by rivka
on September 22, 2014
During our week on Hilton Head Island, my brother-in-law and I spent an afternoon bouncing around recipe ideas and exchanging high fives over recent cooking successes. I told him about my dosas and a particularly good peach slab pie, he told me about the ethereal cake doughnuts he’d recreated from an old family recipe. Then he told me about some slam-dunk chiles rellenos he made, and I started to get jealous. Or maybe just really hungry. I wanted those chiles rellenos, stat.
Stephen’s version sounded pretty authentic. The chiles were deep-fried, and the sauce was a split-egg concoction that had to be timed perfectly. He nailed it and reaped the rewards. But I’m settling into a slightly lower-key mode of cooking, one that involves lots of casseroles and things I can make in advance. I also vaguely remembered an episode of a bobby flay show from back before I swore off the terrible food network, where a California restaurant called La Casita Mexicana made its famous chile relleno in the oven, instead of in the fryer. Between my faint memory and my very not faint appetite, I figured something could be done.
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by rivka
on September 17, 2014
This recipe isn’t exactly my culinary Mount Everest. It’s more like, say, pilates: the thing I know I’d like if I did it but can’t quite get it up to try. Let’s break it down: there’s the separating of onions into layers, which looks at the outset like a royal pain. There’s the filling, which involves meat and lots of spices and raw rice, which – would it really cook in the sauce? I couldn’t be sure. And of course, there’s that sauce, which calls for tamarind puree, which I don’t always have just lying around the house. In sum, enough reasons to look longingly at a picture of the finished product, then turn the page — again, and again, and again.
Perhaps we should chalk it up to the refreshed ambition that comes with the turn of a new year. Or perhaps, a more likely story, I’m looking down the road a couple months and seeing little other than nursing, and diaper changing, and maybe fingerscrossedplease some sleeping, but not a lot of cooking. Whatever the impetus, I had been convinced. If ever there were a time to see whether Persian stuffed onions are worth the fuss, it was now.
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by rivka
on September 8, 2014
Late summer is a predictable season around here. There are tomatoes on the counter, which we position strategically to keep fruit flies at bay. (I can’t say we necessarily succeed – those fruit flies are such a nuisance.) There’s a glut of second nectarines and peaches, perfectly ripe and 99 cents a pound from Toigo, which we consume somewhat recklessly and with pride. There are Italian plums, which find their way into this famed torte and this less famous but quite tasty cake. And then, of course, there is all the corn.
The corn is also from Toigo. It’s the sweetest corn available – so sweet that Beth (wife of Jeremy, he of Andalusian gazpacho and fried squash blossoms) made a corn soup last week and fretted that it was too sweet, that it needed some lime to cut the sweetness. If you’re into corn ice cream, you’ll want to start with Toigo’s corn.  But even if you’re making something savory, as I typically do, sweet corn is a good place to start.
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by rivka
on August 21, 2014
In recent years, seemingly in complete indifference to logic and better judgment, I’ve settled on and stayed loyal to a bread recipe that’s a royal pain in the hinder parts. That recipe is Tartine’s Country Loaf, which I make plain, but also with olives, or cherries, or semolina and sesame and raisins (a favorite to get us through the colder months). It takes forever and is extremely involved. Did you want to do something fun on Sunday? I’m sorry, I can’t; I have to make bread.
But then summer rolls around, and summer in DC, as you know, is terrible, and my will to sit through hours of proofing and kneading and rising and 500-degree baking wilts as quickly as my poor plants in the August humidity. Fortunately, there are sane people like Jim Lahey in the world, who understand that sometimes, you don’t want to knead the bread, or sit at home and watch the bread, or really fuss with the bread at all. You just want to eat the bread. Is that so much to ask?
Turns out, it’s not. That’s why no-knead bread is wonderful (as are the many variations thereof). And in an effort to spruce up a recent Friday night dinner party with bread other than challah, I turned to yet another variation on Lahey’s original no-knead recipe: the Stecca.
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by rivka
on August 18, 2014
We’ve just returned from a week at the beach, full of silky sand and mid-afternoon beach chair dozes and lots of home-cooked meals. As anticipated, the bounce-back to real life is taking its time. We got back from Saturday lunch both ready to crash – what, we can’t take catnaps every day? – and the home fridge is still empty enough that there’s nothing begging to be cooked. I think this is what they call easing back in.
I’d love to give you a full write-up of where to go in Hilton Head, and what to do, but we went to none of those places, did none of that stuff. Instead, we cooked all our meals at home, basically owned the beach, and let the brain cells uncoil. It was glorious.
We biked the trails and strolled the beach at sunset. I made four pies. Could we be more cliche? I don’t care.
I’m in too much of a haze to share an actual recipe today, but I will share a couple links that are perfect for this moment in summer.
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by rivka
on August 6, 2014
In a month where you can find sweet, dribbly nectarines and burstingly juicy tomatoes pretty much everywhere, you might not be jonesing for zucchini. And considering you can pile those nectarines into a bowl of yogurt, or put some of those tomatoes on your morning toast, you’re definitely not seeking a way to eat zucchini for breakfast. Convincing you that that’s a good idea would be a heavy lift. And yet here I am, peddling a breakfast item pretty much loaded with summer squash. You must think the heat’s gotten to me.
But I’m willing to bet at least half of you skip breakfast altogether, and a good many more – not that I know anyone in this category coughwifecough – eat those insipid, playdough-textured nutrition bars for morning meals. So here’s my opening salvo: don’t do that. As Sam Sifton said, “A mere 15 minutes stolen from sleep can bring stylishness to the morning, along with a feeling that the day is filled with promise rather than recrimination. Do it once, and it’s hard. Do it three times in a week, and it’s a habit.” Never is that more true – or less burdensome – than when the cooking happens in advance.
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by rivka
on July 30, 2014
There are days – you know the ones – when you must make a meal out of nothing. In winter, my go-to is Jen’s Linguine with Sardines, Fennel, and Tomato (often with onion instead of fennel, since that’s always around). In summer, it’s slices of sourdough and perfect tomatoes and some sort of cheese. When it’s not that, it’s migas or chilaquiles. I really like tomatoes.
But still, it’s nice to have other options. And last night, while planning Friday night dinner, I came across a Guardian article about making dinner from the pantry. Bookmarked, saved.
I had been gushing over yet another round of videos about Turkish cooking, trying to back my way into a decent recipe for Kanafe. Not so simple. Turned out it was much easier to figure out a dinner plan for the evening. I revisited that Guardian piece, saw Fuchsia Dunlop’s recipe for spicy sesame noodles, and called it a day.
Good Chinese food is all about balancing the hot, sour, salty, and sweet. So why do sesame noodles always get a pass? We load them up with peanut butter until they’re gluey and cloying. If we’re being honest, here, I find it sort of gross. But thanks to Fuchsia, there is a better way. I’ll never make sesame noodles the same again.
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by rivka
on July 28, 2014
Turkey’s on my mind this month, since my brother has spent his summer doing research and meeting interesting folks in Kurdistan, Tel Aviv, and now, Istanbul. I spent a week in Istanbul back in 2006, but according to my brother, so much has changed since I visited. I feel like I missed at least half the great food Istanbul has to offer, and he’s definitely making up for my poor planning. For the rest of us, though, here are some great links to food in Turkey, specifically Istanbul, and then a slew of other links that caught my eye this month.
- The dough for Katmer, one of my favorite Turkish pastries, is notoriously thin. Watch an expert make it effortlessly (then go find some – it’s amazing.)
- Anissa Helou’s whole vimeo channel, while we’re at it. From baklava to lavash to tagliatelle, she’s caught it all on video.
- Robyn’s food tour with Istanbul Eats, run by my buddy Yigal. I’m full just reading it.
- As if they knew I’d be doing a Turkey edition of link love, Yigal and team recently posted an awesome-looking tour of Gaziantep, the food capital of Turkey. Wish I could go on this so, so bad.
- Last but not least, if you’ve never had isot biber, you’ve been missing out. It’s a Turkish chile (also called urfa biber) that’s similar to Aleppo chile, but, I would argue, better. Also, Aleppo chile is really hard to come by these days, for obvious reasons; isot is a great substitute. it’s smokey and floral and in some cases, mixed with sumac and salt and other stuff. It’s what I use in my green beans and in so many other things. It’s really a staple around here. You can get it from igourmet (linked above) or Kalustyan’s. To give some perspective on how essential it is to my cooking, I have two different jars of it that live permanently on the counter, and at least one kilo stowed away. It’s that essential.
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