It must be the water.

If you were born, raised, or spent any significant time in New York you start to wonder why it's impossible to find certain food items in other parts of the country. Specifically, I'm talking about bagels and pizza. Sure, there are products sold as bagels and pizza but they're not the same thing. My mother, a Bronx native, claims it's the water. After all, its not as if there aren't Jews in LA or Italians in Boston who have the desire to make these delectable treats. But for whatever reason, they're not the same.

Personally, I find the absence of quality bagels across the country a greater concern. There seems to have been a greater proliferation of passable pizza over the years. However, once you leave the New York metropolitan area, it's all rolls with holes, not a bagel in sight. And if you're going to eat a bagel in New York it's not complete without cream cheese and lox. This is my ode to that glorious combo.

Making the salmon is easy, almost too easy. Sometimes lox is cold smoked. But I wasn't going to go through the trouble of buying oak chips and smoking fish on my roof in the middle of winter. So, I used a very basic curing recipe and honestly, you cannot tell the difference. Per one pound of salmon fillet you need:

3 Tablespoons salt
1 Tablespoon sugar
2 teaspoons cracked black pepper
1 bunch of fresh dill

In a bowl mix the salt, sugar and pepper. Place a large piece of saran wrap on a cutting board and put the salmon on top. Completely cover the salmon with the salt mixture and place the dill on top. Wrap the whole thing tightly in plastic wrap and then double wrap it. Keep in the fridge for three days in an open tupperware. That's it. It's awesome.

Now, bagels are not difficult to make, they just require a lot of steps. However, no one step is particularly challenging even for the amateur bagel maker, like myself. Here goes:

1 1/2 cups warm water (105°F to 110°F)
1 (1/4-ounce) packet active dry yeast + 1 teaspoon (3 1/4 teaspoons total)
4 cups bread flour
4 tablespoons malt syrup
1 1/2 tablespoons kosher salt
4 teaspoons granulated sugar

I want to comment on two things before I move forward. First bread flour is preferred over all purpose flour because it has a higher gluten content which you need in order to achieve chewiness in the bagel. Also, you may be asking, "What is malt syrup?" Malt syrup is an earthy less sweet than honey syrup derived from barley and corn. You can find it in most organic or health food stores. Many people replace malt syrup with brown sugar, but the syrup is what gives bagels that certain bagely 'je ne se quois'.

Place 1 1/2 cups of the tepid water in a bowl and dissolve the yeast completely; set aside. Combine flour, half of the malt syrup, salt, and sugar in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a dough hook attachment. Add yeast mixture, scraping any undissolved yeast out of the bowl with a spatula.

Mix on low until most of the loose flour has been worked into the dough and the dough looks shredded, about 2 minutes. Increase the speed to medium low and continue mixing until the dough is stiff, smooth, and elastic, about 8 to 9 minutes more. (If the dough gets stuck on the hook or splits into 2 pieces, stop the machine, scrape off the hook, and mash the dough back into the bottom of the bowl.) The dough should be dry, not tacky or sticky, and somewhat stiff.

Shape the dough into a ball, place it in a large oiled bowl, and turn it to coat in oil. Cover the bowl with a damp towel and let the dough rise in a warm place, until it is noticeably puffy and springs back when you poke it, about 20 minutes. (The dough will not double in size.)

Meanwhile, heat the oven to 425°F and arrange the rack in the middle. Fill a large, wide, shallow pan (about 3 to 6 quarts) with water, bring to a boil over high heat, add the rest of the malt syrup, then reduce heat to medium low and let simmer. Cover until you’re ready to boil the bagels. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper greased with oil or cooking spray. Place a metal rack inside of a second baking sheet and set aside.

Turn the risen dough out onto a dry surface. Divide the dough into 6 equal pieces, about 6 ounces each. (While you work, keep the dough you’re not handling covered with a damp towel to prevent drying.) Roll each piece into a 9-inch-long rope, lightly moisten the ends with water, overlap the ends by about 1 inch, and press to join so you’ve created a bagel. As necessary, widen the hole in the middle so it is approximately the size of a quarter. Cover the shaped bagels with a damp towel and let rest 10 minutes.

After resting, stretch the dough to retain the quarter-size hole (the dough will have risen a bit) and boil the bagels 3 or 4 at a time, making sure they have room to bob around. Cook for about 30 seconds on each side until the bagels have a shriveled look, then remove to the baking sheet with the rack in it. Adjust heat as necessary so the water stays at a simmer.

Whisk together the remaining 1 tablespoon water and the egg white until evenly combined. Brush the egg wash all over the bagels, then sprinkle as desired with poppy seeds, sesame seeds, or coarse salt. Arrange the bagels on the baking sheet lined with parchment paper about 1 inch apart and bake. Rotate the pan after 15 minutes and bake until the bagels are a deep caramel color and have formed a crust on the bottom and top, about 10 minutes more. Remove from the oven and let cool on a rack for at least 30 minutes so the interiors finish cooking and the crusts form a chewy exterior.

This recipe is adapted from one I found on chow.com. Their process was dead on but I made some tweaks that really pushed this bagel to mimic something you'd find in New York. Enjoy.

Just the tips. Just to see how it feels.

It's been a long hiatus but I'm back to posting. But enough about me, on to the food. After the superbowl I was confronted with a problem. Like most folks we made wings for the big game. While I was preparing the wings I would separate the wing tip from the wing, and then the drumette from from the little wing. After I finished prep, I realized that I had a whole mess of chicken wing tips. Normally, I wouldn't think twice about throwing them away or just freezing them for the stock pot. But what kind of cook would that make me? After all a cook isn't worth his weight in salt unless he can take the tough, ugly and unappealing and turn it into something that tastes good.

Coupled with that, I had been reading about the influx of Sichuan cuisine into New York City. So I was inspired.

I marinated the wing tips overnight in soy, sugar, and rice wine vinegar. I broiled them until brown and then stir fried the tips in sesame oil with jalapeño, ginger, garlic, scallions and dried red chilies.



The wing tips aren't for everybody. There is not much meat and bit of cartilage. But the skin to flesh ratio gives them a deep chicken flavor. If you feel so inclined you could always substitute the tips with chicken thigh meat. Now, I wont include a recipe here because the chances that somebody will actually make this are slim. It's mostly to urge that we think before we throw food out because what we think of as garbage is food in 95% of the world.

ON HIATUS.

Unfortunately, HTCA will be put on hold as I study for the LSATs. I'll be posting again at the end of december.

Happy Belated Mother's Day

Turkey Backs $0.89/lb. Small 2 in. by 1 in. chunks of meat, fat, bone and skin in a Styrofoam plastic-wrapped container staring at me as if to say, "I dare you." There was flavor in there. There was potential in there. Just like my mother took a naked slimy baby and over the years nurtured and cared for me so I would realize my potential, I was going to nurture those turkey necks into something more. Something delicious. Something unexpected.

It took me a while to figure out what to do with them. Which is something I'm sure my mother repeated over and over to me as young child, "What am I going to do with you?" They sat in my freezer for about 2 weeks taunting me much like they had in the supermarket. It got to me. "It's just turkey," I thought. How could I let something so simple, so small, frustrate me? I couldn't figure out what to do with turkey and almost has a nervous breakdown. God only knows what my mother was going through when I ran away from camp, threw a piece of marble tile at my sister or got lost at South Street Seaport when I was seven.

There were so many failed ideas with the turkey backs. It reminded me of my childhood and how many things I failed at; soccer, baseball, lacrosse, singing, the trombone, painting and sculpture. Virtually every activity children did, I could not. So, it must have been a great relief to my mom when she discovered, that in fact I did have a skill, cooking. That her tireless trips to practices, concerts and art lessons actually led somewhere. As her years of nurturing and trial and error finally bore fruit, so too would my struggle to cook the turkey backs.

Beans. It was so simple. So obvious. The obvious it seems has a tendency to be not so obvious to me. I think the same was true for my mom. Sure, every fat, overeating 11 year old doesn't love to cook as much as he does eat. But then again every fat, overeating 11 year old doesn't stand adjacent to the open kitchen and watch the cooks all night at the local Italian restaurant instead of waiting at the table with his parents. It's clear now that cooking was something I was in tune with as a child but I don't think it was obvious for my mother, or anybody else for that matter. When I was a kid my dad was busy starting his own business or working demanding Wall St. jobs and my mother was, by default, tasked with "figuring me out." I think all my antics, bad behavior, poor grades and lack of interest in school really was taxing and at the end of the day my potential became less obvious to her, just as my own obsession in trying to crack the turkey back mystery clouded me from the obvious solution.

Luckily however, all her patience and diligence paid off and she did help me figure out what I'm good at. What does this have to do with beans and better yet, chucks of turkey back? Well, together, with patience and ingenuity they can be transformed from hard and undesirable into something with unseen potential. This extended metaphor is in a way a belated mother's day gift. My great turkey/bean dilemma made it clear to me that if I was so easily frustrated by the remaining scraps of turkey, that my mother's patience is infinite, as must be her love. Thanks mom for seeing in me what I saw in those bony and fatty pieces of turkey: potential. Happy Mothers Day.

White Bean and Turkey Stew

1.5 lbs. turkey backs (for that matter any assorted bones, meat and scraps)2 lbs. dry Great Northern or other white bean such as Cannellini

4 cups chicken stock

2 medium carrots peeled and chopped

2 stalks of celery chopped

1 large onion chopped

3 cloves of garlic minced

1 sprig of rosemary

3 tbsp Olive oil

salt and pepper to taste

Rinse and soak the beans over night according to the package instructions. Place a heavy bottomed pot over medium high heat and add the olive oil. Meanwhile, season the turkey parts with salt and pepper. When the oil starts to smoke add the turkey and brown on all sides, 10-12 mins. Remove to a plate lined with paper towel. Lower the heat to medium and add all the vegetables. Saute until translucent, 4-5 mins. Lightly crush the rosemary in the palm of your hand so it releases its natural oils and add to the pot. Add the beans, turkey and chicken broth to the pot and stir. Bring the mixture to a boil, then lower to a simmer. Cover and cook for 2 hours.

Eat your veggies.

Apparently, mothers will never stop telling you the importance of eating your veggies. Recently my mother has complained that my blog is too meat-centric. There is some truth to that. So, I invited my vegetarian friend Kailee over for dinner and it was the perfect opportunity to experiment with some new all veg meals.

Before I delve into the recipes I want to share my thoughts on vegetarianism, veganism and the raw food diet craze. First off, if you're a vegetarian and you eat fish sometimes or buffalo chicken wings, but only when it's wing night at the dining hall, you're not a vegetarian. I'm sorry but an animal is an animal even if it's ugly. I can't root for the Red Sox 3 games a month and in good conscience call myself a Yankees fan so you can't call yourself a vegetarian if you eat fish. I'm glad I got that all out.

Newton's third law states that forces occurs in pairs, one called the action and the other the reaction. However, I don't believe Newton's laws are limited to physics. To me, the explosion of vegetarian, vegan and raw diet culture is a direct result of the sad state of meat production and the prevalence of the fast food industry in the United States. It is easy to see how McDonald's and KFC can turn people off to meat. Not only because they serve either fried reconsituted chicken bits or greasy and grey pre cooked beef patties but because there is no soul or effort put forth to respect the animal that has been killed. If you're going to eat chicken you should cook the best chicken you possibly can. If a chicken has to die it shouldn't be for a nasty soulless nugget. I imagine that if the widespread use of animal protein was more respectful to the dead animal, if we used all the parts, if we cooked it well with some love and soul, and treated it as if it were once alive there wouldn't be such aversion to meat.

Now enjoy these veggie recipes you dirty hippies.

Sweet Potato and Turnip Curry with Spiced Kale

For the curry:

4 white turnips (slice into 1/4'' semi circles)
2 large sweet potatoes (cut similarly)
1 large onion chopped
3 cloves garlic minced
1 tbsp ginger minced
2 cups vegetable broth
1 cup crushed tomatoes
1 cup yogurt
1 tsp cruish red pepper
1 tsp cumin 3
tbsp of your favorite red curry paste
2 tsps olive oil
salt and pepper to taste

Place a heavy bottomed pot over medium heat, add the olive oil. Saute the onions, garlic and ginger until they are softened and lightly brown. Add the cumin and crushed red pepper and lightly brown the spices for a minute. Add the vegetable stock, tomatoes, yogurt and curry paste. Stir until combined. Bring the mixture to a simmer. Season with salt and pepper. Add the sweet potatoes and turnips to the mixture cover and continue to simmer on low for 20 minutes.

For the Kale:

1 1lb package frozen kale (spinach works too)
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp crushed red pepper
1 tsp garlic powder
2 cloves garlic minced
2 tsps fresh ginger minced
3/4 cup vegetable broth
1 tsp olive oil
salt and pepper to taste

Place a saute pan over medium heat. Add the olive oil and when it is warm add the fresh ginger, garlic, garlic powder crushed red pepper and cumin. Brown for 1 minute. Add the vegetable broth and stir. Season with salt and pepper. When the liquid comes to a simmer add the Kale. Cover and let cook for 8 minutes.

Serve these along side steamed jasmine or basmati rice.

Curry:



Jack says:

Dirty hippie recipe deserves dirty hippie music -

"When I Woke" by Rusted Root

My Big Fat Greek Preplanned Week Long Supply of Dinner

There's no point in cooking unless you're going to cook a lot. Sure I'm only one person, but recipes for one are (a) not worth the effort and (b) make you feel lonely... That's why I like to cook in big batches because I can have a lot of food prepped for the week. If a day comes along and I'm too tired to cook at least I have a delicious pre-prepared meal that saves me money as opposed to eating out.

Over the weeks I've put up a lot of heavy dishes and stews, like meatloaf and chili but as the weather turns warmer people want to eat lighter and suddenly that big old slab of bacon wrapped meatloaf is less appealing. The following recipe for Greek roasted chicken and potatoes doesn't have to be a preplanned dinner for the week, that's just how I use it. It's perfectly fine for any light supper. Here we go:

Greek Chicken and Potatoes

2 lbs assorted chicken parts bone in and skin on (legs, breasts, thighs, whatever you like but you need to buy bone in skin on pieces or the chicken will be dry and tasteless)
1 lemon
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 large sprig of rosemary, leaves chopped roughly
2 tsps salt
2 tsps pepper
2 tsps garlic powder
2 tsps dried oregano
2 lbs red potatoes, quartered

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Rinse the chicken pieces and pat them dry with a paper towel. Wash, dry and quarter the potatoes. On a baking sheet arrange the chicken and potatoes so they fit. Drizzle with olive oil and squeeze all the lemon juice out over the top. Sprinkle the rosemary and remaining seasonings over the top and toss the chicken and potatoes until coated. Place in the oven for 25 minutes. After 25 minutes at 400 degrees, place the baking sheet with the chicken and potatoes under the broiler for 5 more minutes. Done.

Before:



After:



Musical Pairing:

Jack says, "Steely Dan, "Aja," for no other reason than I like to listen to Steely Dan when I cook, especially one-dish or one-pot wonders."

Not for the purist.

We've already tackled green chili, so it's about time we moved on to the red stuff. Now, if you're a chili purist, this post probably is not for you. The purists will talk about making sure you use small chunks of beef instead of ground, and insist on using a variety of dried peppers to make a complex "gravy" as they call it. That is all fine and well, it's just not what this is. My chili has ground beef. My chili has tomatoes. My chili has okra? Yeah, I threw some in one day to ramp up the veg count and it came out well, so I kept it. It's also quick and dirty. Sometimes you don't have 5 hours to fire up a bowl of red and you need to get dinner on in an hour or so. If it helps the chili traditionalists out there, think of this more as a thick chili like stew than actual chili. Then again, to hell with the purists. They probably would not regard the green chili I made as chili either. No matter what you call it though, green or red, beans or not, it's delicious.

My 'not' Chili

1.25 lbs ground chuck
1 large onion chopped
4 cloves garlic minced
1 medium green bell pepper chopped
1 28 oz can of crushed tomatoes
1 12 oz can kidney beans (rinse off the nasty bean liquid)
2 tsps cumin
2 tsps crushed red pepper
2 tsps salt
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tablespoon tomato paste
1 lb okra sliced (fresh or frozen)
2 tsps olive oil
salt and pepper to taste

This is easy. Place a heavy bottomed pot over medium-high heat and add the olive oil. Saute the onion, bell pepper and garlic until lightly browned, 4-5 minutes. Add the ground chuck and brown, 10 minutes. Add the garlic powder, cumin and crushed red pepper. Lightly cook the spiced meat mixture for 2 minutes. Add the tomato paste and incorporate into the meat mixture. Stir in the crushed tomatoes. Season with salt and pepper and add the beans. Cover, lower the heat to low and simmer for 45 minutes. Add the okra and stir (if the okra is frozen it will only take about 3-4 minutes to come to temperature, if fresh it will take about 7-8 minutes to cook). Serve with yogurt or sour cream.




*UPDATE*

Jack Every, a trusted music and radio buff, will be providing complimentary musical pairings with each post to enhance the culinary experience.

Jack says, "Seeing that this looks like a good southern-style chili, I'm going to have to go with a good southern-style album, and I promise, it won't be, or ever be, ZZ Top. Listening selection-- "Live Alive" by Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble."

There you have it. ZZ Top out, Chili and SRV in. Enjoy