Hazards of Cooking the Books
By Ann | April 2, 2008
Oh, mes amies. After my jaunty cooking bonanza over the weekend, I was shocked when that dull ache in my lower back suddenly turned into a giant, throbbing knot. It turns out that spending hours on one’s feet in a hunched position actually causes lingering pain — who knew? The good news is that the pain somewhat disappears when I’m (a) walking, (b) lying flat on the floor, or (c) in the shower. The bad news: none of these activities are actually conducive to cooking. With Chris away, there’s been an awful lot of takeout in the ol’ Cooking the Books homestead. (Side note: Isn’t the above image fantastic? It’s the first thing that popped up on google images when I typed in “back pain.”)
Actually, I must admit that my back is feeling much better today so perhaps we will press forward with The Martha Stewart Living Cookbook: The New Classics this evening. In the meantime, I’d like to point out a fantastic article in today’s NYT Dining section on microwave cooking. I am a huge fan of the microwave — I use it to defrost food, heat up leftovers or melt chocolate all the time, but I never considered using it to cook a main dish — like this eggplant curry… very intriguing.
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Trading Tastes: Sunset Adventures in Food
By Ann | April 1, 2008
Welcome to another edition of Trading Tastes, in which guest bloggers offer thoughts on their favorite cookbooks. Today we are excited to welcome artist (check out his spectacular work here), scientist, oenophile, and excellent cook, my father, Robert Mah — regular Cooking the Books readers may know him as “Bob” from the comments section. He suggests:
Adventures in Food: An unusual cook book with distinctive recipes from near and far
Sunset Books, 1964
The dust jacket has long been lost and the book is battered, stuffed with recipe clippings, and stained with drippings from its many encounters with a beginning cook. I still remember my first success, produced and reproduced over and over again in subsequent dinner parties… a recipe for spinach and cheese quiche. Though I haven’t prepared this recipe for many years, I can still turn unerringly to page 78 and know with satisfaction that this simple recipe really works. Over the years, modifications to adjust the recipe for a health-conscious version failed to replicate the texture and flavors of this recipe so it eventually slid into the background except for gatherings where it could blend in amongst even richer entrees. This 192-page book is full of simple recipes for such basic things as aioli, a ten-second hollandaise, pesto, etc., but also has unusual recipes… tongue mousse, curried chicken gizzards, Sulz (that’s pig’s feet), malfatti (Italian for “badly made” … turns out to be a delicious ravioli-like pasta), and even Lahm Ajoun (Armenian pizza). Most recipes call for butter, cream, cheese, egg yolks, and other ingredients which I now use with discretion, but, in its day, this book was the source of many pleasureable eating and dining experiences.
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Brunch bonanza
By Ann | March 31, 2008
This past weekend saw a flurry of cooking, with food from other cookbooks (and thus unrecorded here) and also a brunch bonanza from The Martha Stewart Living Cookbook: The New Classics. It was All Martha, All the Time, and seriously, my back now hurts. I may be suffering from Martha-xhaustion. Is that a treatable syndrome?
From the “breakfast and brunch” chapter, I made healthy pepper hash, which appealed to my wholesome sensibilities. Except, I suspect there’s an error in this recipe. First of all, what is hash? I always thought it was a dry mixture of diced veggies, meat and potatoes — like corned beef hash — that was eaten with poached eggs. But the above recipe calls for 2 cups of stock, which created a saucy, stew-like creation that surprised me (but not really in a good way). The Penguin Companion to Food says hash “comes from the French hacher, meaning ‘to chop’… it was found in America [soon after the 17th century] as a form of shepherd’s pie or other melange of meat and vegetables.” Okay, fair enough. But the same recipe on Martha’s website does not give a specific amount of stock — and in the accompanying photo her hash looks suspiciously dry. So, you tell me — is something wrong with this recipe? Or should hash be like a stew? I’m curious.
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Careless errors
By Ann | March 28, 2008
Do you ever make mistakes in the kitchen? I made one the other day while baking Elke Wood’s lemon squares (scroll down halfway) from the “cookies and candy” chapter of The Martha Stewart Living Cookbook: The New Classics.
You see, the recipe calls for 1 3/4 cups sifted all-purpose flour. As you probably know, lemon bars (or squares — whatever) are composed of a pastry crust on the bottom and a gooey lemon filling on top. I assumed that the entire 1 3/4 cups flour was for the crust and dumped it all into my food processor, whizzing it up with the butter, lemon zest, chopped almonds and powdered sugar. The recipe says the mixture should “just cling together,” which it did — barely. I smashed it into my buttered baking pan and pre-baked for 20 minutes.
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Two in one
By Ann | March 27, 2008
If you look closely at the photo above, you will see that I oh-so-cleverly combined two recipes into one meal last night, knocking the official recipe count of The Martha Stewart Living Cookbook: The New Classics down to 27!
Part I of the meal was a refreshing dish of soba noodles with tofu, avocado, and snow peas, from the “pasta, rice and grains” chapter. This dish was oddly fussy. First, you make a simple syrup flavored with ginger and jalapeno, which is then mixed into a soy-lime juice dressing — except you only use 2 teaspoons of the syrup, and there is no mention of what to do with the excess. Save it? Drizzle it on ice cream? I chucked it. Meanwhile, scallions, cucumber and snow peas must be thinly julienned. The soba noodles need to be cooked (I overcooked them, again!) and cooled. By the time I had tossed everything together, I felt totally frazzled.
The noodles had a delicate, sweet-tart flavor vaguely reminiscent of Thai, Vietnamese or maybe Japanese cuisine, but this was another one of those overly polite Martha dishes that seemed to lack something. Like pizazz.
Topics: Cooking the Books | 2 Comments »
Fish burgers
By Ann | March 26, 2008
Only 31 Martha recipes to go and our review of The Martha Stewart Living Cookbook: The New Classics will be o-ver! Confession #1: I can’t wait. Confession #2: I just looked at the Table of Contents again and made an executive decision to eliminate the “pastries” chapter from this review. We’re now officially down to 29 recipes — take that, Marth-dawg!
Last night’s recipe was a totally delicious shrimp and cod burger from the “sandwiches and savory pies” chapter. I know some of you don’t like fish (ahem, Dad) but this delicious, moist, savory burger was the perfect light, healthy, spring-y alternative to heavy beef.
Topics: Cooking the Books | 4 Comments »
Recipe No. 10: In which Martha surprises me
By Ann | March 24, 2008
After making nine recipes from The Martha Stewart Living Cookbook: The New Classics, I thought I had the book figured out: Ethnic recipes, good. Continental recipes, bland. And then along came chicken cassoulet with crisp breadcrumb topping.
Upon first glance, this dish seemed hearty but plain, with white beans cooked simply with carrot, onion and celery, and boneless chicken thighs. Despite its name, there’s only a passing resemblance to the rich, luscious traditional cassoulet, which is filled with sausage, duck confit, goose, and other artery clogging (but delicious) meats. Could cassoulet sans saturated fat be any good?
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Plain pasta
By Ann | March 21, 2008
I made spaghetti with garden vegetables from The Martha Stewart Living Cookbook: The New Classics a few days ago, but have been putting off a post about it. Why? Well, I love garden vegetables, I love pasta, but this was pretty darn bland. Perhaps Martha feels similarly because I can’t find the recipe on her website (and thus am unable to post a link — sorry.)
Topics: Cooking the Books | 2 Comments »
Trading Tastes: The United States Regional Cookbook
By Ann | March 21, 2008
Welcome to another edition of Trading Tastes, in which guest bloggers write about their favorite cookbooks. Today, we are thrilled to welcome back ma belle-mere, bon vivant Victoria Klein (have you checked out her website yet? It’s gorgeous). She suggests:
The United States Regional Cookbook
Another vintage cookbook I had picked up at a library book sale is called, very straightforwardly, The United States Regional Cookbook, published in 1939. I would have assumed that the writer, or “editor” of the book to have picked up a smattering of assimilated versions of American regional cooking, but this book is actually an amazing document of very authentic recipes. The regions represented include New England, Southern, Pennsylvania Dutch, Creole, Michigan Dutch (!), Wisconsin Dutch (!!) and many, many more.
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Mere coincidence?
By Ann | March 20, 2008
Did you watch Top Chef last night? I was struck by the Quickfire Challenge, which required contestants to prepare a dish out of five ingredients or less (with only salt, pepper and oil uncounted), a challenge that seemed suspiciously like… our very own Five Items! Could Top Chef producers be reading this blog?!
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