Culinary Fool

Thai Shrimp Pasta

07-Jul-2007

After devouring the mussels the other night, as is normal, there was a lot of the coconut milk broth remaining. Instead of just tossing it out, I decided to strain all the random bits of veggies out of it and save it. The next day I sautéed shrimp in my normal way (I removed all of the shell except the tail) and made up a pot of pasta. When the pasta was finished I drained it, put it back in the pan and then added just enough of the coconut milk broth to cover the pasta. I heated it for a few moments to make sure the broth got hot and to also reduce it just a bit so that it would stick to the pasta a little better.

Once the sauce was heated through I tossed the shrimp in with the pasta and then plated it. On the plate I added freshly picked Thai Basil and it was ready to go!

As a refreshing beverage to have with this slightly spicy dish I made up a Holiday Starr. I normally make this cocktail in December/January (hence the name) because that’s when Satsumas and other tangerines are so plentiful. But recently my local Costco has had boxes of them and so I’ve been buying them.

The tangy citrus in this cocktail cools the bit of heat in this sauce. Together they give you sort of a yin yang affect. I liked this pasta a lot! As much or maybe even more than the original mussel dish – and that is saying a lot!

Via Tribunali

06-Jul-2007

In keeping with my new goal to update you on some of my tried and true places around town, today we revisit Via Tribunali. You may (or may not) remember that the first time I visited I had a rather hair-raising experience, so to speak! Well, in the many subsequent times I’ve visited the only excitement has been related to the great food.

Last week M and I were back at the bar counter, talking with two of our favorite guys Kevin and Randy, while they poured us wine and we perused the menu. Sitting at the counter provides a birds-eye view of the bar activities but more importantly you can also take a peak at the salad and charcuterie station, as well as seeing exactly what it going into and being pulled out of the tile-faced wood burning oven, which is the heart of this operation.

Via Tribunali is a true Neapolitan-style pizzeria, and is officially reviewed and designated as such. One key to keeping that designation is the oven. In Via Tribunali’s case it is used for all their hot food not just the pizzas. For instance, the mushrooms used on our pizza were first roasted in the oven. But I get ahead of myself…..

After sipping our first glass of wine (mine the Poggio alle Sughere Morellino di Scansano, a Sangiovese blend from Tuscany; and M’s a glass of Prosecco…) we started with Insalata della Casa – a lovely salad lightly dressed that combines fresh greens, tomatoes, fresh mozzarella, olives and cotto. Although it could really be a meal in itself splitting it is the perfect way to start a meal.

After the salad we ordered our pizza. I am happy to report that Via Trib has seen the error of their ways with mushrooms (when they first opened they used something quite unspeakable and very much in conflict with the rest of their menu) and now oven roast fresh mushrooms for use on their pizzas. To celebrate this change in direction M and I ordered a Prosciutto y Funghi pizza as we are all about fun guys!

And we were not disappointed. The main problem we have now is deciding which of these thin, crisp-crust pizzas, lightly topped with interesting ingredients we want to order on any given night – and that doesn’t even take into account the other options such as the Salumi platter or the calzone, which I have yet to try!

M finished her meal with an Affogato, which while good was a little too fancy-pants for her. She prefers a simpler, more traditional version than Via Trib serves. I settled for a final glass of wine…

Via Tribunali
913 E. Pike, between Broadway & 10th
Seattle
206.322.9234

2004 Domaine Ott Les Domaniers de Puits Mouret Côtes de Provence Rosé

05-Jul-2007

I originally opened this wine thinking that it would go well with the Thai Mussels. I had planned to make the mussels later that evening and so decided to open the wine in the afternoon for a little glass to sip on the deck in the heat of the afternoon. I chilled it and then poured a glass.

As you can see, the color is beautiful! It’s a deep, clear salmon with golden highlights. When chilled there’s not a huge nose but there are elements of strawberry and maybe a little citrus. But the taste – the taste is wonderful! This rosé is all that a rosé should be – hints of fruits, but dry almost minerally, light, refreshing and it lingers on. This is one of my favorite roses that I’ve tasted. I also love the shape of the bottle! It’s one of my "leftovers" from last year and I’ll need to see if I can find more for this year.

Well, as sometimes happens, my day ran later than first planned – perhaps due to that enjoyable interlude on the deck – and so I didn’t get around to making the mussels on the day I opened this wine. Instead, I sipped another glass or so a bit later in the evening and finished it while I was preparing the mussels the next night. I still think it would have been great with the mussels, however. Once I find a new bottle I’ll have to check that out…

Mussels in Thai Basil Coconut Broth

04-Jul-2007

I’ve talked about this recipe before but the other day I was looking for a photo for a friend and I don’t think that I have one. So a couple days ago, when I made these again, I decided to take care of that. I love them at any time of year but right now my Thai Basil is really coming on strong – what better way to use it than for these mussels?

Serve them with plenty of bread as you’ll want to soak up the sauce. A green salad and a crisp glass of rosé or Pinot Gris/Grigio will round out your meal!

Pesos Kitchen and Lounge

03-Jul-2007

Mostly I seem to focus on new places around town and forget to talk about the places that have earned a spot in my ongoing repertoire of establishments I enjoy on a fairly regular basis. It seems I should rectify that as restaurants and bars that have been around awhile and provide a comfortable experience are probably more worthy of recognition than any bright and shiny newcomer – I mean they’ve withstood the test of time!

Last week R and I were attending a play at Intiman and decided to meet at Pesos Kitchen and Lounge for a bite to eat before going to the theater. I don’t really remember the first time I went to Pesos but I can tell you that it was years ago, probably soon after they opened. If you pass by at certain times and on certain days it would be easy to assume that this is just another restaurant masquerading as Mexican when their primary focus is drinking. While Pesos does have a vibrant and lively bar crowd don’t let that lead you to the false belief that the food is anything but great!

What is a little interesting though, are the items on the menu that may be Mexican influenced but would not be the first thing that comes to mind for this culture. For instance, on this last visit R and I had spring rolls – not something that screams "Mexican". However, they were filled with crab and avocado providing some version of "Mexican Fusion", I guess. While they were actually very good, frying did not really seem like the best way to treat the delicate flavors of the crab and avocado – they may have been better served with a different preparation.

Our other choice that night was the Carnitas Tostados Poblanos. Served with big chunks of pulled pork atop crispy tortillas and topped with fresh lettuce, avocado, salsa and a dressing these were absolutely delightful – a bit spicy with tons of flavor!

I settled for a Corona to wash it all down with, while R went for a house Margarita which was splendid by all accounts.

Their Happy Hour is a really great deal with food items prices at $4 or $5. The carnitas were $4 and the spring roll $5. No discount on drinks but with food this good, it’s okay!

So if you are looking for a place to meet or regroup before or after some event at Seattle Center, think about Pesos – the food is tried and true, the staff friendly and it may provide just the lively experience you’re looking for.

Pesos Kitchen and Lounge

605 Queen Anne Ave N

Lower Queen Anne

Seattle

206.283.9353

Happy Hour 4 pm – 6 pm

Cooking from the Farmers’ Markets

02-Jul-2007

Spinach is plentiful at the Farmers’ Markets right now. One of my favorite things for breakfast uses spinach so I’m a pretty happy camper! And actually, it’s one of those dishes that is good for any meal of the day. This dish doesn’t look super pretty but it makes up for it in taste.

Basically, I just sauté onions in a little olive oil until golden in a large pan. Then add a couple handfuls of spinach and cook until it’s wilted. If the spinach is a little bit wet this will go a lot faster. And if the spinach is young you don’t really need to do anything to it, if it’s a bit older and larger I may tear it up a bit and remove any tough looking stems. I sometimes add a minced garlic at this point. And if I’m going to add meat – bacon is my favorite – I’ll add it now, too. I generally cook the meat separately but you could cook it first and use the drippings instead of olive oil.

Once the spinach is wilted and the meat is warmed, I add a beaten egg into the pan. It will cook super quickly at this point and almost immediately, I’ll grate a little cheese over the top. A couple final stirs to make sure the egg is cooked and everything is equally distributed and then out on the plate! I often just have this by itself but it’s also nice to add some toast or fried potatoes or even a little salad, if this is lunch or dinner for you!

Class: David Lebovitz @ Sur la Table

01-Jul-2007

So if you happen to have been reading this blog over the last couple months you’ll know that I’ve been making different recipes from David Lebovitz’ book, The Perfect Scoop and enjoying them very much. While I find his recipes extremely easy to follow sometimes you just want to learn from the master so when I heard that David would be in town leading a couple classes (as well as a chocolate tasting at Theo) I immediately signed up for one of the classes. M2, K, and K’s husband, N, also joined me this last Friday night.

I always wonder just a little what to really expect when you are going to meet someone in real life and you kind of know them but only virtually. I’ve been reading David’s blog for quite some time and that means that I’ve assigned a voice and a personality to him. Just something that happens pretty automatically for me, not that I do it on purpose. I can tell you that David’s personality in the blog is exactly the same as in person, which meant he led a very entertaining and informative class. And his voice was even close to what I had imagined so that worked out well for me!

As a side note, I had the pleasure of meeting a couple people who are readers of this blog! Which is always so surprising to me! They were so very nice and I hope to see them again sometime – although I wonder if I was who/what they thought I’d be! ;-)

Back to the class ~ First, if you don’t know anything about David here’s a bit of his history. He was the pastry chef at Chez Panisse for twelve years and also trained in France and Belgium. He has written several cookbooks and currently lives in Paris where he does culinary tours and lots of other fun things in the industry. I really would like to have his life but it seems he has already taken it. And, as mentioned earlier, he maintains a very lively and informative blog.

The Gianduja Gelato Stracciatella is a little soft in this photo as it had come almost directly from the ice-cream maker without any of the normal freezing time needed prior to serving.

For this class, David demonstrated and we sampled an amazing number of recipes and of them all there was only one that didn’t knock my socks off (sorry, David…). Here was the "menu" for the evening:

Gianduja (Hazelnut-Dark Milk Chocolate) Gelato Stracciatella with Espresso Granita and ‘Panna’
Peppermint Patty-Chocolate Cookies Ice Cream Sandwiches (with Homemade Peppermint Patties)
Profiteroles with Roasted Banana Ice Cream and Marshmallow Hot Fudge Sauce (and a bonus addition of Pralined Almonds)
Coffee Frozen Yogurt with Breton Buckwheat Cake and Salted-Butter Caramel Sauce

I’m not sure I could pick an actual favorite. There were many things I liked – both about the individual components and the presentation as a whole. But if you really made me choose, I think the first item, Gianduja (Hazelnut-Dark Milk Chocolate) Gelato Stracciatella with Espresso Granita and ‘Panna’, might have been number one. (Note: Panna means "cream" so this recipe included whip cream which should make sense to you if you’ve even had panna cotta or "cooked cream" – actually cream cooked…) Each of the components was amazing on it’s own but when you mixed the various elements together you had a whole other set of taste sensations!

I also really loved the Profiteroles! I love profiteroles in general and you may remember that I often make gougere, which is pretty much the same thing. But what I especially loved about this recipe was how the roasted bananas really upped the flavor quotient of the ice cream. Wow!

Beside the recipes and the demonstration I had hoped to pick up a few other tips and David did not disappoint. I learned there is Philadelphia-style ice cream which is basically made without eggs and then French style which is basically made with a custard and what I have always thought of at "premium" ice-cream. I like that they both have their place in the world. We learned about baking powder and strategies for keeping homemade ice-cream from freezing so hard. We learned how milk chocolate in Europe has different standards than milk chocolate in the US (which helps me understand why I like some more than others) and we learned quite a bit about buckwheat, among other things.

I came out of the class even more determined to try as many of the recipes as possible.

If David comes to your area I highly encourage you to sign up for a class. And whether you are able to take a class or not, I highly recommend this book! As I mentioned, David’s instructions are very clear and the recipes straightforward so you would be able to create them just from the recipe. And the book has tons of interesting background information, too.

So go order it now! The Perfect Scoop and see lots more photos here.

It’s Cherry Season!

30-Jun-2007

Just in case you hadn’t noticed – Bings and Rainiers are everywhere! Time to enjoy!

Limoncello – Part I

25-Jun-2007

A couple of things have happened recently that has caused me to have Limoncello on my mind. If you haven’t heard of Limoncello it’s an Italian liqueur that is generally sipped after dinner or late into the evening. It is intensely lemon-flavored, packs a good alcohol punch and is pretty sweet. The most common way to sip it is ice-cold.

The first was that a comment came in on one of my old Limoncello posts on The Spirit World and the second was while sitting at Zig Zag the other night we had a little tasting. And then what I started thinking about was the batch I made last summer and how it was good when it was "done" but it was even better two or three months later after the flavors had really blended and become much more integrated. And then I took a little sip out of the bottle I have left in my freezer and I thought this might be a good topic for right now!

I know it is barely the beginning of summer, but this liqueur would make a great holiday gift and if you start it this summer those flavors will have plenty of time to get good and integrated before you get to the gift-giving season. Besides being good on it’s own, I have several friends who like to incorporate Limoncello into their Lemon Drops…

So for the next couple weeks I am going to post the original pieces in roughly the same timeline as they occurred in real time.

This first piece talks about what you need and how to get started. The second post will tell you how to know if you are ready for the next step and the final post will help you put all the components together. Then the hard part starts – the waiting until it’s really ready. Of course you can sneak a little sip now and then just to see how it’s doing.

The Tools
When making limoncello you only want the zest from the lemons, none of the bitter white pith. This is easiest to do if you have the proper tool – a zester. In the photo you’ll see a couple of different versions of zesters. The two shorter versions will make long, thin curls of zest. The two grater-type tools will make very small confetti-like pieces of zest. The more surface area we can expose, the better so my choice for this project was the long, narrow zester (the one that looks like a rasp) – it’s narrow shape makes it a great tool for round objects.

If you don’t own any of these tools you could also use a vegetable peeler or even a paring knife – just be super careful to remove only the yellow portion of the skin.

Once the zest has been removed, juice the lemons and use the juice for lemonade, fresh lemon sweet and sour or freeze it for use at a later date.

The Fruit

For this recipe you will need six good sized lemons. I actually used seven, just because I have a bad habit of trying to intensify flavors when I cook! But the recipe just calls for six. You’ll notice these lemons are rather dull and not that pretty. I purposely chose these lemons as they were unwaxed. If your lemons are shiny and gorgeous you’ll end up with a bunch of icky wax floating around in your limoncello. We don’t want that.

If you can’t find unwaxed lemons, prior to zesting blanch the fruit in boiling water for about 30 seconds. Working quickly, remove them from the water and immediately dry them with a rough towel, trying to remove as much wax as possible. Then drop them in ice water to cool them back down.

The Alcohol

You’ll need one 750ml bottle of alcohol. If possible you want 100 proof (50%). This is normally the cheaper vodka in your liquor store and is often found on the lower shelves, not right at eye-level.

The higher proof serves two purposes: it will leach the flavor and color from the zest faster than the more common 80 proof; and when we later mix in the simple syrup we will end up with a nicer level of alcohol in the final product.

If you can’t find 100 proof, go ahead and use 80 proof. You’ll need to let the mixture sit a bit longer – but you can manage that. When we get to adding the simple syrup, I’ll address a couple things you can try to balance out the alcohol levels. By the way, more is not necessarily better. At this point you might be thinking you should just use Everclear (at 95% alcohol) but your finished product will not be what you hope for. It will be out of balance the other way – more alcohol is not always a good thing!

The Container

The final item you’ll need is a jar that is large enough to hold the zest and the bottle of vodka. It should have a good airtight seal. Glass is preferable, stainless steel would also work. Plastic would be okay. Do not use aluminum.

Once you’ve combined that zest and alcohol and sealed off the bottle, place it in a cupboard or somewhere out of the way. We’ll come back and check on it in two weeks. You might want to make a little note on your calendar.

First Look: Café Presse

24-Jun-2007

Café Presse opened about a minute ago and although I normally try to give places a little time before checking them out it just worked out that today was a good day to stop in for brunch. Well, at least it started to be a good day to check it out – that was until I left at about noon, needed to get down to the waterfront and then realized that 4th Avenue was shut all the way through the city for the Gay Pride Parade! Frustrating! Although I did finally get where I was going about 45 minutes later than planned!

Okay, but back to Café Presse. R and I met there at 11:00 to check it out. Café Presse is owned by the same folks who own Le Pichet. If you’ve been to Le Pichet when you look at this menu it will feel very familiar. Not the same exactly, there are a few dishes that appear on both menus, but it’s mostly just the French café feel that comes across on both menus.

The layout of the front room is also very similar with a dozen or so seats at the bar which is separated from the tables by a metal divider to satisfy the Liquor Board people. The front room faces East and was very pleasant with the sun drifting in this morning. Café Presse also has a nice backroom, suitable for larger groups, and I think it would be very cozy in the evening hours.

It’s a little early to tell but it could be that the service will be similar, too. As I’ve mentioned before I always find the servers at Le Pichet to be just a bit distracted. They don’t seem to really be able to focus on any one table or request for too long. I never eat there if I’m in a hurry as I’ve just learned that you need to relax and go with the flow. I like the place a lot so it’s just the trade-off I’ve come to expect. Anyway, Café Presse was not too busy this morning but I have the feeling that if they get jammed, as Le Pichet often does, then the same thing will happen here – very nice people will greet you and then sort of forget about you for a little while and that cycle will be repeated a few times during your meal.

After ordering beverages – tea for me and a latte for R – we settled in to wait for our meals which arrived fairly quickly. R had gone with Oeufs plats (which is also on the Le Pichet menu) and was just as good here as there. I tried something new, Croque Campagnnarde, an open sandwich with hard sausage, Gruyère and tomatoes. Although it didn’t really look quite as I’d imagined it was very good. For me, the ingredient that really made it was the thin layer of mustard.

Café Presse is named as it is as they carry a selection of international newspapers and several handsome, artsy magazines. In fact, they apparently can print newspapers to order! We did not test this offering but have no reason to believe they could not do as they say.

This is another nice addition to 12th Avenue, which is fast becoming one of my favorite places for interesting little places.