Nobel Surprise

Dear readers, let’s collaborate on a timely recipe.

All I have right now is a name. It’s called Nobel Surprise.
What is it? And what’s the surprise?
It’s probably based on something Norwegian and famous.
An autumn dish, like cardamom cake with pear baked inside.

Perhaps there is a touch of Kenya? Cloudberry wienerbrød, served with changaa-spiked whipped cream?

Maybe it’s not a dessert.

Maybe it’s an appetizer. It’s a teaser, suggesting magical things could happen later in the meal. It’s tasty, sure, but like a dish at El Bulli, the hype about Nobel Surprise sometimes gets out of control, and stratospheric expectations can’t always be met.

What do you think Nobel Surprise is?

UPDATE 10/17/09:
So that you know I’m serious about Nobel Surprise, I’m throwing out the first (and maybe the only) serious option: I made some cardamom milk cake last night and drizzled dark chocolate on it. The dark chocolate is the surprise, of course. Maybe it should’ve been milk chocolate, but I don’t like milk chocolate (and I hope you don’t think I’m bi-racist for saying it).

OK, I admit it. This whole thing was just an excuse for me to make dessert…

7,000 foot chocolate buttermilk cake

I can’t remember the last time I made a layer cake with icing. Maybe never. I prefer to leave these things to the experts. Cakes are not a cakewalk. Especially not in Santa Fe, at 7,000 feet above sea level. So when called upon to bake one for a dinner party, I refused at first.

water-based soups

Soup season is officially open, and I’ve been exploring water-based soups this year. Mostly because I don’t have the time and energy to make stock (not that it requires much), and I’m not buying stock at the supermarket because it isn’t very good, it’s expensive, I think it’s a waste of food transportation energy, and the supermarket I’m shopping at doesn’t sell meat anyway, so my choices are mushroom, vegetable, or nothing.

It’s amazing how flavorful nothing can be. With a little added fat and umami of course. You see, you can’t just salt your way to success with water-based soup. You need some kind of base, probably some variant of a mirepoix along with a bunch of fat. I don’t know where I heard this recently, but fat is flavor. So, preferably you’ll want a couple kinds.

Plus you’ll want a balance of umami (which, really, is what stock is all about), salt, and acid. Example one: this delicious west african peanut soup from Bittman. Fattened up with grapeseed oil, chicken fat, peanut butter, and peanuts. Tomatoes lend the umami and acid. Sweet potatoes and kale make for a good textural balance. Wow, it’s so damn good.

Example two: red lentil soup with lemon, which has graced this blog in the past, perhaps more than once. The recipe calls for stock, but this one works well with water. You need another flavor dimension beyond the olive oil/tomato paste/lemon troika to drive it home, though. A cup of grated parmesan at the end works well, in lieu of salt. And a dollop of yogurt upon serving takes it to the top.

So, that’s what I’ve got. If you have any other water-based soup secrets, I’d love to hear them…

Santa Fe

So I’ve been in Santa Fe for a couple weeks. According to the American Lung Association, this area has some of the cleanest air in the country. It’s right up there with Duluth, and the difference in palpable. First, smells seem to carry much further around here. I smell piñon and ponderosa pines, I smell desert sage and honeysuckle and russian olives. And this time of year, there’s the smell of roasting Hatch green chiles all around town.

The rainbow

The first time I went in, it looked like a fairly normal grocery store.

I know this, I thought. This is a grocery store. Grocery stores are a familiar pattern to me. I am comfortable with them. I grok this interaction model. I even had a list. Milk, eggs, fruit, veggies, chicken… Sure, I was a little disoriented, not knowing the layout, but I love exploring a new place, seeing all of the produce laid out so nicely, the beautiful cheese case, and the shocking variety of granola bars.

I worked my way down the list, all the way to the chicken. I looked up. I circled the store a couple more times, and then my jaw dropped. This “grocery store” sells no meat!

Patterson House

I have been unapologetically hermitic and haven’t left the house here in Nashville after 6pm in weeks. But last night I got to try a new speakeasy called The Patterson House.

The vibe: roaring 20s in the south. Walnut bar, bartenders in vests and ties, pressed copper ceiling, and dark built-in bookshelves everywhere giving a parlor feel. Beautiful cylindrical glass chandeliers cast a warm glow. And the music is just as I like it in bars: felt but not heard.

The cocktails are the best I’ve had in recent memory: perfectly balanced and cleverly crafted without being over-the-top. Classic with a thoughtful contemporary twist. I had The Maisie Day, made with Luzianne infused gin, lemon, egg white, and lemon bitters and it had a lovely lemon creamcicle flavor up front and the Luzianne tea added a nice, subtly tannic finish. The ice is formed into a single perfect sphere (to fit Old Fashioned glasses) or elongated rectangle (for Collins glasses). Patterson makes their own syrups and bitters from fresh fruit and herbs, and they’ve designed 50 cocktails including a Bacon Old Fashioned with Benton bacon macerated 4 Roses bourbon, maple syrup, and coffee pecan bitters—which I didn’t get to try. Another reason to return. Not that I need it.

The small plates: Delicious. The chef is a veteran of The Fat Duck, Craft, and Alinea. The only other thing I have to say about the food is “BBQ pork sliders.” Hell yes!

(Photo by Chris Wage)

Alice’s Boureg

This is a video of my great aunt Alice Doney making Armenian boureg (a puffed pastry dumpling made with a ground lamb or cheese filling—nom nom nom) and talking about Armenian history and my family’s migration to the US. Some abrupt editing here as she goes between cooking and talking about the trauma of the genocide. There’s a photo in here of her as a child, with my grandmother Gladys and great-grandmother Esther. I didn’t know until seeing this video that Alice has published recipes—her simplifications of traditional Armenian dishes. This was really touching for me to see, and I’m inspired to make more Armenian goodies… stay tuned!

Lahmajoon

1. Weigh it

2. Chop it

3. Toss it

4. Roll it

5. Press it

6. Bake it

7. Serve it

Lahmajoon (لحم بعجي, “meat with dough”) is an Armenian “personal pizza” made with very thin crust and a ground lamb topping. Here’s the recipe, transcribed by my mom and dictated by my Armenian grandmother, Gladys.

Serve with lemon juice on top, or a pickle, or put the whole salad on top and wrap it up in a blanket of lamb.

Sauerkraut & ginger ale at home

I love fermented food because time does most of the work. My go-to book is Sandor Katz’s Wild Fermentation, and these two recipes are adapted from it.

Sauerkraut

Sauerkraut is cabbage and salt, plus time. Two weeks ago I shredded some red cabbage and carrots, added a bunch of salt as I went, packed it all into a crock, covered it with a plate that would fit snugly inside the crock, and some heavy objects (to squeeze the water out), covered the whole thing with a dish towel to keep dust out, and let it sit. For the first day, I pushed down on the plate occasionally, squeezing more water out of the vegetables. But once the cabbage was submerged in brine, my work was done. Over the next two weeks, I tasted the kraut every couple days as it got tangier, until yesterday when I declared it done, transferred it to a jar and put it in the fridge. Honestly, it could have kept fermenting for months.

Unlike the canned variety, fresh sauerkraut keeps a nice crunch. You can use cabbage, carrots, turnips, rutabagas, and a lot of other vegetables. Katz recommends around 3 Tbsp salt per 5 lbs of vegetables. As long as the salt level of the brine is around 10% and the cabbage is fully submerged in the brine, it’s a pretty foolproof process. But there is one thing that may be alarming if you’re not expecting it: surface mold!

It’s harmless, it’s very likely to develop, it looks disgusting, and it probably keeps a lot of people from making their own kraut. Just skim it off, and don’t worry if you can’t get rid of all of it. If the kraut really has gone bad, you will know because it will stink up your entire house.

Ginger beer

This also takes a few weeks to make, but it’s one of the most refreshing drinks I’ve ever tasted. It’s non-alcoholic and it never cloys like supermarket ginger ale. It has a nice light fizz. You will need:

• A one-gallon glass jug, with a tight fitting top (a screw-top apple juice jug is perfect)
• Cheesecloth & a rubber band
• 1½ cups + a few teaspoons sugar
• a big piece of ginger root
• two lemons

First, make a starter ferment in a small jar. Start with a cup of cold water, 2 tsp sugar, and 2 tsp coarsely grated ginger in a jar. Stir to dissolve the sugar, cover with cheesecloth and a rubber band, and leave in a warm corner of the room.

Every day, add another 2 tsp ginger and 2 tsp sugar and stir it up. Within 2-5 days, you should see small bubbles on the ginger itself or along the inside of the jar. The whole thing will get slightly fizzy. That’s when you know it’s ready for the next step.

Bring 2 quarts water to the boil, add 2-6 inches of grated ginger (more ginger will make it stronger) and 1½ cups sugar. Boil for 15 minutes and let cool to room temperature.

Strain the cooled mixture and the starter ferment, combine them and add the juice of two lemons. Stir and add this to your gallon jug, along with enough water to fill the jug (leaving a little headspace). Let sit for two weeks in the same warm corner. Cool, open carefully, and serve!