2016: Cookbooks I: Brunch at Bobby's

I got a whole bunch of cookbooks around Christmas. Most were gifted to me by people on this email list, so you know who you are and thanks!

However, I’ve noticed that my penchant for high end cookbooks is getting me into some hot water (cooking pun!). Almost all these books require mail order ingredients and/or a week or so of advance planning because they’re all restaurant recipes, where the restaurants can keep these things on hand, but no home cook has this stuff, or the time. But I plan to use them all extensively and will start with the recipes they’re either famous for or mention in the introduction, hence the beginning of this "2016 Cookbooks” series.

My dear mother-in-law always picks out cookbooks that are not that high end and usually less healthy than I prefer to cook. BUT, I do like Bobby Flay’s recipes, and this book she gave me, Brunch at Bobby’s, seemed the simplest to cook from at a busy time in my life when I still wanted to be in the kitchen. Of course I cooked all day and I bit off more than I could chew (what’s with these puns?). This weekend we had brunch for a late dinner of...

Crab Cakes Benedict with Old Bay Hollandaise and Johnny Cakes

This was delicious. A poached egg on top of a homemade crab cake on top of a Johnny Cake, all drizzled with spicy hollandaise. 

A Johnny Cake is basically a cornbread pancake, and one of the earliest truly American foods, attributed to Native Americans and quickly adopted by southern settlers and then some central and south Americans. There’s a chance its name comes from “Shawnee Cake” but its etymology actually has an elaborate and debatable history likely going back to a word from England in the 1500s that was changed over time, perhaps finally transformed by African American slaves.

The dish also pointed out one thing I struggle with as a cook- my emulsions almost always break. I’m awful at making mayonnaise, and hollandaise is no different. It tasted okay, but I broke it like I always do. Most likely because one of my greatest faults is lack of patience.

Cast-Iron Home Fries with Roasted Green Chiles and Creamy Garlic Dressing

Out of focus in the picture here, this was as delicious as it sounds. Crispy potatoes, roasted poblanos, and radicchio tossed in a very tasty garlicky dressing.

Maple-Mustard-Glazed Canadian Bacon

The glaze was simple and super tasty, but I don’t know where Flay gets Canadian bacon that crisps in the oven the way he instructs. Mine was tasty, but waaaay leathery. I kind of expected that while following the recipe, but did it anyway. Bad, Bobby Flay!

Earl Grey Spritzer and Mojito Champagne Cocktail

I don’t usually do cocktails, but these were easy and befitting of a dinner-brunch. Champagne over simple syrups infused with Earl Grey tea and mint, respectively. The mojito one gets a small splash of rum too (thanks, Nora). Ironically, I made the Earl Grey for me and the mojito for Kara (she hates bergamot and loves mojitos) and she ended up trading drinks with me! Shrug. Cheers!

Pho

Before we get any further, this dish is pronounced FUH, not FOH or anything else. I’m a stickler for pronunciation, so please get this one right.

It’s currently an über trendy dish in America, but has been as common as a hamburger in Vietnam for almost a century. Pho is basically an Asian version of a classic noodle soup- chicken, pork, or beef, etc. It is eaten any time of day, but it’s actually most often served as breakfast in most of Vietnam. We had it for dinner tonight.

I recently got Charles Phan’s first book, Vietnamese Home Cooking, after all the success and fun I’ve had with The Slanted Door. We’re real busy (closing on a house and moving AGAIN), so I’ve only managed to cook this one classic recipe from it so far, and the timing was perfect because it’s been rainy and in the 30s here; perfect weather for a house to be filled with the heat and smells of chicken bones and ginger simmering all day. I’m sure I’ll do more complex stuff once things settle down.

Pho Gá

A simple but flavorful Asian chicken broth ladled over rice noodles, chicken, scallions, and cilantro, garnished with fried shallots. It’s served alongside fresh lime, bean sprouts, jalapeños, and basil, the idea being that you add the fresh herbs as you eat, so they never get soft or soggy. Comforting and delicious- light if you eat a little, filling if you eat a lot.

Mrs. Smith Goes to Washington

Kara went to DC this week with the entire 8th grade of Greenhill. So you know what that means… I cook forbidden food! Not really forbidden—Kara has a pretty flexible palette—but she is not a fan of lamb, is severely allergic to clams, and she probably would not be interested in seeing a whole quail on her plate. So I pulled out my favorite cookbooks and went to town.

Braised Eggs with Lamb, Tahini, and Sumac

This is the cover recipe for Jerusalem (their picture is prettier, but they cheated!—It’s heavily modified from the actual recipe). The book’s description is what interested me most: "This concoction is Jerusalem fusion food at it’s very best. It incorporates traditional elements that are purely Palestinian with ingredients characteristic of various Jewish cuisines, and puts them all together in a completely nontraditional way.” The flavors were AMAZING and perfectly balanced. Lamb, onions, garlic, pistachios, pine nuts, harissa paste (a red chile-based hot sauce with spices like caraway and cumin), topped with cooked tomatoes, cilantro, and a sauce made with Greek yogurt and tahini paste. It’s sprinkled with sumac, which is a delicious spice that is fairly mild with citrusy notes and is becoming very popular in the US, I suspect in part because of this chef. Truly a masterpiece recipe.

Chili-Lime Glazed Grilled Quail + Fire Roasted Poblano and Sweet Potato Hash

I noticed Texas quail at my favorite market, so I had to pick it up for this week, and I knew Jonathan would be the perfect person to share it with. He picked this chili-lime glazed recipe from a few options I gave him and I came up with the sweet potato hash side. Both were simple to make with few ingredients, and absolutely delicious.

Soba Noodles with Eggplant and Mango

The title pretty much says it all, but it’s dressed in a sauce similar to shari-zu (sushi dressing- rice wine vinegar, sugar, and salt) and perked up with cilantro and red onion. Soba is the Japanese word for buckwheat, by the way, so that’s what the noodles are, and they are delicious. Another Ottolenghi recipe, this time from Plenty. That book’s difficult for me to cook from because the recipes are either very high in fat (which makes me a little uncomfortable), or loaded with veggies that Kara is not a fan of. She loves fruits and I love veggies, and the reverse is not true. No matter what, I have LOVED every recipe I’ve made from it. This one did not disappoint.

Clams with Butter-Lime Sauce + Hainan Chicken

Both of these are from The Slanted Door and, just as almost everything else I’ve made from that book, they are simple, subtle, but deep in flavor all at once. For this meal, I invited Nora over (very dear friend, walking distance from where we live now)- I know she likes Asian flavors.

The clams are an excellent illustration of the impact the French have on Vietnamese cuisine, thanks to French colonialism. It’s essentially a French dish using sake instead of chardonnay, with the addition of Thai chiles and fish sauce. I think the blend of French with Asian cuisine is one of the reasons I like Vietnamese food so much.

Hainan chicken is one that Charles Phan has always had on his menu even though he says it's never been a best seller. It’s boiled, so the skin is rubbery, not crispy, but his mentality is that that’s the best way to really experience chicken at it’s purest. A fair assessment, and tastier than it sounds. It IS really good. The ginger-chicken broth is then used to make a rice pilaf (rice cooked in flavored broth, often seared in fat first, as in this case). The dipping sauce served alongside the chicken is what seals the deal- Thai chiles, ginger, garlic, lime and fish sauce- pungent in a good way.

Pumpkin

Just because I hadn’t sent out a food email in a while and I saw a theme develop here:

Spicy Pumpkin Soup with Avocado Cream

The spicy comes from a fair amount of chipotle peppers and adobo sauce- very smoky, and very spicy. Puréed with onions and garlic and lots of pumpkin. Seasoned with cumin and smoked paprika, topped with sausage and black beans, with a creamy avocado sauce stirred in to cut the heat. Quite inventive and perfect for fall.

Pumpkin Seeds

Of course, you always roast the seeds! This time I tossed them in a sweet and spicy barbecue blend of my own invention. LOTS of spices here, but standouts are salt, brown sugar, smoked paprika, ancho chili powder, cumin, and garlic.

 

Butchering Nobu

Nobu wins again. It IS impossible to cook anything in his book the way he cooks it. Even with substitutions in ingredients and cooking vessels, you cannot do Nobu at home without intense planning and connections to restaurant suppliers. That doesn’t mean you can’t make tasty food inspired by his recipes though!

Scampi with Spicy Lemon Garlic Sauce

This was the appetizer, and I forgive you if the presentation looks unpalatable to your Western eyes (Kara was served just the tails). I couldn't find the exact type of shrimp he calls for here, but langoustines made a decent substitute. They taste like lobster, not shrimp, but they’re much smaller, so you just want MORE! The lemon garlic sauce made with reduced sake was delicious and I have some leftover, so I may use it with some shrimp or scallops tonight. Here, they’re resting on a small bed of baby celery leaves. It was an insanely luxurious dish and way too small.

Toro Toban Yaki

Essentially, seared tuna, three kinds of mushrooms, broccoli, and asparagus served on a heated platter drenched in clarified butter and a light sake, citrus, and soy sauce. Almost all of Kara’s favorite ingredients in one dish. But...

I can’t find toro or a toban in Dallas. All I got right was the yaki. Toro is the highly-prized fatty tuna belly- most of which is shipped to Japan or high-end restaurants. A toban is a covered ceramic dish used to cook food in and serve it hot (I can find them online, but not locally). Yaki basically means grilled or broiled, so yeah, I got that down. I used fresh yellowfin (ahi) tuna, and I served it all in a heated cast iron skillet to mimic a toban in the most disrespectful Southern American way possible. All the precision of Japanese food razed in one fell swoop. I also couldn’t find any of the mushrooms that he called for except shiitake, but I got some other similar fancy ones to stand in. Ultimately, it was very tasty—very luxurious again—but it was a far cry from a real Nobu experience. Perhaps I can come closer in the future with a great deal more planning and preparation, though finding the required rare cuts of fish will remain near impossible.

Nobu

This weekend I finally got to cook from a cookbook I got for my birthday by celebrity chef, Nobu Matsuhisa. He cooks traditional Japanese with Peruvian influences. The introduction to the book promises that you can’t duplicate any of his dishes due to both the rare ingredients, many of which can only be found in Japan, and also his kokoro, or the heart that any individual imparts to their own food. I knew he was right on both counts, but it sounded like a challenge to see what I’d come up with.

I’d handle my own kokoro, or cooking with love, as I call it, but I was scouring the Internet to understand half the ingredients, and I do a lot of Japanese cooking! Luckily, there are some great Asian markets in Dallas. The one I went to this weekend kind of blew my mind with its wealth of fresh seafood, but it quickly descended into the panic attack-inducing experience of the Ikea maze (plus no one spoke English). I left with the best options I could find.

Nobu also subscribes to the concept of many very small courses, each just giving you a few bites. The idea is to leave you wanting more, but moving on to try something else, which again you will want more of. When the meal is finally complete, you’re not stuffed, but satisfied, yet still wanting one more bite. Each of these recipes claim to serve four, but that’s only if you make a dozen separate ones, which he suggests. As I do not have a team of chefs or a commercial kitchen to achieve this, I settled for just cooking for two without halving the recipes, and served each as quickly as I could. This amounted to 3 dishes, each served as they were completed, evenly spread across about 6 hours of cooking.

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Seafood Ceviche, Nobu Style

Perhaps the essence of Japanese-Peruvian fusion, this dish contains a blend of white fish, shrimp, squid, and octopus, along with cucumber slices, tomatoes, and cilantro, dressed with a citrusy ginger-soy sauce. Very bright and fresh and perfect for summer.

Lobster Salad with Spicy Lemon Dressing

The title pretty much says it all, but I can add that it’s garnished with crispy fried garlic slices, you can see the lightly grilled shiitakes in there, and I used a custom blend of wild baby greens and shoots. Again, the dressing had several Japanese influences in its ingredients. Nothing short of luxurious.

Soft Shell Crab Roll

The above dishes are less straightforward than they sound, but truthfully the ones in his book I thought would be easiest for me were the sushi rolls, and this was by far the most difficult. They’re wrapped in finely sliced daikon on the outside (like a cucumber-sized white radish common to Japanese cuisine) using a technique that after a few careful tries I knew was just inviting a visit to the ER, so I improvised my own inferior technique. Otherwise, each roll (not each piece pictured here) contains one whole deep fried soft shell crab, flying fish roe, avocado, wasabi, chives, and obviously sushi rice. Wrapped in nori, then the daikon. This one had to be on our menu because it was one of Kara’s favorite dishes when we went to Nobu Malibu just before leaving LA. It was delicious, but tricky to make. His kokoro may be a bit more experienced than mine, but I was just as spirited for a first try.

East Texas Boar Balls

Somewhere in Middle-Of-Nowhere East Texas, there is a guy named Claude who has driven all his life without a license. Claude and his brother trapped a wild hog. Tsagoi and Claude butchered the hog. I wound up with 3 pounds of its meat in ziplock freezer bags labeled with a magic marker, “backstrap” and “fry meat”. So that’s how this meal happened. Thank you Claude, Brother, Mom, and Tsagoi. Sorry, Hog, but thank you, too.

I brined and grilled some of the backstrap like steaks, and I mixed the leftovers with the "fry meat" and ground it and made meatballs- my failsafe way to taste a meat and make sure it’s tender and juicy. I didn’t add much seasoning- just salt, pepper, parsley, and fennel (a great combo for pork). In case it ended up dry (it didn’t), and because I won’t do bottled on a meal like this, I cooked up The Meatball Shop’s BBQ sauce- heavy on sugar and cumin. Yum.

I served it with rustic sides to honor its wild flavor. I give you…

Grilled Wild Hog Backstrap, Boar Balls, Smashed Turnips with Fresh Horseradish, Collard Greens, and BBQ Sauce, cuz #EastTX

The balls were a great idea and came out fabulous. The grilled backstrap took crazy sawing to get through, but was tender when eaten. Tasted like pork tenderloin, but just a little different, hard to put my finger on. Mom says, “wild”.I’ll take that.