It’s still way to hot to be motivated to cook, but the family must be fed, so I wandered around the farmer’s market today, waiting for inspiration to strike. We’re a third of the way through the market season, which means tomatoes, corn, and peaches are starting to show up. I bought some early tomatoes, Japanese radishes, cucumbers, purple bell peppers, apples, raspberries, Canadian bacon (made from smoked pork tenderloin), some flowers for She Who Must Be Obeyed, and some peaches.
After all these years, I still have no idea how to select peaches. They always wind up too hard or too soft, and we never get to eat them all before having to toss a few. Today I applied my favorite restaurant approach (ask the waiter to recommend a wine to accompany the dinner) to the problem: I asked one of the growers to pick out four peaches for me. It took her a minute to realize what I was asking, which no one had ever asked before. “They’re your peaches,” I explained, “so that makes you the expert. I’ll trust your selection.”
Seeing that her husband was looking on, I added “I know, it’s a moral dilemma. If I picked them myself, I might grab a few that weren’t quite ready but that you want to sell today. But if you are the one doing the choosing, you have to give me the best or I might not come back.” That got a laugh.
No one else was paying attention, so I don;’t think I’ve sown the seeds of a revolution. The market is self-correcting, however, and if buyers started requiring the sellers to do the selecting, they’d say what the Italian vendors at Haymarket have been saying for decades: “Stop & Shop, buddy, Stop & Shop. Now geddoudda here.”
You need ginger scallion sauce on your noodles, in your fridge, and in your life. For real.” That’s David Chang’s advice in the Momofuku cookbook, so who am I to argue? I needed a noodle fix, and the recipe didn’t involve heating up the kitchen to the point where it was uninhabitable, so it was time to make dinner.
To make the sauce, I thinly sliced about 2 bunches of scallions, enough to make two and a half cups. I chopped some peeled fresh ginger and minced it in a Cuisinart mini-prep until I had a half cup. I measured out a quarter cup of grapeseed oil, one and a half teaspoons of light soy sauce, three quarters of a teaspoon of xiaoxing wine (you can substitute sherry vinegar), and three quarters of a teaspoon of kosher salt.
I mixed everything together and let it sit for twenty minutes. That’s the entirety of the sauce preparation.
While the sauce sat, I made some quick cucumber pickles (described here), sliced the remaining slab of char sui pork I had stashed in the Belm Utility Research Kitchen Deep Storage Facility, and brought a pot of salted water to the boil.
Having learned my lesson in the great #noodlefail incident, I used fresh prepared noodles from my local Korean market.
I boiled a pound of noodles for about five minutes, drained them, and then tossed them with about a cup of the ginger scallion sauce.
While the noodles boiled, I also heated up the pork slices.
For the final assembly I topped the noodles and sauce with a splash of soy sauce, the pork, and the pickle slices.
I’m sure I could get more authentic noodles from a Korean street vendor, but until I make the trip to Seoul, my version will be a more than acceptable substitute. The sauce alone is an ingredient worth having around all the time. I’ll leave the parting thought to Chang:
Ginger scallion sauce is one of the greatest sauces or condiments ever. Ever. … If you have ginger scallion sauce in the fridge, you will never go hungry: stir 6 tablespoons into a bowl of hot noodles and you’re in business. Or serve over a bowl of rice topped with a fried egg. Or with grilled meat or any kind of seafood. Or almost anything.
And now I have a whole list of quick recipes I can bang out on a hot summer night. Ginger scallion sauce FTW!
Because She Who Must Be Obeyed and I donate to the Boston Museum of Science, we frequently get invited to exhibit previews and special events. Last Saturday we took a behind the scenes tour of the Theater of Electricity, the wing of the museum that contains the giant Van de Graaf generator, pictured above. This particular device, built by Robert J. Van de Graaf while he was at MIT, was used as a particle accelerator and was capable of generating up to 1.5 million volts. We’ve seen the Lightning! show dozens of times, but this was the first time we were allowed backstage.
Not everyone in attendance was a geeky about the device as I was, so a brief lecture and demonstration was in order before the tour began. He Who Will Not Be Ignored volunteered to be the test subject, displaying the usual hair-raising effect.
The tour began below the floor of the generator, where we could see the rubberized belts that moved charge from a voltage generator to the massive collector at the top of the right column. (The left column is empty, but used to house the long glass vacuum tubes in which particle collisions were observed.)
A series of motors spin the belts past a charge distributor, a long metal plate with pins that “spray” electrons onto the belts. The charged particles are created by the high voltage box in the background.
I noticed a device that wouldn’t have looked out of place on the lab set for Fringe, which I learned was the new Tesla coil, constructed to replace the older inefficient coils currently in use.
And, of course, She Who Must Be Obeyed got to indulge in her Darth Vader fantasy with a fluorescent tube and a smaler Tesla coil.
We hope the special tours continue, but we run the risk of turning He Who Will Not Be Ignored into a jaded expert at the age of eleven. I can imagine him with is class the next time they visit the museum: “The Lightning! show? I’ve seen it. From the inside.”
It’s hot out there. It’s been hot for weeks, so hot that I don’t feel like cooking for fear of turning the kitchen into a blast furnace. So I went to the market with an eye toward what I can cook just on the stove. I found Italian broad beans, green peppers, cherry tomatoes, raspberries, apples (first of the season), radicchio, Yukon Gold potatoes, and purple carrots. (Carrots are available in many different colors, but the variety we’re used to was first bred in Holland to honor the royal House of Orange.)
I also bought more chocolate banana bread, some fresh mozzarella, miniature focaccia buns, and some cured meat from Capone’s Market: serrano ham, prosciutto cotto, and bresaola. The bread, cheese, and prosciutto are already gone, converted into a perfect lunch. Let’s hope it cools down soon, I’m feeling carnivorous.
My chocolate ice cream is richer than the legendary Toscanini’s Chocolate No. 3 (Dark).” I made that boast last year, but never followed up with any proof, or even a recipe.
A combination of feeling like cooking again, summer heat, and the arrival of a new kitchen gadget spurred me to make said chocolate ice cream. My original recipe was from the Cook’s Illustrated booklet How to Make Ice Cream, but I discovered an improvement in David Lebovitz’s The Perfect Scoop. Unlike the Haagen-Dasz Five, this recipe requires eight ingredients: two cups of heavy cream, a cup of whole milk, five egg yolks, three tablespoons of Dutch-process cocoa, five ounces of chopped bittersweet chocolate (I used Valrhona 62%), three quarters of a cup of sugar, a half teaspoon of vanilla extract, and a pinch of salt.
A Brief Digression About Heavy Cream
When I started making ice cream, I knew enough to always buy heavy cream instead of “whipping cream,” because the butterfat content was different in each product (lower in whipping cream). Later I started seeking out heavy cream that was pasteurized instead of ultra-pasteurized (less degradation of the fat), which is usually found in organic brands. This year, when I first bought heavy cream from my neighborhood “local only” market, the fellow behind the counter pointed out that the cream wasn’t modified with carrageenan. I thought he was joking, but then I started reading labels more carefully. Most store-bought heavy cream contains carrageenan to aid in maintaining peaks when whipped. In addition, you’ll find mono-and diglycerides have been added to improve the aeration capacity of the cream. Either of these additives may not alter the taste of the cream, but I prefer to work with pure ingredients, even if they cost more.
Back to the recipe: I whisked the cocoa into a cup of the cream, heating slowly until it came to a low boil.
I let the mixture simmer for another thirty seconds before removing the pan from the heat and adding the chopped chocolate.
I stirred until the chocolate was completely melted and smooth.
I stirred in the remaining cup of cream and transferred the mix to a large measuring pitcher.
Using the same pan, I warmed up the milk, added the sugar and salt, and stirred until everything was dissolved. I whisked the yolks together in a separate bowl, then slowly added the warm milk mixture, whisking all the time to temper the eggs.
I returned the eggs to the pan set over medium heat, and stirred until the custard thickened. Simple egg/cream custards usually thicken around 175° F, but the addition of the sugar acts as a buffer, allowing the temperature to go higher without curdling the eggs. I’ve made a few custards in my time, so I tend to go by feel: as the custard thickens, the drag on the spatula increases.
I poured the custard through a fine-meshed strainer (to catch any potential overcooked egg bits) into the chocolate and cream, which was set over a bowl of ice water. I stirred until the mix cooled down to room temperature, then added the vanilla extract. (Adding the extract while the mixture is still warm cooks off some of the aromatic compounds.)
After an overnight stay in the fridge — it’s essential to have the mix as cold as possible — it was time to churn up some ice cream. As recently as last month I used a Cuisinart ice cream maker with a stainless steel insert that had to be pre-chilled to freeze the goop inside (a eutectic mixture, today’s vocabulary word). After two years of patient waiting, I was finally able to score a refurbished Cuisinart pro machine, courtesy of Woot!. It gets colder, has a slower churn speed, and allows me to make more than one batch at a time. The downside is that it is LOUD. Observe:
Pretty noisy, but that’s what should be expected when, to paraphrase Dr. Egon Spengler, you run an unlicensed refrigeration device on your kitchen table.
Thirty five minutes later I had lovely, thick, cold ice cream. I transferred it to two containers and put them in the freezer to harden. Then I licked the dasher clean. You didn’t think I’d let that chocolately goodness go to waste, did you?
How did it taste? As advertised, it had a deep chocolate flavor and a perfect, silky mouthfeel. There wasn’t a hint of the graininess and bitterness which can come from adding to much cocoa (I’m looking at you, Herrell’s Cocoa Pudding), and it wasn’t overly sweet. I can only eat a scoop of this at a sitting, it’s that rich. Still, I’ll be surprised if it survives the weekend. He Who Will Not Be Ignored has been eying the freezer…
Ever since I wrote about making a Bacon Explosion, I have been pestered by a writer friend, Scott Edelman, who insisted that I bring one to Readercon 21. I advised him of the difficulty of serving a smoked pork product in a hotel room, but he waved off all of my objections. As these discussions progressed on Facebook, he was joined by Paul Riddell, owner of the Texas Triffid Ranch and creator of the iTerrarium, who threatened to come out of retirement for the conference just to taste the legendary dish.
The only way I would be able to keep a rabid Texan and a writer of zombie stories at bay was to figure out how to serve the damned thing in a hotel room. Since I had planed on smoking a mess of ribs for the July 4th weekend, I also retrieved the explosion components from the Belm Utility Research Kitchen Deep Storage Facility. (You do keep two pounds each of thick-cut bacon and Italian sausage around for bacon explosion emergencies, don’t you?) While the ribs smoked, I made an explosion, smoked it for three hours, and let it cool before wrapping it in plastic and sealing it in a vacuum-sealed container.
In the meantime, She Who Must Be Obeyed manged to wrangle a microwave for our hotel room so I’d have a way to warm up the meat before serving. I packed up the porky goodness along with some cheap burger buns and a bottle of KC Masterpiece barbecue sauce (original formula) and headed off to the conference hotel, where I had the following conversation with Messrs. Edelman and Riddell:
“Tomorrow I’m serving bacon Explosion sandwiches for lunch. Be in my room at noon.”
Edelman: “I don’t believe you have a bacon explosion. This is all an elaborate prank.”
Riddell: “I believe him, he’s just crazy enough to do it.”
Edelman: “How could you exercise that amount of restraint? Are you trying to tell me you had a bacon explosion in your house for almost a week and you didn’t eat it?”
“That’s exactly what I’m telling you. I told you Riddell would be here and you didn’t believe me, but he’s standing right here. Why is the existence of a bacon explosion so much more difficult to comprehend?”
Edelman: “On a scale with seeing a unicorn in my backyard at one end, and no unicorn at the other, Riddell’s being here is about in the middle, but the explosion is all the way at the ‘unicorn’ end of the scale.”
“Then indulge me and show up tomorrow.”
While I was engaged in this epistemological discussion, She Who Must Be Obeyed had moved the location from our room to the otherwise-unused concierge lounge on our floor, where I had access to a full kitchen. I removed the explosion from the fridge in the morning to let it come up to room temperature, then used a microwave to warm it up for eating. Before slicing it, I took a photo, and let Edelman do the same.
All that was left was to slice it and serve it up. I had enough for twelve sandwiches, enough to feed me, She Who Must Be Obeyed, He Who Will Not Be Ignored, some friends, and my two distinguished out-of-town guests. Scott made us document the event for posterity:
He seemed to enjoy it. It didn’t take much convincing to get him to have seconds — which Riddell matched bite for bite. They both left in a happy pork-induced stupor.
The lesson? Don’t doubt me, and don’t doubt the Explosion!
I‘m off to Readercon 21. I wrote about the conference last year, but the big difference for me is that I am this year’s Program Chair, which means I’m in charge of the content creation and scheduling processes. It’s a job that has consumed every available moment of my life since May, which explains why the postings here have been rather sparse.
When it’s over on Sunday, I’ll take a day or to to recover, and then it’s time to get back to the business of cooking, which I have sorely missed.
I‘m still working through last week’s market haul, so today was more of a reconnoitering instead of a purchasing trip. Still, I couldn’t pass up the first yellow beans, fava beans, and red onions of the season, as well as some flowers for She Who Must Be Obeyed and a triple berry pie for our diner hosts tomorrow.
Every weekend the people who organize the Union Square Farmer’s Market book musical entertainment. I’ve learned to tune out the usual overly earnest folkies with guitars and dreadlocked white-boy hipsters with djembes and digital delays, but today’s entertainment knew how to grab me. It’s not often you hear a four-piece (bass, violin, trombone, clarinet) klezmer band play a cover of “Eye of the Tiger,” but they did, and did it well. They’re called Ezekiel’s Wheels, and if you live in the area, be sure to check them out.
At the urging of Ryan Adams, whose adventures in cooking through all of Fergus Henderson’s Nose to Tail: The Whole Beast are chronicled at Nose to Tail at Home, I submitted a proposal for a weekly feature at the now-defunct Eat Me Daily (EMD) blog. My idea was to show how easy it is to make ingredients you would normally buy at a supermarket. I had already written here about bacon and pickles, but my sample article was about making mayonnaise, inspired by my first attempt while constructing my homemade BLT.
My proposal was never evaluated; the editorial staff at EMD all moved on to more prestigious gigs (missed it by that much). So here, for your consideration, is the first article in my failed series:
I used to work in the convenience food industry, so I know how simple it is to make many of the products found on supermarket shelves. Take away the packaging, and what you’re left with is something you can make at home for less money and just a little time. I’ll show you how to make superior versions of supermarket standbys in your own kitchen.
Mayonnaise: More Than Just Sandwich Glue
Why bother to make mayonnaise? Because it’s more than just a condiment.
Most of us all grew up with Hellman’s (Best Foods west of the Rockies), and probably have a jar in the fridge. It’s a perfectly good product, worth having around for quick sandwich-making, but a bit on the bland side. If you really want to “bring out the best†for salads or sauces, then you need to make your own.
It couldn’t be easier; you only need five ingredients: an egg yolk, a cup of oil (preferably a neutral vegetable oil like canola or safflower), two teaspoons of lemon juice, a teaspoon of water, and half a teaspoon of salt. Everything should be at room temperature.
Whisk the yolk, water, lemon juice, and salt together in a large bowl.
While whisking the yolk mixture, add in a few drops of oil at a time until the emulsion forms. Keep whisking, and add the rest of the oil in a thin stream. Place something under the bowl (a dishtowel or potholder) to keep it from sliding as you whisk. The first time you try this you should whisk it by hand so you can get a feel for the process, but an immersion blender with a whisk attachment is a perfectly acceptable substitute. (You can still claim that you whisked it by hand, after all, a whisk and your hand were involved.)
In a few minutes you should have thick, creamy mayonnaise (and a very sore arm). Whisk in more water if you prefer a thinner texture.
If your mayonnaise never comes together or turns into a runny mess in the bowl, don’t panic — it’s merely broken, not ruined. To recover, add a teaspoon of water to a clean bowl and gradually start whisking in the broken mayo bit by bit until it re-emulsifies.
What To Do With It
If you treat your homemade mayo as an ingredient rather than a finished product, you can turn it into any number of sauces and garnishes by adding a few extra ingredients. If you start with olive oil and add a teaspoon of minced garlic to the yolk and liquid, you wind up with aioli. Add more lemon juice and some dill and you have a perfect sauce for salmon. Substitute tarragon for the dill and you have a base for chicken salad. Add more lemon juice and some minced shallot and you have a sauce for vegetables. Use lime juice instead of lemon and add minced chile pepper to make a killer sandwich spread. The possibilities are limited only by your imagination.
Why bother to make mayonnaise? Because it’s more than convenient, it’s essential.
It’s the start of another summer, which means it’s time for another of Mark Bittman’s “101” lists for The New York Times. In the past, he’s compiled simple recipes for salads, picnics, and meals; now he’s compiled quick recipes for the grill:
There, in all of their Fourth of July glory, are 101 grilling ideas begging to be tried. A vast majority take less time to prepare and grill than it takes to watch your coals turn white. (If you use gas, they’re still almost as fast as heating up the grill.) Some of them feature ingredients like corn, eggplant and tomatoes, which will be better a month from now, at least in the Northeast. But there are also suggestions for foods in season right now that not everybody thinks of putting on the grill. Please note that salt and pepper are (usually) understood.
The Belm Utility Research Kitchen Deep Storage Facility is full to bursting with meat, so as long as I remember to thaw things out ahead of time and not run afoul of local fire regulations, I’ll be spending many a summer evening playing with fire.
. Unlike the Haagen-Dasz Five, this recipe requires eight ingredients: two cups of heavy cream, a cup of whole milk, five egg yolks, three tablespoons of Dutch-process cocoa, five ounces of chopped bittersweet chocolate (I used Valrhona 62%), three quarters of a cup of sugar, a half teaspoon of vanilla extract, and a pinch of salt.
with a stainless steel insert that had to be pre-chilled to freeze the goop inside (a eutectic mixture, today’s vocabulary word). After two years of patient waiting, I was finally able to score a refurbished 
, courtesy of 
