. (I think I went about my business a bit too long – 2 hours became almost 3½, and the resulting buns didn’t puff much during baking because they’d expended so much of their rising power as they sat on my counter.)

When the buns have risen again, drizzle them with olive oil and bake in a preheated 450F oven for 10 minutes, then turn the heat down to 375F and continue baking for another 20 minutes, or until golden brown and done in the center (with a full-size loaf you can thump the bottom and if it sounds hollow it’s done, but I suspect these are too small to yield satisfying results with this method. Since I had 7, I just tore into one to see if it was done, and when it was, I ate it. No one else has to know).

Set aside to cool while you make the salmon patties.

Smoked Salmon Burgers

These are robust in flavor but, especially if you are using canned salmon, must be handled with some delicacy to prevent breakage. They are, I think, a perfect blend: rich, fatty salmon, salty smoky deepness, and the sour zesty bite of capers and lemon. If you don’t want to bother with the buns, you could certainly encase these in crisp leaves of butter lettuce.

15 oz. canned salmon, picked through and bones removed, or about 1 lb. fresh, finely chopped

4-6 oz. smoked salmon, flaked with a fork

2 cloves garlic, *pasted with salt or grated

3 green onions, finely diced

1 TB capers, minced

1 TB fresh dill, minced

1 tsp each lemon zest and lemon juice

Pepper to taste

1 egg, lightly beaten

If you are using canned salmon, combine all ingredients except the egg and taste for seasoning. That way your mixture is perfectly seasoned before adding raw egg to the party. You will likely not need any additional salt, because the smoked salmon and capers are briny already, and if you paste your garlic you will already be adding salt to the mixture.

If you are using fresh salmon, combine all ingredients, mix well, and then fry about a tablespoon of the mixture until cooked through to taste for seasoning.

*To paste the garlic, mince cloves, then sprinkle with salt. Using firm pressure, draw the blade of your knife across the garlic on the board several times. It will begin to lose its integrity as the salt breaks it down, until you are left with a paste that is much easier to incorporate into your salmon mixture.

When it is seasoned to your liking, quarter the mixture and form four equal sized patties of 3-4 inches in diameter. Pop these in the refrigerator for at least half an hour to let them firm up and meld – they will hold together in the pan much better this way.

Before cooking, let your refrigerated patties stand at room temperature for about 10 minutes, just to take the chill off.

Warm olive oil in a skillet over medium heat and gently fry the patties. They should take 5-8 minutes per side. Cooking time will depend upon whether you have used canned or fresh salmon and how plump your patties are.

To serve, enclose in buns lovingly with some spring mix and your choice of condiments. I suggest horseradish or wasabi mayonnaise. If you had homemade mayonnaise that would be a lovely splurge here.

We had ours with paprika spiced kale chips, but to really get the Beagle experience you would need to serve with garlic French fries.

Starstruck

Posted on September 29, 2012 by Chelsea

As I mentioned a few weeks ago, it hasn’t fully sunk in yet that I live in Los Angeles now. Funny little happenstances keep reminding me, and I’m stunned into bemused awareness. This didn’t happen when I lived in Orange County as a teenager. We were far enough from the big city with its food, music and fame scene, and I was distant enough in age to care, or even be aware of, what living near LA could mean.

Now that I’m a bit closer physically and chronologically, what it mostly means to me is food. Yesterday as I sat cloistered in my home office, commenting on what seemed like an endless stream of papers, my phone gave that delightfully insistent buzz that means someone from the outside world has contacted me. It was our friend J., asking if we wanted to go and grab burgers with him and one of his local friends. Dinner out? On a Friday? Meaning I wouldn’t have to tackle the embarrassing state of my kitchen just yet? Not to mention another culinary and – what would be the right word, perhaps libationary? – joyride around our new city? Yes, please.

J. showed up at our house around six and whisked us off to Plan Check Kitchen and Bar, a new-ish little burger and brew style gastropub in the Little Osaka area of West LA, where we would have dinner with him and his friend T. They have a short menu, mostly meat, but with interesting Asian flavor accents – wasabi, yuzu, and dashi creeping up in unexpected places.

I ordered the Bleuprint Burger, a patty of wagyu beef piled with smoked bleu cheese, brown sugar baked bacon they call, perfectly, “pig candy,” fried onions, roasted garlic steak sauce, and peppercress. My dining mates all got the standard: the Plan Check Burger, featuring a curious substance Plan Check calls “ketchup leather,” and a dashi-infused “Americanized” cheese, which I think meant cheddar mixed with garlic and some fish stock to smooth it out and add extra umami flavor. On the side, the table shared sweet potato fries cooked in beef tallow, served with a sweet peach ketchup, and veggie chips – perfectly crispy wafer thin slices of yam and yucca and who knows what else, paired with a slightly spicy, velvet smooth avocado cream.

Dinner was fantastic. I haven’t had a really good, moist burger cooked at an actual medium (the temperature I requested) in a long time. I drank a tangerine wheat beer with it (the name of the brewery escapes me, but somewhere in California), and it was a nice accompaniment.

While I was away from the table for a moment, somehow the conversation changed from food to, well, food. But virtual food. In fact, televised food. T., through a previous job, knows one of the guys from the company and food truck project Seoul Sausage, currently being featured on The Great Food Truck Race.

“I think they are opening a storefront,” he said, while my eyes bugged out of my head. “It’s just on Mississippi. We should go see if they’re open.”

Bye-bye, burger. It’s sausage time.

We ambled the blocks along Sawtelle separating us from Mississippi. T. pointed out which restaurants along the way were worth checking out which, as it turns out, is most of them. I tried to make mental notes but I was feeling overwhelmed by the amount of delicious knowledge I was receiving. N. and I will just have to go back. Many times.

We turned the corner onto Mississippi and there, at the end of a short collection of shops, was Seoul Sausage Co. And it was open. Without knowing it, we had stumbled across a secret mini launch they had announced only on their website and on Twitter, and there were all three of the boys behind the counter, and suddenly I was being introduced and ordering one of the flaming fried balls they developed on the show.

I know I should be talking about the food here, but I was so starstruck I couldn’t stop grinning my way around the little space. The guys were, as I had imagined but never even hoped to find out, super friendly and happy to see us – and everyone else who stopped in – and being very properly and apologetically closed-mouthed about the results of the show (the finale is tomorrow – Sunday, at 9pm). N. chatted them up about beer, encouraging them to carry Ninkasi if it ever appeared on their radars. I couldn’t help but mumble something about how I hoped they would/had/did/whatever-it-is-taped-tv-is-so-confusing win before I gave into the beautiful, sizzling-hot fried riceball they handed me.

It was delightful. Delicate rice in the middle mixed with cheese, spices, and who knows what else. Crisp breaded crust around the outside, and a slightly spicy sauce squeezed over the top. It reminded me of the kind of sauce you get on certain spicy sushi rolls, and it paired so nicely with the rice. This is an excellent late night snack, and N. and I assured them we would be back again after their official opening next week. I was halfway through my little after-dinner snack before I remember that, despite my unwise choice to venture out on a Los Angeles food adventure without my camera, I do have a smart phone fully capable of capturing an image.

Flaming fried balls conquered, and me still in some disbelief that we had just been to Seoul Sausage and met the guys in charge (I wanted to know everything but asked nothing: what was Tyler Florence like? Were you getting all those truck stop phone calls at once, or did he call each truck one at a time? What did you think of Nonna’s Kitchenette? Did you win? Did you win? Did you win?) we stepped back out into the night (which we were surprised to learn was still so young – only 8pm yet) and resurfaced at the Formosa Café in West Hollywood to share a round of drinks. I asked for a lemon drop, but the bartender mixed me a vodka daisy instead because he likes the flavor better, and so did I. Vodka daisy with a sugared rim is apparently my new cocktail of choice.

As we belted ourselves into J.’s car again, he asked if we minded swinging by Canter’s delicatessen on Fairfax. He wanted a pastrami sandwich for the road back to Orange County, and of course we obliged. Once inside, I was attracted not to the sandwiches, but to the bakery counter, where my taste buds immediately performed their own version of the honey bee’s waggle dance to communicate a single word: éclair. N. wandered up behind me and asked if I was going to get anything, and as I gazed at the shelves packed with donuts, cookies, babka, danishes, chocolate studded croissants, cheesecakes, a big layer cake with the word “rum” frosted in chocolate across the top, all I could think about was an éclair.

And there they were. On the bottom shelf. Thick, ganache-glossed masterpieces. My eyes were bugging out again, I could feel it. With my new little treasure safely enclosed in a pink bakery box and tucked under my arm, all was right with the world. When I dug in, gentle fork pressure forcing the thick, sweet pastry cream out across my plate, the world was more than right. The dough was tender-crisp, and if I’m honest it may have been moving a bit toward staleness after a day on the shelf, but the flavor of the custard and the ganache more than made up for it. It was a stellar dessert for a starstruck evening.

Milestones. And Cake. And Salad.

Posted on September 23, 2012 by Chelsea

This September has been a big one for me. New home (okay, so we technically moved in July), new job (okay, so school started in August), and new decade! I’ve finally hit my 30s, and I like what I see so far (though admittedly I’ve only been stationed in this new world for two weeks).

Given my fanciful proclivities for putting food in my mouth, then, N. knows that my birthday must involve a restaurant in some form. Since we are only just beginning to explore our new culinary surroundings, this was a perfect opportunity to embark on our adventures. I started with Culver City which, delightfully, has a whole webpage devoted to its downtown restaurants, including (in most cases) links to each restaurant’s website. This was almost too much. I spent the better part of an evening cruising through online menus, imagining what kind of mood I might be in on the big day and what I might want to order and what, if the restaurant I ultimately chose should happen to be out of my top choice, I would order instead.

Based on menus and Yelp reviews, I decided on Fords Filling Station (FFS), whose upscale comfort food and wide range of offerings sounded promising. I tend to like mid-range restaurants: not too fancy, where a prix fixe menu or outstandingly high prices make me feel like a grubby graduate student out of place (I know, I’m not anymore. But it’s a hard habit to break in this new world of adulthood and employment), but not too casual either, where the food is sub-par or inconsistent and the wait staff makes no pretense of caring about our presence. A gastropub – a self-proclaimed innovative collection of food, decor, and atmosphere – seemed like the right fit.

FFS is a fun spot. It’s centrally located downtown, and the dining room is a big open space with a bar to one side, traditional tables, and long narrow two-tops where the couple sits on a bench next to one another looking out at the other diners, rather than across from each other. N. and I were seated at one of these bench seats, and it was fun to sit side by side for a change in a restaurant setting. Brick walls, big barrels, and warm colors make it inviting and, I thought, pretty unpretentious.

Our server, who was the perfect balance of informative and attentive, sold me on one of the night’s cocktail specials: citrus vodka, house made lemonade, and a little float of chambord. It was nice – punchy and bright and sweet-tart, but oddly similar to a Rennie’s Lemonade from our erstwhile happy hour hangout in Eugene, and therefore it felt drastically overpriced at $12.

We opted to share entrees so we could order a few things, and got a Cuban flatbread with smoked pork pieces, cilantro, mozzarella, and some kicky little red chilis; grilled asparagus blanketed in shaved parmesan,; and a flattened half chicken with amazing garlic mashed potatoes and succotash.

N. was most attracted to the chicken (as is often the case when we dine out), and here he was clearly right to be. Flattened, the bones were gone, the meat was compressed, flavorful, and intensely juicy, and the skin was crunchy and buttery and tender and perfectly unctuous. Because he is fonder of white meat, it was also a perfect dish for us to share, because N. left me the thigh, with its dark, meatiness pleasantly encased in a crisp layer of fatty crunch. Beside the chicken, the mashed potatoes swam in a sauce of garlic confit, which was rich and intense: the best gravy I’ve had in a long time.

The flatbread, which would have been just delightful on its own, paled a bit in comparison to this chicken. The crust was cracker-like in texture, and the pork pieces paired nicely with the pepper and cilantro, but together the dish was a little bit dry. It needed – perhaps – some herb oil drizzled over the top, or maybe 45 seconds less in the oven. Tasty, but not the star of the show by any means.

The asparagus was excellent: nicely flavorful and light, well cooked and, aside from the piece I dropped on myself (grace embodied, truly), a nice vegetal accompaniment to our meal.

Since I didn’t get any dessert that night (I was full but not overstuffed, and didn’t want to tempt myself by even glancing at a dessert menu), I was still longing for birthday cake a few days later. Fortunately for me A., who blogs from the other side of the world at Over and Under, had told me about Porto’s – a Cuban bakery in Burbank that turns out to be right on my route to and from work. I had to drive up to the school for a Friday meeting, and as I headed toward the freeway to come home, I decided to stop in and treat myself.

Inspired by the flatbread we’d shared at FFS, and because I thought it would be a good benchmark for a Cuban bakery, I got the Cubano. Then, because it was still my birthweek (I’m big on extending the celebration as long as seems rationally possible), I picked out two tiny cakes to share with N.: flourless chocolate, and tres leches.

The sandwich was good. Ham and pork packed tightly onto a fresh bakery roll with cheese, sharp mustard, and a pickle. A simple sandwich, but a delicious one.

My dessert selections, though, were fantastic. The tres leches was rich and light at once, not overly sweet but dripping with cream, like a well soaked angelfood cake topped with toasted marshmallow cream. The flourless chocolate selection was less cake than a giant chocolate truffle: impossibly rich solidified ganache inside a thin shell of cake-like crumb. N. was only able to eat two or three bites before declaring it too rich for his tummy. I had no such trouble, but did talk myself into enjoying only half at that sitting, and saving the other half for another night when chocolate felt mandatory.

Indulgent? Certainly. But (at least in the case of the desserts) at $2-3 each, a reasonable indulgence. Still, when one is a responsible adult (as I suppose some might now imagine me), one must temper such indulgences. In this case, that means salad.

80. Trim and coarsely chop chard (rainbow makes for a gorgeous salad) and combine with white beans and chopped scallions. Dressing is minced ginger, a suspicion of garlic, olive oil and cider vinegar.

I collected:

½ huge bunch red chard, thick stems removed

1 15 oz. can white kidney beans

5 green onions, finely sliced

1/2 inch knob of ginger

2 garlic cloves

1/4 tsp coarse salt

1/4 cup each cider vinegar and olive oil

1 TB honey

I tossed together the chard, beans, and green onions and set them aside in a big salad bowl. To make sure the ginger and garlic were fine enough, I minced them by hand, then sprinkled them with coarse salt and dragged the flat of my knife across them until they turned into a thick, aromatic paste. I scraped the paste into a glass measuring cup and whisked it up with cider vinegar and olive oil. A taste of this was a cheek puckering revelation, so I added a healthy squeeze of honey to make it less astringent.

Aside from spinach, raw bitter greens are not always N.’s cup of tea. Because I feared this might be the case with this combination, I decided to treat this more like a slaw than a salad. I combined the main ingredients early and doused them in dressing a good fifteen minutes before dinnertime. This would, I hoped, give the acidic dressing time to wilt the chard a bit, much like the vinegar in coleslaw dressing does for the cabbage.

It worked well. By the time we ate (grilled chicken breasts sauced with equal parts whole grain mustard and apricot jam), the chard had lost just a bit of its aggressive bite but its freshness was not compromised. The beans, sometimes bland customers, had soaked up a bit of flavor from the tangy bright dressing, and so while they were a steady, creamy counterpoint to the earthy-fresh chard, they weren’t at all boring. We were both surprised by how well we liked this simple little salad.

Success, then, and balance: excitement and indulgence followed and tempered by stability. If this is what the 30s are like, I’m ready. Bring it on. I’ll just be 30 forever.

Bars and Biscuits

Posted on September 17, 2012 by Chelsea

Thyme for our herbed biscuits

Last week’s reflections were a bit morose: the thoughts of a person overwhelmed and trying to settle into some kind of groove. Because while too deep grooves can become ruts, no groove at all just leaves us… squares in a hipster-filled world? Not just squares, but squares tipping and zig-zagging confusedly over an unfamiliar landscape trying to dig a corner in here and there. New home, new job, new routine, and no chances to explore yet.

All that has changed. Shallow wheel marks dig in behind us. Our adventures have begun, and they began (don’t be offended) with booze.

Last Friday, our dear friend J. appeared at the door, bearing duty-free Japanese whiskey from his time in Tokyo, and a phone full of bar recommendations from an associate. After a quick tour of our new digs (you guys have a backyard?!), we set off into the night and ended up at Oldfield’s Liquor Room on Venice, where J. bought me a pre-birthday cocktail called the Blonde Comet. Bourbon, crème de peach, fresh grapefruit juice, and angostura bitters. I’m not much of a bourbon gal, but the name was too good to pass up. I like to think of myself as something of a blonde comet every once in a while… The drink was tasty. Strong, but tempered by the freshness of the grapefruit and the stem of fresh mint they plunged in as a garnish.

We caught up over this first round and then decided to explore further. A quick amble down the street brought us to Bigfoot West, but it was so crowded and loud inside that not even the promise of creative whiskey cocktails could entice us. We were back in J.’s car and rolling toward Santa Monica.

We ended up at The Daily Pint, where it smelled like peat and old shoes and yeast, and the impressive chalkboards full of beer options and the seemingly endless whiskey and scotch menu made J.’s and N.’s eyes shine suspiciously. I got (don’t laugh) a pint of Spiced Caramel Apple Ale that was neither as sweet nor as fruity as it sounds. J. and N. got something peaty and boggy and fiery, and I only needed a whiff to know I wasn’t interested. We settled ourselves in at a tall table next to the pool and shuffleboard stations. You must know this: I don’t like beer. When I have to, I will settle for the fruitiest, sweetest, most un-beer-like option I can find, and when I do, I like it to be ice cold so it doesn’t have a chance to taste as much like beer as I know it’s going to. As we sat and chatted and laughed, time passed and my beer warmed. Where it tasted like yeast and carbonation to begin with, as it came to room temperature the flavors got rounder and deeper, and by the time I was sipping the last half inch or so in the glass it did have some spicy apple flavors to it. I’m not sure I would order it again, but it wasn’t a bad beer, and the company and high energy atmosphere made it a good experiment.

It was almost midnight when J. asked if we wanted a snack. He was thinking, he said, hot dogs or pastrami. I’ve been experiencing some cognitive dissonance when it comes to our new location – scoffing when I see patrol cars that say LAPD on the side: what are we, in a movie or something? – grinning with disbelief as I pass Warner Brothers studios on my drive home from work – but something about that night made me remember where we were. I just knew he was thinking of Pink’s. Did I want to go to the little stand with the most famous hot dogs in the state? Yes. Yes I did.

At almost 1am, as my contacts screamed and the almost-responsible-adult inside me withered and gave up, we were standing in line with at least 30 other people, waiting for a hot dog.

I got a New York dog – traditional hot dog topped with a sweet onion sauce – and added shredded cheddar cheese. N. and J. got Chicago dogs, loaded with lettuce, tomato, and pickle. We sat at a crooked little table and took in the space: dozens upon dozens of signed celebrity photographs who had visited Pink’s, some of whom had given their names to a hot dog.

Well, N. and J. took in the space. I took in my hot dog. It was fantastic. The skin was taut and crisp and snapped between my teeth. The onion sauce was thick and sweet with hints of caramel, like the best sweet and sour sauce you’ve ever tasted, and the cheese, though it could have been melted more, added a nice mellow counterpoint to the meat and the sauce. Delicious. And it made me feel like a kid: I was back to the nights in high school when, after band competitions, we used to go to Denny’s and order chili cheese fries and chocolate milkshakes. Those were the days before we knew heartburn was real…

There really is no logical transition I can make to this week’s Bittman, aside from the lame play on the White Stripes song I provided as the title of this post, so let’s stop pretending and just talk about biscuits. And let’s not take our sweet little time about it.

85. Herbed Buttermilk Biscuits: Combine 3 cups flour, 2 tablespoons sugar, 4 teaspoons baking powder, 1 teaspoon salt, 1 teaspoon baking soda and 1 tablespoon thyme leaves. Use your fingers to rub in 1 ½ sticks of butter until the mixture resembles small peas. Add 1 cup buttermilk and stir until just combined. Drop large spoonfuls onto a baking sheet and bake at 425 degrees until golden, about 15 minutes.

With measurements and oven temp clearly provided, I had very little to guess about or change in this recipe. Because I was using lemon in other parts of dinner, I decided on the spur of the moment to add a teaspoon or two of lemon zest to the dough to see what would happen. You could probably change up the herb used, add cracked black pepper or flaky sea salt, or even add finely chopped raisins. I wouldn’t change the buttermilk, though, as the tang it adds is entirely necessary. I even got excited tasting the raw dough, with a slight crunch from the salt and a suggestion of sweetness from the tiny bit of sugar.

The bowl of dough produced 15 biscuits. I put nine on my greased baking tray and the other 6 on a plastic-wrap-lined plate in the freezer for another occasion. After 15 minutes in the oven, they were browned on top, slightly crunchy around the outsides, and knee-waveringly fluffy inside. Quash your fears about the amount of butter here: it really makes a worthwhile textural difference. It doesn’t hurt the flavor either – these were rich but light, and the buttermilk and lemon zest added intriguing sourness that brightened the mixture and made them more interesting than your standard dinner biscuit.

We ate these – no, that’s not right – we wolfed them down alongside grilled chicken sausages and grilled planks of zucchini wrapped around a mixture of goat cheese, lemon juice, thyme, parsley, and pepper.

It was delightful. And here’s the delicious secret: if you end up with some leftover goat cheese mixture, and you whip in some honey, and then if you happen to split one of those fluffy delightful biscuits down the middle and perhaps toast the open sides in a toaster oven or under the broiler for a moment, and dollop a hefty tablespoon of the sweetened goat cheese on top, and eat it, you have the most delightful little end-of-summer breakfast biscuit you’ve had in years. And if you’d been out late the night before and perhaps chased some whiskey with a hot dog, a sprinkle of extra salt in the goat cheese filling would make this a quite decent hangover breakfast too, as a cure for excessive adventuring.

Next week we settle more comfortably into this lovely little groove we’re making for ourselves: another restaurant, another Bittman, another decade(!), of our new little lives.

Brecht’s Restaurant

Posted on September 13, 2011 by Chelsea

I have a Bittman success story to share with you, and I will. Soon. But first, in a continuation of last week’s celebratory post, I have a birthday restaurant review.

Yesterday, N. took me to Portland to celebrate my birthday. Because I’m so sophisticated and urban, of course what I wanted to do most was go to the zoo. Only after we’d seen every animal (and returned to a few exhibits on the way out to see if anyone had decided to come outside yet) did we embark on the more culinary aspects of our voyage. We spent close to an hour in Sur le Table, a store that makes me swell simultaneously with desire, longing, and anxiety. It is bright and beautiful and artistically merchandised, and I can’t help but want everything in it (do I need a handheld KitchenAid electric mixer in every color of the rainbow? Of course not. But do I want them, after seeing them lined up and shining prismatically on the shelf? Yes I do). I imagine the fantastic food projects I could embark on, the dinner parties I could have, the appetizers I could construct (the tiny tart tins only big enough to hold a tomato tart made from a single slice of tomato, the edible silver pearls for cupcakes, the souffle dishes… oh the souffle dishes…), and there’s where the anxiety sets in. Yesterday, I had a gift card to spend. I needed to be careful and thrifty and try to not to exceed the card’s value by too much, because beauty doesn’t come cheap. That meant excruciatingly rigorous examination of everything. in. the. store. I ended up with equipment that fills several notable gaps in my kitchen repertoire, and that was good. I was practical. But it still didn’t quell my girlish longing for cookie cutters in the shape of a crab, a cupcake, or a golden retriever, or a spring-loaded icing syringe, or a huge octagonal serving platter.

And yet we pressed on. On several trusted friends’ recommendations, we went to Montage for dinner. Located under a bridge on the east side of the river, it was hard to find (thanks, road construction), but clearly well loved, as at least a dozen people were waiting outside for the restaurant to open when we arrived at 5:55pm.

When we went inside and the hostess showed us to a table set with pristine white linens and folded, creased paper menus, my impression was of a Brechtian dreamscape. If Bertolt Brecht had designed a restaurant, it might be something like this. In French, “montage” means “assembly” (roughly, forgive my linguistic impreciseness, amis). Here, “assembly” took the form of a collage of high and low. From my seat at our table, when I looked to the left I could see long, long shelves against the far wall stocked with bottle after bottle of wine. As their extensive wine list proved, some were good vintages and all were pretty reasonably priced. When my eyes slid upward, however, I got a view of the wall-sized, quasi-cartoon Last Supper painted above a row of two-tops.

Looking to my right, on the deep windowsill near the entrance I could see a classical-style statue, complete with broken limbs and barely disguised indecency, standing next to the cast of an alligator’s skeletal jaws and a fully blown pufferfish, both suspended from the ceiling by fishing line.

This, then, was a conscious pastiche of high and low. The paper menus revealed not only the lengthy wine list, but a full range of Cajun and Southern American classics. N. ordered the jambalaya, but I couldn’t resist the call of the fryer. I ordered “Buttermilk fried chicken hindquarters,” which were advertized to arrive with garlic mashed potatoes, seasonal vegetables, AND a salad.

Before any of that, however, we got our beverages and shared a plate of hush puppies. My dry Riesling was crisp and tart and just barely fruity, and our server really topped off my glass because there wasn’t enough left in the bottle for two. I told him it was my birthday, so he could use that as an excuse and he chuckled. Wine managed, we plowed into the hush puppies. These were moist and chewy and had kernels of corn in the batter for that pop of sweetness and texture. They were accompanied by two aiolis: one garlic and one red pepper (I think. It was extremely mild and our server wasn’t sure). The garlic aioli was delicious: slightly vinegary and herby, much more complex than a regular mayonnaise. The fritters were not very crunchy on the outside, but their flavor more than made up for any textural shortcoming.

While we waited for our dinner to arrive, another aspect of the Brechtian theater of the place became clear. Behind the white, linen-clothed bar, the kitchen was partially visible, and every time a plate came out the expediter bellowed the name of the server responsible for it. After an initial surprise, no one in the restaurant seemed put off by this practice, and it started to blend into the clatter of dishes, happy conversation, and David Bowie’s vocals soaring effortlessly up into the background.

Dinner arrived on white dishes, but it didn’t smell highbrow. It smelled homey and warm and wonderful. N.’s jambalaya was well spiced and nicely flavored. It was just spicy enough to merit a gulp of beer and a crumble of cornbread in between bites, and he has added this to the list of dishes he’d like me to try at home. My plate came with its promised hindquarters still connected, dredged and crispy and beautifully caramel-brown. A little heap of mixed sauteed vegetables nestled in the space between leg and thigh, and a mound of mashed potatoes rounded out the plate.

I started with the mash. I think they were red potatoes because some shreds of dark mauve-y skin added an appealing squish between my teeth. The meat of the potatoes was velvety smooth and creamy and just brushed with garlic flavor. N. was permitted one taste and then somehow the whole mound disappeared into my stomach.

I moved on to the chicken. I have to admit, I am pretty picky about my fried chicken. It must be crispy, it must be just greasy enough to slick my fingers and moisten my lips, and I prefer dark meat (though that’s the case with any poultry, fried or not). This chicken scored a two out of three. The breading was crisp and the meat was moist and flavorful. This breading, however, was fairy thin. It did not have the nodules of thick crunchy fattiness I didn’t know I wanted, and as a consequence the grease factor was minimal. It was delicious (oh was it delicious!), but it wasn’t my fantasy fried chicken.

The play of culture and carnivale continued as we finished our meal. Our server asked if we wanted our leftovers wrapped up, and when we acquiesced he disappeared with our plates and returned with a stylized cat and squirrel made of aluminum foil, holding our remaining dinners in their tin bellies. As they faced off against one another at the table, our server walked over holding a plate leaping with orange and blue flames: dessert on fire for my birthday. Unless N. ordered this while I was in the ladies’ room (I suspect not), this was our server’s doing alone. I’d mentioned it was my day at the outset of the meal, but I hadn’t been expecting anything from it. Instead, what I got was essentially ice cream pie set alight.

How do I begin to dissect this gorgeousness in words? Writing about food is funny because so often language fails to capture taste. I’ll go in the order my spoon went. First, there was the ice cream. This was either vanilla or very mild coffee, because we were getting hints of coffee flavor the whole way through. I suspect, however, that it was vanilla ice cream, and that the spirit used to flame the dessert was Sambuca, and that’s where the coffee flavor came from. Or else the ice cream was also drizzled with Kahlua. Beside the slice of ice cream, there was an airy pile of whipped cream, also drizzled with chocolate/coffee sensations, and the whole dessert was topped with crushed chocolate Oreo wafers, and built upon a slab of compressed bittersweet chocolate crust. Frozen but on fire, soft and creamy with crunchy accents, sweet but with an espresso bitterness, this captured the juxtaposition of the whole place on a single white plate. N. is not often one for rich desserts, but this one he ate as continuously and determinedly as I did. He laid his spoon down only two bites before I did, leaving the last swirls of melting ice cream and heavy liqueur traces to me alone. It was, after all, my birthday.

We left satiated and impressed. This was neither the fanciest nor the most amazing food I’ve ever had, but it was damn tasty, and the ambiance, as strange a collage as it may have first seemed, only added to the experience. If this had been in a rundown, casually decorated diner, it would have seemed cheap and cheesy. If it had been the same food in a “fine dining” restaurant with elegantly uniformed servers and long aprons, it would have seemed uncomfortably out of place. But this Brechtian dance between high and low, with its conscious acceptance – nay, its intentional embrace – of both, made it a near-perfect show. There are a lot of restaurants in Portland we want to try out, but we will almost certainly return to Montage.*