Apps and Sides

Three-Cheese Suppli al Telefono

April 19, 2009 by Charles 3 Comments

I wasn’t quite sure what to name this dish.

After making my three-cheese risotto, I ended up with several servings of left-over, cold risotto. Cold risotto, it turns out, is perfect for making fried risotto balls, alternately known as suppli or arancini.

Suppli is short for “Suppli al Telefono,” which translates as “telephone wires.” Traditional suppli is fried risotto that has been stuffed with mozzarella cheese. The idea, of course, is that biting into a good suppli produces a low-hanging mozzarella string, reminiscent of telephone wires.

Arancini is Italian for “little orange,” because …

Three-Cheese Risotto

April 15, 2009 by Charles 4 Comments

Having a food blog doesn’t stop me from asking silly food questions.

On a recent trip to the grocery store, I could not find the risotto. After several minutes of scrounging around the different rice and grain shelves, I decided to solicit help. As I explained to the store clerk, I was making three-cheese risotto, and all that was left on my list was what the recipe referred to as “risotto rice.” He kindly pointed me to arborio rice.

Risotto, I learned, does not refer to an ingredient, but rather to a dish.

The key to risotto…

Roasted Winter Vegetables

April 12, 2009 by Charles Leave a Comment

Spring officially arrived a few weeks back, but from the look of it here in St. Louis, you would never know it. Between a light snowstorm to start the week, and freezing rain at week’s end, the thaw of Spring remains in hiding. Given the wintry conditions, I decided a few winter vegetables would make a suitable side.

Roasting over high heat gives the vegetables a crisp outer skin while keeping the inner flesh moist. The high heat also serves to caramelize the natural sugars in the sweet potatoes and carrots, for a sweet, yet healthy, cold-weather treat.

If you like, …

Thin Mint Cookie Cookies

April 2, 2009 by Charles 2 Comments

In algebra, the equation f(x) = x² describes a parabolic function that never dips below the x-axis. For any number you can think of, be it negative or positive, be it an integer or a fraction, the graph will never give you a negative value. With the exception of zero, squaring the unknown will only produce a positive outcome.

Which is what I thought would happen when I decided to square my Girl Scout cookies: there could only be a positive outcome. Or so I tried to tell myself.

Taking a mallet and smashing perfectly good Thin Mint Cookies …

Chicken Piccata

March 30, 2009 by Charles 2 Comments

“We have not an hour of life In which our pleasures relish not some pain, Our sours some sweetness.” — Philip Massinger.

Why does sour get such a bad name? The word is practically synonymous with misfortune and unpleasantness. A business deal goes sour. A friend develops sour grapes. A neighbor becomes a sour puss. You can’t help but develop a sour disposition. In fact, under these conditions, your whole outlook on life may turn sour.

These expressions are hardly novel or recent. Sour has held its pejorative crown for centuries. The expression “sour grapes” dates back …

Homemade Bread Crumbs

March 29, 2009 by Charles 1 Comment

Bread crumbs are one of those indispensable ingredients. They give gratins and casseroles their attractive topping, they give meatloaf its consistent texture, and they give fried chicken its trademark crunch. To accommodate these various roles, bread crumbs come in two styles: fresh (soft) or dried.

As the name implies, fresh, or soft, bread crumbs are fluffier and softer than their dried counterparts. Because of their consistency, they are frequently used as a binder in meatloaf and dumplings, or as a topping for gratins and casseroles. Dried bread crumbs, on the other hand, are finer and crisper than the fresh variety. Their crisp texture makes them perfect for breading meat and seafood. With the addition of herbs and spices, each variety can be transformed into seasoned bread crumbs.

Any good bread can serve as the raw material …

Sauteed Broccolini

March 23, 2009 by Charles Leave a Comment

Like the Camry, the Walkman, and the Wii, broccolini is one more Japanese product making its way into the American household. And like its predecessors, the vegetable is one part engineering and one part marketing.

Broccolini was developed in 1993, when the Sakata Seed Corporation crossed broccoli with gai lan, or Chinese broccoli. Sakata originally marketed the green as “aspiration,” perhaps a not so subtle allusion to its hopes for the product. The name may have also been designed to suggest a connection to asparagus. Indeed, Sakata also tried calling it asprobroc and asprospeer – never mind its misleading nature. Crossing broccoli with asparagus, one article noted, would be like breeding a chipmunk with a tree: it can’t be done.

Ultimately, the more accurate broccolini prevailed, though brocoletti was in the running for some time.

Broccolini is basically …

The Grim Peeper

March 16, 2009 by Charles 8 Comments

For the past three years, the Washington Post has invited its readers to participate in its Peeps Diorama Contest. The rules for the contest are simple – create a scene, concept, or event, in which the characters in the diorama are played by Peeps, “those marshmallowy chicks and rabbits plaguing checkout lines in every convenience store this season.” Throw a clever pun into the mix, and the Post promises the possibility of extra-credit.

Our first thought was an ode to Obama – “The Peeple’s Choice” – in which a throng of marshmallow figures crowded the Washington Mall in witness of an historic Inauguration. But, we worried, the Obama idea would hardly be original. Indeed, even the paper warned that it was “tired of the campaigns.”

The other major theme of this year, of course, has been the economic crises. And the more we thought about it – industries collapsing, banks failing, unemployment rising, stocks plummeting, and savings disappearing – we knew that some larger force had to be lurking behind the nation’s financial calamities. Our diorama, submitted last night, reveals …

Hamantashen

March 10, 2009 by Charles 4 Comments

According to an old Jewish joke, if you put three Jews on a committee, you’ll get four different opinions. . .which is exactly the number of different explanations I found detailing the origins of Hamantashen.

Hamantashen are triangular cookies that are served during the Jewish holiday, Purim. Purim tells the story of how the Jewish people in Persia avoided persecution at the hands of the King’s vizier, Haman. The three-cornered confections, commonly filled with jam or a poppy-seed concoction, owe their shape to Haman’s ear, clipped with shame. Or maybe to his triangular hat, which was the style at the time. Or maybe to his pockets weighted with bribe money. Or maybe to the three Jewish patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. In other words, no one really knows.

Even the origins of the word are disputed. One explanation says Hamantashen derives from the Hebrew word “tash” for weakened, so that the word refers to Haman’s defeat. A second source …

Chicken Roulade

March 8, 2009 by Charles 5 Comments

Within my circle of friends, two of us cook. Which gave Jamey, the host of our weekly poker game, an idea. He would volunteer to host a cook-off between Eric and I – a Top Chef Deathmatch as he billed it. As part of the competition, Eric and I would be charged with creating an appetizer and an entrée in ninety minutes, which our friends would then collectively judge and critique. As part of the rules, Eric and I could bring our own proteins and rely on our girlfriends as sous-chefs. We could also help ourselves to any ingredients and cookware we found in Jamey’s apartment. The competition had yet another element. The four judges would be bringing…