GASTRONORMOUS

Once you learn how to make a basic risotto, you can really make any other kind or risotto without having to resort to following a recipe. Honestly, I don’t even measure ingredients when I make risotto. I often cook by instinct rather than measure, and my husband can attest to the fact that this doesn’t always work out for the best, but risotto is especially malleable and forgiving.

As with much Italian cooking, reliance on taste, texture, and your personal preferences regarding flavor, saltiness, spiciness, richness, etc. is more important than specificity of ingredients or accurate measurement. The types of risotto you can make are endless. One of my favorite local Brooklyn restaurants makes a fantastic red wine risotto (sans vegetables), and my second blog entry attests to the delectablity of a pear and gorgonzola risotto!

Basic risotto ingredients and technique:

broth (chicken is traditional; vegetable and mushroom work really well too.)*
one or combination of:
couple cloves garlic (minced), 1 medium onion, 1 leek, 3-4 shallots (finely chopped)
c. 2 TBS olive oil and/or butter
1-3 cups vegetable, roughly chopped if necessary (butternut squash, mushrooms, asparagus, peas, carrots, be creative!)
1.5-2 cups arborio or other short grained rice**
1 cup white wine***
more butter
cream (optional! I never use cream, but some like it–use sparingly.)
1/2-3/4 cups cheese, shredded (parmigiano reggiano is traditional, but try romano, or even gorgonzola, aged gouda, or a combination of cheeses)
salt and pepper

*If you don’t make your own broth, try to buy the good (often organic) stuff that comes in a box, it is much less salty, and more flavorful, than the canned.
** I have even used short grain brown rice, which is richer, nuttier, and chewier that white, but can take a couple hours to cook using the risotto method, so give yourself some time!
***Use a dry, and above all, non-oaked white wine; wine aged in oak barrels can impart a, well, woody, flavor to your risotto.

(In the risotto pictured, I used leeks, cremini, shitaki, and wood ear mushrooms, pinot grigio wine, mushroom broth, and parmigiano reggiano as my main ingredients.)

Dump a box or two of broth (or 4-6 cups homemade) into a medium sauce pan, heat on medium until simmering. Clap on a lid, lower the heat to lowest setting. Prepare all your veggies while broth is heating (if using leeks, wash really well!).

Heat oil and/or butter on medium heat in the bottom of large sauce pan. You can eyeball the measurements, should just be enough to coat the bottom of the pot. Add onions/leeks/shallots/garlic and sautee until soft, but not brown. Add vegetable and sautee for a few minutes (longer for butternut squash or other very dense vegetable), until beginning to soften. (If you are using peas, asparagus, or other delicate spring vegetables, sautee in a little butter until soft, season with salt and pepper, set aside, then add to risotto about 5 minutes before done, when risotto is almost al dente.)

Put in a cup and a half to 2 cups of rice (I eyeball this). Sautee for about a minute, until rice is well coated with oil–do not brown the rice. Add wine and stir gently but constantly until wine is absorbed. Add one ladleful of broth and stir until absorbed, then add another ladle. Continue this process until the rice is al dente; this should take 25-35 minutes (longer for brown rice), depending on the any number of factors, from type of rice to the altitude of your particular kitchen. It is very important to taste the risotto, or rather, feel its texture in your mouth, in order to determine doneness. There is no absolute, prescribed time for cooking risotto, or a exact amount of broth necessary, either; you just need to cook it until it s done.

When your rice is al dente, add butter to your preference. I usually add a tablespoon or two, but if I am cooking for guests for a special occasion, I’ll add more, up to half a stick. If using cream, add it here too. Now add your cheese. If using parmesan or romano, I usually add 1/2-1 cup. If using a stronger cheese like gorgonzola, I add about a 1/2 cup so as not to overpower the other flavors in the dish.

Now taste again and season with salt and lots of pepper (it might not need much, or any, salt as the broth and cheese add a lot). Also feel free here to add more cheese or butter if you think it needs it. Serve garnished with shredded parm or other cheese and cracked pepper.

Makes about four servings.

I would love for you to share your favorite risotto variations in my comments!

I love this modern take on a mushroom brush, of all things. I have seen a lot of the plastic-handled type, but this, in sleek stainless steel, is about as close to an objet d’art that a humble mushroom brush can get! [$4.95]

Michael Pollan has been making news of late with his recently published book, In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto, which I have not read (though plan to). I did recently finish his 2001 tome, Botany of Desire, which explores the history of four plants: the apple, the tulip, marijuana, and the potato.

The book is great, but flawed, and if you read it, I would recommend that you skip the introduction, just because it presents at length a thesis that the rest of the book fails to fulfill. He argues that plants have manipulated us humans into serving their needs and ends just as much as we have manipulated them (through grafting, etc.) to satisfy our desires. While I believe that plants and humans have traveled on a co-evolutionary trajectory, I think it is a bit much to state that plants are “willful” participants in it or smug victors, basking in the glory of hoodwinking us into propagating their species.

That said, the stories of each of these four plants and their impacts on our culture are fascinating. I would recommend it for the chapter on the potato alone, which brilliantly assails the common practice of monoculture, which has in large measure necessitated the use of aggressive herb- and pesticide regimes, and connects this to the corporatization of farming, the possible perils of genetic engineering, and many other issues affecting our health and food supply. It is all very interesting, and well worth a read.

Where: wd~50
When: February 2, 2008
What:
Popcorn soup, shrimp, jicama, tamarind
Coffee gnocchi, coconut, cipollini, sylvetta
Scallops, black trumpet, cranberry, pecan, spice bread consommé
Parsnip tart, quinoa, hazelnuts, bok choy
Toasted coconut cake, carob, smoked cashews, brown butter sorbet
Neyers Zinfandel, Pato Vineyard, 2005, Contra Costa County, CA

As a special birthday treat for my husband, I took him to wd~50, the Wylie Dufresne restaurant on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. The restaurant is acclaimed for its gastronomic innovations, using molecular science to transform the ordinary into the unexpected, and sometimes slightly absurd (cubes of fried mayonnaise have gotten a lot of press; molé capsules, pizza pellets, and perfect pearls of tofu are other gastroddities).

The dining room is lovely—modern, yet warm and cozy. We were seated in a booth near the glass-paned fireplace. We immediately noticed Wylie himself standing back by the kitchen. The stars were surely aligned for a pleasant dining experience.

The meal started with sesame flatbread. To call it flatbread is a bit misleading; it is actually a gossamer-thin cracker; fragile sheets that broke apart in our hands and melted in our mouth. I think the flatbread might have been better sprinkled with something other than sesame–next to the delicacy of the bread, even these small seeds seemed clunky and incongruous. Maybe they could coat the bread with the molecular essence of sesame seeds rather than the seeds themselves, as that is their thing?

My husband’s soup was a vision not so much of the molecular gastronomy of which Dufresne is a champion, but more of a preference of engineering over naturalism. The shrimp were unrecognizably pressed into perfect discs, but were succulent none the less. The base of the soup itself tasted of creamy, buttery liquefied popcorn. And the jicama too denied its nature, cut into perfect crunchy squares, a good foil to the creamy broth and chewy shrimp.

The gnocchi appetizer was a disappointment for me (not as much for the hubs). The combination of coffee, the (overly-) charred cipollinis, sylvetta (wild arugula), and the lime dressing in which it was tossed made for an acrid, bitter, sour mess of a dish. The intense creaminess of the accompanying coconut foam (there is that molecular gastronomy) foiled the unpleasant flavors somewhat, but not so much that I had any desire to eat more than two bites of the dish (the hubs finished off the gnocchi component of the dish, though).

The parsnip tart was actually an architectural rectangle of a dense puree of parsnips with a cracker wall along one side of it (i.e., no real crust). It was beautifully presented with sautéed baby bok choy (not a vegetable I would have thought to pair with it, but it worked well here) and a cascade of quinoa pilaf spilled over the side. The dish was delicious, the parsnip puree was dense and smooth, slightly sweet, and paired well with the nutty quinoa and fresh bok choy. My only complaint is about the cracker “crust,” which was sweet; I think the sweet parsnips would have benefited from a savory (and herby–thyme would have been nice) counterpart.

My husband was nuts over the scallops. As everything else we were served, the dish was a sculptural wonder–the scallops sat on their edges with the mushrooms, nuts, and cranberries nestle around them. The scallops were perfectly cooked and buttery-textured. The artful puddle of consommé was infused with the essence of spiced bread (bread!), just another of the amazements that were almost beginning to seem commonplace coming from this kitchen-lab.

The Neyers zinfandel was unusual for a California zin. It was a lighter style than most I have had, it actually didn’t have many characteristics at all of a California zin except the whopping 15.6 percent alcohol content (yipes!). Despite the high alcohol content, the wine was pleasantly light and fruity with soft spices, and paired well with our food.

Along with the toasted coconut cake we ordered, they brought along an unidentified dessert with a candle stuck in it in honor of my husband’s birthday. It was quite a surprise as I hadn’t told them that we were there for his birthday. They must have heard me toast him, which is amazing (All I did was stand on my chair and loudly pronounce, “Happy Birthday, husband!” after clinking my glass several times to silence the restaurant–how did they know?). The candle glowed from within a cylindrical dark chocolate tuile that sat atop a cocoa-crusted passion fruit custard. It looked like a miniature hurricane lamp realized in chocolate–beautiful! The coconut cake was sublime–dense, chewy, and slightly sticky, it tasted of fresh coconut rather than powdery flakes, and wasn’t cloyingly sweet as one often finds with coconut desserts. The cashews added an unexpected savory, smoky element. The sorbet honestly didn’t taste of much of anything at all, but was pleasant enough for us to gobble it all up.

The service was attentive, though timing was a little spotty at first. Several attempts were made a drink orders before we were ready, then once we had looked at the wine list the waiter was nowhere to be found. Another small complaint is that the waiter was rather patronizing when I asked about two bottles of wine. I am no sommelier, but I know the basic differences between a syrah and a zinfandel, thank you! But I guess one can’t expect a waiter to have a psychic ability to detect breadth of wine knowledge. All in all the service was good, certainly as good as you would expect eating in a restaurant of this quality.

wd~50
50 Clinton St
New York, NY 10002

Where: Chocolat Michel Cluizel
When: Saturday, February 2nd, 2008
What: Hot Chocolate

My husband’s birthday was February 2nd and after we saw Samuel Beckett’s Happy Days with Fiona Shaw at BAM in Brooklyn (fantastic, btw) and before our dinner reservations at wd-50 on the Lower East Side in Manhattan, we had some time to kill and happened to have a wee bit of a sweet tooth. We had intended to go to The City Bakery for their deliciously rich hot chocolate, but as we got off the subway at Union Square, I remembered having read about a place located in ABC Carpet and Home that was supposed to have great hot chocolate and thought that we might give it a try.

Chocolat Michel Cluizel is located in what used to be a hallway at the back of the ground floor of ABC. It does indeed still serve as a hallway of sorts as the little cafe grant access to three restaurants also on the premises. Still, it is a cozy little room with bar and cafe table seating, and a large island in the center that houses the rather over priced to-go confections ($50 for a small box of chocolate chip cookies, anyone?). The island was notably quiet, but every table in the cafe was filled with people sampling hot chocolate and bites of dessert (they also serve wine and champagne).

We took a seat at the bar and ordered a pot of hot chocolate for two [$12]. The hot chocolate was delicious: rich, extremely chocolaty, and not too sweet. The pot gave us each two full cups of chocolate. It seemed a little thin, and I missed the whipped cream, but as the chocolate itself was made of (non-whipped) cream, I decided to endure this hardship stoically. After about 5 minutes, the drink developed an oily film on the top–no doubt from the high fat content–and also seemed to turn a bit lumpy, but the good flavor persisted and we continued to enjoy it until the last drop.

The service was attentive and the presentation elegant–I especially loved the neat little tea pot the hot chocolate was served in that had a flat, plate-like lid that you could hold down with the thumb of the pouring hand, freeing the other hand to, I don’t know, catch up on dusting.

All in all, though, I must say that I prefer the City Bakery hot chocolate, though it it served in paper cups and one must wait in a cafeteria-style line to order it. Their hot chocolate has a baked, liquefied-brownie, flavor that is unusual and totally irresistible. It also has a thicker texture than Michel Cluizel’s, and lacks the oil slick on top and lumpy texture.

City bakery’s hot chocolate isn’t actually much cheaper than Michel Cluizel’s, and the experience of drinking it not so refined, but the flavor and texture are superior. So if you want a decadent and delicious cup of hot chocolate to warm you up, go to City Bakery; but if you want to drink chocolate like the ladies who lunch, you might as well check out Michel Cluizel.

(Note: February is City Bakery’s Hot Chocolate Festival!)

The City Bakery
3 w. 18th Street (b. 5th/6th Aves)
212-366-1414

Chocolat Michel Cluizel
ABC Carpet and Home
888 Broadway (at 19th St.)
646-602-3262

Thanks to Iron Chef on the Food Network, Anthelme Brilliat-Savarin is now famous for having said “Tell me what you eat and I will tell you who you are.”

So, on the occasion of primaries in my state, and many of yours, I thought I would take a look at what the major candidates most like to cook (according to an AP poll taken last year), to see if it teaches us about who they are.

Hillary Clinton: Soft boiled eggs.
Now, the eggs I understand. They are sort of comforting, familiar, and maybe a touch maternal. But she should have balanced that by saying she likes them fried over-hard, or better yet, hard-boiled. Hard-boiled implies tough on defense, no?

Barack Obama: Chili.
Really? Barack, think about it. Do you really want to project that you like things that are full of beans? Honestly, man–gassy, gassy beans.

Mitt Romney: Hot Dog.
Singular, not plural. Implies selfishness and/or poor planning. Doesn’t the rest of the country get hot dogs too? Apparently not. And I bet this rich dude tops his hot dog with caviar and shaved truffles.

John McCain: Baby-back ribs.
I want my baby-back-baby-back-baby-back-baby-back-baby-back. Now, I am a Democrat, and definitely not voting for him, but this was the best food choice among the current major candidates. It also fits him to a T: tough, spicy, and you might need a bib to digest him, America!

(An aside. The reason Bill Richardson is no longer in the race? His favorite thing to cook: Diet Milkshake.)

Now that you have this essential information, go out and vote, why don’t you!

Free Rice is an ingenious website that offers a multiple-choice vocabulary test for which every correct answer donates 20 grains of rice to be distributed by the United Nations World Food Program. The donations are paid for by advertisers seen in a banner at the bottom of the page. The FAQ page states that vocabulary levels go up through 55, but that few people go above 48. If that isn’t a challenge, I don’t know what is!

Where: My place, Brooklyn, NY
When: last Saturday
What: Pizza with potatoes, blue cheese, and vidalia onions; chopped salad

Now, normally I am a sauce girl. I like sauce on my pizza. And not the white stuff either (white pie. puh!); I prefer a rich tomato sauce, but San Marzanos (as required by D.O.C. [Denominazione di Origine Controllate] pies, along with mozzarella di bufala, among other requirements) can be okay, too.

But as I walked down Smith Street last weekend, I stopped in my tracks when I saw this scrawled across a chalkboard set up outside Pacific Pizza: “Pizza with potatoes, blue cheese, and vidalia onions.” I like me some starch, but it takes some culinary cajones to put potatoes on top of bread and call it a pizza. I had to try it. As luck would have it, I had invited a couple friends over that very chilly evening to watch a movie at my place. I had planned on making my baked macaroni and cheese with spicy crust, but this instantly changed those plans to delivery instead.

When I called the joint to order, the description of the pizza had improved. In addition to potatoes, blue cheese and onions, the order-taker informed me, there was also mozzarella and rosemary. While it is always risky to order a non-conformist pizza without a back-up-traditional pie, I decided to get just a large special, plus a chopped salad.

The salad was a disappointment. It was a totally uninspired mix of romaine (my bane!), cherry tomatoes, cucumbers, carrots, and provolone, with a vinegarette that looked and tasted like muddy vinegar. I know that a Caesar isn’t a Caesar without romaine lettuce, but in any other type of salad, why use romaine or iceburg lettuce when there are so many other types of lettuce with more flavor and nutritional punch (red leaf, arugula, raddichio, endive, frisee, etc.)?

The pizza, on the other hand, was delicious. The potatoes were paper-thin, chewy in the center, and perfectly crispy around the edges, and there was a nice balance of cheeses–they were careful not to overwhelm the pie with too much bleu–and it was perfectly seasoned with rosemary and salt. This was a subtle pie, there was no sock-you-in-the face tomato sauce, no peppery piquancy, just pleasant, comforting, mellow flavor and dense, chewy texture. The only thing that kept the pizza from being sublime was the crust, which could be improved upon. It was floury (as in, powder caked on the underside of the crust) and lacked flavor, a complication from under-salting, which I find to be unfortunately common problem among pizza crusts.

There is a dining room at Pacific Pizza, and they have spruced it up a bit since their conversion from the last pizzeria iteration there called La Rosa and Sons (part of a trio of restaurants that dominate the corner of Smith and Pacific Streets, and seem to share a kitchen), so it might be a nice place to eat if you ever find yourself on Smith Street, hankering for pizza. And if you live in the nabe, by all means, order delivery from here, but be sure to ask about the specials!

Pacific Pizza
98 Smith Street (at Pacific)
Brooklyn, NY
718-935-0545