Saturday, January 24, 2009

An orange dinner


Normally I like a little more color variety on my plate, but when I made this a couple months ago, it was delicious. In the bowl is Butternut Squash soup; on the plate are orange and ginger quick-glazed carrots, and a slice of no-knead bread, made according to Mark Bittman's recipe.

The soup is really amazing. It's essentially foolproof and always comes out tasting rich and creamy. It tastes, in fact, like it must have about 500 calories of cream in it, but it's actually just squash and chicken stock (we've made it with vegetarian stock too and it's still pretty good).

Here are the details:

Butternut Squash Soup
Ingredients
1 butternut squash (c. 3 lbs), peeled, seeded, cut into 4 large pieces
2 tbsp butter
1 c chopped yellow onion
1 clove garlic, minced
5 cups chicken stock or broth (you can substitute veggie broth)
3/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp curry powder
1/8 tsp ground white pepper
Creme fraiche, sour cream, or nf yogurt for topping (we usually omit this)
Chopped chives or parsley for topping
Directions
Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Place squash pieces in a flat baking pan. Pour about 1 cup water around squash. Bake until soft, about 1 hour. Remove to a plate and cool. When cool enough to handle, scoop out squash pulp. You should have about 4 cups. Set aside.

In a large soup pot over medium heat, melt butter. Add onion and garlic and saute until soft, about 5 minutes. Add squash pulp and 1 cup of the stock and mix well. Transfer to a food processor or blender in batches and process until smooth. [we use an immersion blender, and that works much better here if you have one] Return to pan and add the remaining 4 cups stock and seasonings. Simmer, uncovered, until flavors are blended, about 20 minutes, stirring occasionally. Ladle into bowls and top with cream, chives, and/or chutney.
(Recipe from Maryana Vollstedt's The Big Book of Soups & Stews - a great book, by the way)

Orange and Ginger Quick-Glazed Carrots
Ingredients
A pound of carrots (more or less), cut into 1/4" coins (i.e. on the diagonal)
2 tbsp butter
1 tbsp minced ginger
1/4 Orange juice
1/2 tsp sugar
salt and pepper
Directions
In a small to medium saucepan over high heat, melt butter and add carrots, sugar, s+p, and orange juice. Bring to a boil and cover. Turn heat down to medium low and cook for about 5 minutes.
Uncover, raise heat slightly and add ginger. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the liquid evaporates, and then turn heat down to low and cook a couple more minutes until the carrots are tender.
Serve with a garnish of chopped fresh parsley.
The timing and amount of ingredients are quite flexible in my experience; so long as you get the liquid to evaporate before the carrots turn completely soft and soggy you'll be in the clear.
[from Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything

Thursday, January 22, 2009

A corn stalk grows in the astroturf

I just saw a commercial for high fructose corn syrup.

What??

They've got a website and everything.

Glad to see that our government money not only subsidizes an ethanol boondoggle, but slick ad campaigns designed to keep us fat and syrupy.

Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Squirrel Tartare


Hawk eating a squirrel, Columbia University

Most people who've seen the above photo have had one reaction: ewww!
But really, is the act of eating depicted above so different from consuming this:


Steak tartare, photo from flikr user minderbinder, milo

Either way you look at it, it's still raw meat. Of course, the tartare is going to taste better: it's gussied up with some spices and herbs (and potato crisps). And it's on a plate! Plus, that squirrel meat looks pretty stringy.

Admittedly, there are many people (not just vegetarians) who look at a plate of steak tartare and think "ewww!" But the people who've recoiled from the hawk photo have no problem with the tartare. What this really points to is the transformation our food goes through from field to plate - even when we serve it raw. I don't know if we have a human need to compartmentalize between the concepts of "cow" and "beef," or if this is merely a reflection of the current industrialized state of our food culture. Either way, it results in paradoxes.

Saturday, January 17, 2009

The Slanted Door

We visited Charles Phan's acclaimed Vietnamese restaurant, The Slanted Door, when we were in the Bay Area during the holidays. I had been itching to go there for a couple years, and although the setting was remarkable - in the Ferry Building, right on the water with a breathtaking view of the Bay - the food was good, but not outstanding. We tried a lot of things - west coast oysters, green papaya salad, rack of lamb with sunchokes, catfish claypot, japanese eggplant, and cellophane noodles with dungeness crab. I thought the oysters were great (a nice selection and very fresh), and the rack of lamb dish with sunchokes outstanding. I also loved the eggplant and cellophane noodles with crab. I wonder if my relative disappointment stemmed from knowing that I could get equally delicious Vietnamese food, at a lower price point, at your neighborhood Vietnamese restaurant. I'm not sure if I'd go back again for the food. The cocktails, however, were off the hizzle. I had a whiskey cocktail (Buffalo Trace bourbon, Angostura and orange bitters, sugar, orange peel; served on a hand cut cube) before dinner, at the nicely appointed bar, and a ginger limeade (Hangar One Kaffir Lime vodka, ginger, lime) with my meal. Fantastic cocktail list - inventive concoctions using small-batch liquors - what's not to like?

Winter CSA share #2


Though our winter share has ended for the 2008-2009 season, Ben and I wanted to keep track of what we got from our CSA. Our haul included sweet potatoes, onions, yukon potatoes, butternuts, red onions, harukei turnips, lettuces, celeriac (or celery root), carrots, radicchio, sage, cabbage, leeks, beets, parsnips, radishes, and hearty winter greens. My favorite vegetables from the winter share include celery root, leeks, turnips, parsnips and butternut. I'm so glad we were introduced to celeriac in particular!!