The Brandy Snifter of Blood.

Posted on October 29, 2012 by Michael Procopio

After the movers came for my father’s things, I wandered into his empty kitchen. Along the back wall where the refrigerator had been, I noticed a few flecks of reddish-brown clinging to the off-white paint halfway up. There was no need to ask, because I knew exactly what it was. I wasn’t alarmed, but rather impressed that my blood could have sprayed so wildly that it hit the back wall and found its new home behind the Frigidaire. The thought of that late October blood bath made my scar itch.

It started out very much like every Friday night at my father’s place– a dinner of grilled London broil, baked potatoes, french cut green beans, and a green salad tossed with Good Seasons Zesty Italian Dressing. My father drank beer; my brother, sister, and I drank milk. It was the milk that lay at the root of the disaster.

My sister, with her superior sense of smell, sniffed the carton and insisted the dairy in question had gone bad. My brother, with his superior sense of thrift and even more superior sense of being superior, claimed otherwise. To prove his point, he took my father’s second largest brandy snifter (the largest one housed a collection of matchbooks from everywhere my father had ever eaten) and poured in two fingers of sweet acidophilus. With the grand gesture of a ham actor auditioning for the role of master sommelier, he swirled the milk around in the glass, inserted his nose into it and sniffed thoughtfully and repeatedly, rolled his eyes into the back of his head, and proclaimed it not only fit for consumption, but perhaps the finest glass of milk he had ever been fortunate enough to smell. It was a bravura performance the likes of which I have not seen another fourteen year-old boy perform with barware before or since. He finished the milk and set the snifter in the sink before we sat down to our meal.

After dinner, I sat on the living room floor to watch television as my father lay asleep on the couch behind me. Bored, I went into the bathroom to change into a pair of Mickey Mouse pajamas to join my brother and sister in the master bedroom, where they sought refuge from my father’s snoring.

They were sprawled upon the bed, eating pretzels and drinking root beer from smokey green tumblers the texture of which gave the impression that the molten glass had formed and cooled around bubble wrap. I loved drinking from them because they made me feel older than my six years. My father often drank scotch from them. I wanted to drink root beer out of one like my older brother and sister. Like a grown up. Or an almost-grown-up.

“Lori, can I have root beer in a green glass?” I asked my sister.

“Go get it yourself,” she said.

“Doug?” I pleaded to my brother, hoping for a little more understanding.

“You heard your sister. Go get it yourself.” They were so engrossed by Those Magnificent Men and Their Flying Machines that they didn’t even bother to look up from the television screen. I went back into the living room to ask my father for a glass, but he was sound asleep.

So I decided that, if I wanted a big boy glass, I’d have to be a big boy and get it myself.

The kitchen was clean and smelled of dish soap. There was still a donut of suds in the sink where the dishes were soaking. I was too small to reach the cupboard in which the green glasses were kept, but I was big enough to climb onto the counter to get at them. Intent upon my quest, I failed to notice that the countertop was still wet. My white cotton socks slipped out from under me and I fell into the sink with a crash.

I don’t know how he managed it, but my father went from sound asleep on the couch to cradling me over the sink in what seemed like a nanosecond. The last thing I remember seeing was the blood on him. It was nothing like any blood I had seen before from a scrape or a busted nose or even a horror movie. It was thick as syrup. And it was mine. My eyes rolled into the back of my head in the same spot where my brother’s had while acting dramatic with the brandy snifter in his hand. The two major differences being that I was not acting and that the brandy snifter was not in my hand, but in my ass.

Or pieces of it were.

The glass had cut though my right buttock, through the gluteal muscles, and hit an artery. The blood pumped and sprayed everywhere.

“I didn’t think it was possible for so small a boy to have so much blood,” one of them said when it was all over.

My father has never forgiven himself for pulling the glass out of me. He knows how arteries work, he says. My sister has expressed remorse for not getting me that damned green glass. My brother apologized profusely for the brandy snifter gag. But they were all marvelous in a crisis. They all banded together and saved my life. My sixteen year-old sister stemmed the blood flow by applying pressure with a pile of beach towels. My father had the presence of mind not to wait for an ambulance when he lived only two blocks from the nearest hospital. My brother held my hand and didn’t take his eyes off of me on the way to the emergency room.

I remember that my father was driving a new Cadillac at the time– white with a powder blue interior. I don’t remember seeing it after that night. Shortly after the accident, he purchase a black-on-black Honda Accord. One of these days, I must remember to ask him if the timing of this automobile switch was merely coincidental.

I may not have died that night, but the accident absolutely ruined my Halloween. Hobbling about on crutches until the muscles healed, I wish I would have been clever enough to have come up with a costume to incorporate them. I mean, I would have killed as Tiny Tim.

Milk Pudding with Amarena Cherry Syrup. 

Milk Pudding is not the most exciting dessert in the universe, but was the obvious thing for me to serve in a brandy snifter, given the story. And the syrup adds both flavor and a graphic visual punch. It had to be done. There was no other choice but to make it.

But you certainly don’t have to. If you like bland, glutenous goo, you are welcome to it. If you like desserts with the texture of a dehydrated male’s sexual effluent, then be my guest. I’m sticking with proper custards in the future.

Not every recipe on a food blog has to be edible. If that were true, just think of all the bloggers out there who would be out of business.

Fills four brandy snifters.

Ingredients:

• 3 1/2 cups of whole milk
• 1/3 cup tapioca starch (arrowroot starch will also work, but it is much more expensive)
• 1/2 cup sugar
• A pinch of salt
• the zest of 1 whole orange
• 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
• As much amarena cherry syrup as you need to satisfy your blood lust.

Preparation:

1. Mix together tapioca starch and sugar in a large mixing bowl.

2. Pour milk, orange zest, and salt into a medium saucepan. Bring to a simmer over medium heat, remove from said heat, and let sit for 5 minutes, covered.

3. Pour the hot milk into the tapioca starch/sugar, whisking wildly. Return the liquid to the saucepan and heat over a medium flame, whisking enthusiastically until the concoction begins to thicken. About two minutes.

4. Pass the thickening goo through a fine mesh sieve into a something with a pour spout, like a 4-cup Pyrex pitcher. Divide among four brandy snifters. Cover and chill in the refrigerator for at least 4 hours.

THE BEST WAY TO SERVE THIS DESSERT IS NOT IN A BRANDY SNIFTER.

Why is this? Because the surface area of the pudding should be covered with wax paper or cling wrap to prevent skin from forming. I’d like to see you attempt this with a brandy snifter.

5. Serve with a generous splatter of syrup to baffled guests, then proceed to tell them all about how you nearly bled to death from falling on a brandy snifter.

Then provide them with real brandy served in anything but a snifter. Groovy green glasses would be nice.

Or you can simply toss the whole mess into the sink and forget about it. Or, rather, don’t forget about them. Wash them, remove them from the sink, and place them out of the reach of a six year-old’s behind.

Posted in Holidays, Sweets and the Like | Tagged , , , , , | 20 Comments

2nd Place Sandwich

Posted on October 24, 2012 by Michael Procopio

One of the most important lessons I learned this week was this:

Never accept an invitation unless you’ve actually read it. 

My friend Sean Timberlake of PunkDomestics.com was hosting an event for Columbus Salame and sent me an email asking if I would like to attend. “Why not?” I thought. I had the afternoon free, it would be nice to see Sean, and I am rather fond of cured meats. It seemed like a win-win-win to me.

When I received the official email invitation, attached to it was a lovely note from the co-ordinator of the event stating that I could bring up to three guests “to cheer me on.”

“Cheer me on?” I wrote back. It seems I had missed the part where, by accepting, I had agreed to participate in a Top Chef-style sandwich making throw down with two other bloggers, Chef John of FoodWishes and Lynda Balslev of TasteFood in front of a panel of judges.

3 bloggers, 3 sandwiches, 20 minutes. With only one winner, the only likely outcome seemed more win-lose-lose than win-win-win.

But, what the hell. I’d never entered a 20-minute sandwich competition before. I knew and liked my competitors personally, there would be food involved, and it would get me out of the house. Win, win, and win again.

Before the competition began, the three of us were conveyed from the Hotel Vitale by pedicab to the San Francisco Ferry Building located directly across the street, which saved us precious time and energy and helped to ensure that none of the competition would meet a distracted, jay-walking traffic death (Thank you, Columbus). We were then each handed $10 (US) and given 10 minutes to explore the markets in search of a “secret ingredient”. John returned with a pluot and a handful of pine nuts, Lynda traded her money in for pinch of fennel pollen, and I wound up a fuji apple and bone marrow butter, which were the firs two things I came across with the correct price tag.

Safely returned to the Hotel, John managed to tell our chauffeur that he and I were on our honeymoon in order to throw me off my game. I was about to admit to our driver that it was our second honeymoon, but I was too busy wondering what the hell I was going to do with four dollars worth of bone marrow butter to embellish his story. The three of us then placed ourselves at our designated work stations in front of the judges and got to work when the countdown had begun.

My sandwich was intended to be a simple one: smoked turkey, sopressata, apples, and arugula. My method of preparing the sandwich, however, was not so simple: fry the sopressata like bacon, smear the bread with an esoteric ingredient (bone marrow butter),     build the sandwich, and toast the whole thing to a beautiful, toasty, crispy, golden hue.

In 20 minutes. Of course, this did not happen.

Frankly, I am surprised that I was able to finish the sandwich at all. But it doesn’t matter, because I had a good deal of fun and there were a few things I was able to take away from the experience (besides a generous assortment of meat):

1. If you are pressed for time, attempting to utilize an apparatus with which you are totally unfamiliar, like a panini press, is ill-advised. 
2. Obsessing over one element of a dish when there are others which need equal attention is not helpful.
3. Twenty minutes is not a very long time when it comes to creating an original sandwich off-the-cuff.
4. The fact that one can accomplish something in such a short span of time is extremely satisfying. 
5. I actually don’t mind coming in second place. Especially when the winner donates his winnings to charity. (Chef John is a very good egg indeed.)

But, damn it. If I’d had 10 more minutes, I would have nailed it. Honest.

2nd Place Sandwich

In my kitchen, this sandwich didn’t take 20 minutes. In fact, it only took 10. The beauty of it is the soppresata, crisped up like spicy discs of bacon. If you can get your hands on bone marrow butter*, get it. Stock up. It adds an incredible depth to anything it touches. So much so, in fact, that I am next considering applying it to my morning bowl of Malt-O-Meal. If you can’t find it, it doesn’t matter– the following recipe below doesn’t use it. Nor does it use a panini press, because said appliance and I are still not on speaking terms.

Makes 1 gracefully-losing sandwich.

Ingredients:

• Two slices of bread (white sandwich loaf or sweet batard work best. Avoid sour, ultra crusty varieties.)
• 8 slices (about 25g) of sopressata (or any salami you prefer)
• 2 slices (about 100g) of smoked turkey breast
• 6 or 7 thin slices of sweet tart apple (Fuji is lovely)
• A small fistful of arugula, washed and dried
• As much Dijon mustard as you like
• 1 tablespoon of unsalted butter (if you do manage to get your hands on bone marrow butter, use it)

Preparation:

1. In a cast iron skillet, fry up your sopressata, flipping the pieces over from time to time until crispy. About 3 minutes. Shake off excess drippings into the pan and set the meat aside to drain and cool on a paper towel.

2. Add the butter to the pan. Put both slices of bread into the butter/sopressata fat, coating each side. Fry until both sides of the bread are crispy, golden brown, and sodden with delicious animal fat. Remove and place on the same paper towel your fried sopressata is resting.

3. Toss the arugula into what’s left of the fat in your skillet to coat, then remove. Briefly. The idea is not to fry the greens, but to gently wilt and flavor.

4. To assemble your sandwich, coat one side of each slice of bread with another thin layer of butter and a little mustard. Layer the sliced turkey, apples, arugula, and crispy sopressata (this is the order I prefer, but you do it however you like) onto one slice of toast, then seal the deal with the final slice of toast on top.

5. Serve to a panel of judges, be they friends, lovers, colleagues, or parents. Or actual judges. They need to eat, too.

* For SF readers, bone marrow butter (as well as marrow bones) can be purchased from the Prather Ranch store located in The Ferry Building.

Posted in Meatness, Sandwiches | Tagged , , , , | 19 Comments

KY Jelly Is My New Jam

Posted on October 8, 2012 by Michael Procopio

If it’s sweet and smearable, you will find it spooned upon my morning toast. Jams, jellies, marmalades, conserves, confitures– I love them all.

I’ve had fig paste from Morocco, cloudberry jam from Newfoundland, and pearl jam from Seattle. If there is a place on earth whose fruit spread I have not sampled, it is only a matter of time before I do. So you can imagine my delight when I wandered into Walgreen’s and made rather unexpected discovery.

I was looking for shaving cream, but found myself lost in the feminine hygiene aisle when I saw it. Wedged between boxes of home pregnancy tests and Summer’s Eve, I came across a spread I never knew existed: Kentucky jelly. I was amused by its placement in the store, assuming perhaps that it was being marketed to pregnant women. Or at least very clean ones. If it was delicious enough to be recommended by gynecologists, it was good enough for me.  I snatched up a box and headed to the checkout line, forgetting all about the shaving cream.

When I returned home, I pulled the jelly out of its box after I put my bread slices in the oven to do their thing. The pale blue container I held in my hand gave little away as to what flavors lay hidden inside. I did, however, admire the packaging: a squeezeable tube. So convenient for spreading upon one’s toast, I thought.

Unscrewing the plastic cap to remove the tamper-proof seal, I replaced it and squirted a generous amount of the jelly onto my hot toast. I was surprised by the clearness of it but, undeterred, I bit in.

It was not what I imagined Kentucky to taste like. I was disappointed by its glycerin flavor and viscous mouthfeel. And it was not organic. My friends from there are colorful and interesting, so why wasn’t the official jelly of The Bluegrass State the same? I tried to imagine Kat and Jackie spreading it on their muffins in the morning. And then I immediately tried to imagine something else.

KY jelly does a great disservice to The Great Commonwealth, no matter what gynecologists may think of it. When I think of Kentucky, I think of bourbon, racehorses, summer heat, bourbon, cherries, and bourbon. I think of good old-fashioned traditions upheld like Derby Day and the making of burgoo and hot brown. And though I may think of Loretta Lynn using Crisco in her pie, I never, ever think of her using KY Jelly.

Old Fashioned Kentucky Jelly

I decided to make my own Kentucky jelly, the old-fashioned way, just to take the bad taste out of my mouth. And when I say “old-fashioned”, I mean like the cocktail of the same name.  Though my friends from The Hemp State might disagree, this recipe is how I imagine their signature spread should be:

Sticky, sweet, a whiff of bourbon, and the gentle kick of a thoroughbred thrown in for good measure.

Makes two 8 ounce jars of KY jelly. Keep one for yourself and give the other to someone you’d like to see use it.

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cups Kentucky bourbon
• 1  1/2 cups black cherry juice (Knudsen makes a great one using cherries and nothing else, which is ideal.)
• 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
• 1/2 cup of sugar
• 3 or 4 good dashes of orange bitters
• The peel of 1/2 of an orange (large pieces are best, because you’ll want  easy removal.)
• 1/2 teaspoon Aleppo pepper (or chile flakes, if you want a little extra heat.)
• 1 teaspoon calcium water (powder comes with your packet of Pomona Universal Pectin)
• 3/4 teaspoon of powdered Pomona’s Universal Pectin mixed with:
• 1 teaspoon of granulated sugar

Preparation:

1. In a medium-sized, heavy-bottomed pot, add bourbon, cherry juice, orange peel, bitters, sugar, lemon juice, and pepper flakes. Bring to a boil, then turn off the heat and let stand for 30 minutes to allow the flavors to mingle properly.

2. Remove orange peel. Add calcium water and stir into your liquid. Add the sugar/pectin mixture, bring to a boil, and stir, stir, stir to prevent the pectin from clumping. To see if the concoction has gelled to you liking, place a small spoonful onto a chilled plate and see how it sets up when cool. Too firm? Add a little more juice and try again. Too runny? Add a little more pectin and see what happens.

3. Pour hot jelly in to clean, sterilized jars and process according to instructions from the National Center for Home Food Preservation.

4. To serve: spread it on toast, on crackers, on cheese, on any food stuff that seems in need of lubrication.

Posted in Breakfast Time, Rants and Stories, Sweets and the Like | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 40 Comments

Hortotiropita & The Five Stages of Restaurant Grief.

Posted on September 19, 2012 by Michael Procopio

Sometimes, there are things a person takes for granted, thanks to their close proximity or easy availability: a spouse, a friend, a favorite market, a booty call.

When one of them packs up and leaves town, he or she realizes the great thing that was always at hand is now out of reach, only to be replaced by an un-healable abscess of sorrow. Or a substitute, which will be constantly compared to the original, for better or for worse.

Now you can understand my state of mind when, earlier this year, I suffered my own, devastating loss– the spanakotiropita, served at my restaurant since the day it first opened, vanished into phyllo-thin air.

Spanakotiropita (Greek spinach and cheese pies) aren’t especially glamorous by nature. They weren’t exactly the show-stopping feature on our menu, but it was comforting to know they were always there like a fresh box of Kleenex or a shut-in roommate who knows the Heimlich maneuver. They were homey, a little homely, and entirely delicious, no matter what Olympia Dukakis says about them.

I was horrified by their disappearance and mortified by the all-cheese tiropitakia which replaced them.

“But why did the spanakotiropita have to go?” I asked our chef, as if I were a bewildered child asking his mommy why daddy left with that big suitcase or why on earth she was burying a favorite pet hamster behind the rose garden.

“Oh, just trying something new”, he said.

Just trying something new. I wondered to myself if this was the culinary version of  a midlife crisis, like getting rid of a dependable car with great gas mileage and the always-there-for-you wife who put you through grad school and replacing them with a 2-seater sports car and a blond with big tits to put out inside of it.

There was nothing I could do but accept this answer from an otherwise reasonable man. But it would be a cold day in restaurant hell before I would ever accept this wholesale abandonment of an old favorite for a new item, no matter how big its tits were.

I found myself flying through Kübler and Ross’s Five Stages of Grief:

1.) Denial: I refuse to believe that anything of this horrible magnitude could ever befall my beloved restaurant.
2.) Anger: I want to stab these new pies with a steak knife.
3.) Bargaining: Perhaps if I get enough restaurant guests to sign a petition, the old pies will come back. Or, just maybe, if I prayed hard enough, they would return.*
4.) Depression: I cannot will these new pies to taste anything like the old ones and therefore am considering suicide.
5.) Acceptance: I never made it that far.

I was grateful that I was able to process all of this terrible grief within the span of a few days. And when I recovered, I came to a few important realizations:

1.) I am a big boy. I can handle this sort of trauma like a champ.
2.) I am an able cook and recipe developer. I should make my own damned spanakotiropita if I can’t handle the fact that they aren’t going to be made available to me by my restaurant and the small army of prep cooks therein.
3.) If I make my own, I can put what ever I like into them and make them whatever shape I want them to be. I can be the master of my own Greek pie destiny.

And with that realization came a great relief. And, I think, a great recipe.

Hortotiropita or, in American English, Greens and Cheese Phyllo Pies

The great thing about phyllo pies is that you can fill them with anything the voices in your own head tell you to. Go ahead and be inspired: lamb, greens, lemon curd, cement, whatever.  Listen to your voices.

You can also shape them however you like. In this case I have abandoned the folded flag look of traditional pies and replaced it with the shape of my favorite Greek dessert, galaktoboureko, or, in Chinese terms, an egg roll.

This recipe, which is suited to my particular tastes and needs, is merely a guideline. All that matters is that you love the taste of your own filling. Interpret that last sentence however you wish.

Makes about a dozen pastries. 

Ingredients:

• 3 bunches chard
• 1 bunch mustard greens
• 2 bunches of beet greens, ripped from six large golden beets
• 2 leeks, sliced into manageable, but not tiny bits
• 2 bunches of scallions, sliced the same way as the leeks
• 3 tablespoons of butter for sautéing the leeks and scallions
• 1/4 teaspoon of salt
• 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 1 tablespoon Aleppo pepper
• 10 ounces Greek feta, crumbled.
• 1 cup grated Parmesan
• 4 Tablespoons finely chopped dill.
• 1 package of phyllo dough
• 12 tablespoons of melted butter with which to brush the phyllo sheets.

For Garnish (which is purely optional, as is pretty much everything else)
• 3 teaspoons of sesame seeds
• 1 teaspoon fennel seed

Preparation:

1. Clean your greens, remove their stocks and stems, and roughly chop. Set aside.

2. Toss 3 tablespoons of butter into the bottom of a large stockpot or a very large sauté pan and melt over medium heat. Add the leeks and scallions, moving them about the bottom of the cooking vessel until they are soft and vaguely translucent. The idea is not to brown them, but rather to weaken their resolve. Add the chopped greens a handful or two at a time, stirring them about with tongs or a large wooden spoon to wilt them/coat them with the butter and warm the leeks and scallions. Repeat this action until all the greens have found their way in. Cover and cook on a medium-low flame, stirring and tossing occasionally until all the leaves are wilted. The contents of the pot will have reduced by about 2/3 their original volume (about 7 to 8 minutes). I hope you do not find this at all alarming.

Do not overcook. Nothing horrifying will happen if they do, it’s just that I want you to be mindful of the fact that the greens will be cooked further when eventually wrapped in phyllo and shoved into a hot oven.

Empty the hot, flabby greens into a colander which, if you are wise, will be strategically placed into your sink. Drain well, squeeze as much liquid out of them as possible without straining yourself or traumatizing the steaming vegetation. If you are the type of person who enjoys such things, reserve the greens sweat/liquid/unwanted moisture, let cool, and drink.

Spread the strangled greens into a large casserole dish and let cool to room temperature. You may also transfer the greens to a large bowl, but they will take much longer to cool if you choose to do so.

3. When the greens have sufficiently cooled, add the salt, pepper, Aleppo pepper, feta, Parmesan, and dill. Combine well.

At this point, I prefer to transfer the mixture to a smaller vessel, cover it tightly, and refrigerate it until I am ready to use it. Making this a day in advance of baking the pastries is a very good thing. The flavors are more prone to mingle that way.

4. About an hour before you wish to assemble your hortotiropita heat your oven to 450°F and place a rack to the upper third of the oven. Remove both the phyllo and the filling mixture from the refrigerator and let them warm up to the idea of their impending intimacy (room temperature). During this time, you may also wish to melt the butter. (Some people insist upon using only clarified butter for brushing onto their phyllo. I say “bravo” to them, but I find it an unnecessary waste of time. I can think of so many other ways of squandering whatever time I have left on this planet. Very few of them have anything to do with melting butter).

5. Make certain you have a large enough work surface to accommodate a) your unfolded phyllo, b) a cutting board or prep space wide and long enough to give the phyllo you are working with enough room to manuever, c) a half-sheet pan lined with foil or parchment (which will comfortably hold twelve pastries), and d) a place for your bowl of filling and melted butter, respectively.

6. Place a clean kitchen towel over the surface of the space where you would like your phyllo unfurled. Carefully un-package said Greek pastry sheets and lay them flat over the towel with a combination of care and confidence. Lay a second clean towel over the phyllo sheets to prevent them from drying out. Which happens much sooner than one might think it would. I find that giving the top towel a very light mist of water from a spray bottle helps. However, I do not recommend over-moistening, because that would be extremely unfortunate for both the phyllo and the person attempting to manipulate the phyllo. Rather, pretend you are about to iron out a subtle wrinkle from this top towel. A few, short mists. If you are unfamiliar with the subtleties of ironing, you may wish to skip this step and just work as quickly as possible.

6. To assemble the pies, place one sheet of phyllo onto your work space and brush with butter from the center and work your brushstrokes to the outside edges. Place 85 grams of filling (Yours do not have to be 85 grams, but I do recommend weighing out your filling to whatever amount pleases you to get uniform results) in the left-hand center of the pastry sheet, about 2 inches away from the edge.

Fold the bottom of the sheet up to the center, fold the top down to the center until the length of your pastry is the one you desire. Mine happens to be the approximate length of my iPhone, give a light brushing of butter to the newly exposed surface. Roll the pastry over unto you have reached the end. Place flap-side down onto the awaiting sheet pan. Repeat until you have used up all of your filling.

7. Take the tip of a small knife and pierce each pie to its foundation five times. I cannot stress how important having stream vents is. I took a batch of these to a party this summer, became distracted by cocktail-wielding friends, and forgot all about piercing. Most of them exploded. However, they were still delicious.

8. Brush the tops of your pies with more butter and then pop into the oven to bake for 8 minutes. After 8 minutes have elapsed, rotate the sheet pan, sprinkle the pies with the sesame and fennel seeds, then return to the oven for about 5 more minutes or until the pastry is golden brown. Remove from the oven and let cool for a few minutes because burning-hot cheese is an unpleasant sensation to one’s mouth. Unless, of course, one is mentally prepared for it, as in the case of saganaki.

Serve warm with a beer, some friends, a little ouzo. Whatever you wish to serve them with, just be certain one of those things is a napkin– these are flaky little bastards.

* The spanakotiropita did, in fact, return to our restaurant menu as I hoped and prayed they would. It’s almost enough to make one believe in the power of prayer.

 

 

Posted in Rants and Stories, Savories | Tagged , , , , , , , | 19 Comments

The Draft Dodger

Posted on September 3, 2012 by Michael Procopio

I would have written sooner, only summer got in the way. But now that all those white shoes have been carefully and mercifully put away for the year, I feel it’s safe to return to normal life.

I spent a couple of weeks in British Columbia last month, which was precisely what I needed to be doing.

I ate tater tots on Granville Island with my friend Thrasso. I bought chocolates from my favorite Canadian chocolatière, Rachel Sawatzky of Cocoa Nymph. I got my exercise kayaking around Indian Arm and carrying refrigerators up from basements in Kitsilano. I cooked for old friends and new friends. I spent quality time with my god-daughters. I learned the value of Limited Liability Partnerships playing Monopoly. I fell into a waterfall because its name suggested I do so and I limped about happily for the rest of my vacation.

Waterfall in which I waterfell.

And I ate and drank entirely too much.

But that’s what holidays are for, aren’t they?

I had the good fortune of receiving an invitation to spend nearly a week on a very large boat by my friend Craig’s parents, who took excellent care of me. I was spoiled rotten by a new friend named Kathy, who informed Craig, his wife Shannon, and me that it would be most helpful if we obliged our hosts by consuming as much of the liquor as possible during our stay to avoid customs taxes upon their return to the United States.

So I did what any conscientious boating guest would do: I attempted to drink Canada dry.

Please don’t worry about my liver. I protected it by consuming copious amounts of bacon, home-made french fries, and crab cakes caught in the harbor by specially designed crab cake traps.

The gin found its way into martinis and muddled, cucumber-y concoctions; the rum became one with simple syrup and mint; and the scotch found itself sharing a small room with club soda.

But my favorite, or since we were in Canada, favourite alcoholic combination was by far what we did with the bourbon.

It was Craig’s brother’s idea really, which doesn’t surprise me at all, given the fact that I first got to know him under an assumed name (his) after randomly meeting him in a bar a hundred miles from home which we were both too young to have entered legally. He bought me shot after shot of bourbon in what I assumed to be a fraternal act of hazing. I have not touched Wild Turkey since that day, but I did prove that I could handle my Kentucky mash.

And now, thanks to him, I know another way to handle it.

Even though I hastily declared it my “drink of the summer”, I know in my heart of bourbon-loving hearts that it’s going to taste even better when the weather turns cold.

The Draft Dodger

Randy mentioned the maple syrup, Marty and Janet supplied the location (and liquor), and Craig named it. I can therefore state quite literally that I owe the entire Rosa family credit for the creation of this drink.

Why call it a Draft Dodger*? Why on earth not? We were on holiday in Canada, avoiding our day-to-day active American duties. It’s what I imagine the true draft dodgers of the Vietnam War might drink when they got a little homesick. There is nothing more American as bourbon, alcoholically speaking, and the maple syrup is a nice way of acknowledging the place which gave them asylum. It’s the best of both worlds, if you ask me.

And it’s absurdly easy to concoct.

Makes one generous drink for the homesick or the merely vacationing.

Ingredients:

• 3 ounces of Kentucky bourbon
• 1 ounce of Canadian maple syrup (Vermont syrup may also be used, but that rather defeats the point.)
• A splash of club soda. Canada Dry is the most appropriate choice.

Preparation:

Pour bourbon and maple syrup into a tumbler or highball glass. Stir well. Add ice and top off with a splash of club soda. No garnish. You’re done.

Drink immediately in the quiet of a Canadian fjord interrupted only by the sound of harbour seals, red-headed mergansers, and a family teasing you because you happened to refer to their boat as a yacht.

* There are other drinks in this world called The Draft Dodger, but none of them make any sense to me. Tequila? Rum? I don’t think so. Who ever heard of people fleeing to Jamaica and Mexico to avoid the draft? Then again, it’s warmer there, so they might be on to something.

Posted in Liquids | Tagged , , , , , | 23 Comments

Anchovy Lover

Posted on August 7, 2012 by Michael Procopio

There are people who love anchovies, people who do not love them but are not in the least bothered by their existence, and then there are people who become mentally unhinged from merely hearing the word “anchovy” spoken.

It’s a depressingly common occurrence to watch restaurant guests squirm in their seats when I tell them we’re serving fresh Monterey Bay anchovies. It’s as if these people are imagining that a small school of them had somehow found its way into their underpants and was now making a panicked attempt to swim up their urethrae.

I can think of no other possible explanation for their revulsion.

“I have the feeling you’d like me to move on to the next special,” is often the next thing out of my mouth. And then, if we happen to be selling them that evening, I proceed to rhapsodize about the fried lamb testicles.

What is it about anchovies that causes such passionate revulsion? What on earth or in the sea have these poor creatures done besides be stupid enough to get caught en masse in fishing nets?

Nothing. Next to plankton, they are the innocents of the ocean.

I won’t proselytize or otherwise try to convert the anchovy haters of the world to a state of love and acceptance, but my heart grieves for them.

The ecstasy of a freshly tossed caesar salad is lost on them, the experience of munching a pissaladière carpeted with olives will forever evade them, and never will they know the satisfaction of licking gentleman’s relish from the corners of their mouths.

At that’s just fine. It means there’s more for me. And for you, if you’re into it.

Cured Anchovies

My friend Harry at Kokkari not was not only kind enough to order me up a pound of fresh anchovies, but personally showed me how to filet them without using a knife. I was grateful for his services and relieved to know that I did not need some doll-sized boning instrument to perform the task.

On top of all that helpfulness, he then told me how to cure them like we do at the restaurant. The preparation is as simple and straightforward as I imagine the anchovies themselves to be. Granted, I’ve never examined the inner life of an anchovy, so I wouldn’t know. I have, however, examined its inner organs.

The anchovies are ready to eat after five or six hours, but they are even better the next day. By Day Two, their flavor remains clean and bright, but the texture becomes buttery soft, nearly melting on the tongue upon contact. By Day Three, they will have fallen apart.

However, for anyone who loves anchovies as much as I do, there is no such thing as Day Three.

Makes as many cured anchovies as you have the patience for.

Ingredients:

• Fresh anchovies. I use those fish caught in Monterey Bay. Choose the anchovies that roam closest to your home. If you live in the tropics or in the center of a large continent, this is potentially problematic.
• Olive oil. A mild one. Do not use the bottle The Baron gave you that day you helped him to his car after the accident. It is not only too precious, but too astringent.
• Lemon juice. Eureka, Meyer, or Liz. It’s really up to you.
• Kosher Salt. Sea salt feels totally unnecessary, given the subject matter.
• Finely chopped dill. A healthy amount, but not so much that your marinade looks like a kelp-choked tidal flat.

Preparation:

1. Obtain anchovies.

2. Give the fish a quick rinse under cold water. Take one anchovy, turn it upside down, and spread its gills.

Are the gills a bloody red? Excellent. That means the anchovies are very fresh.

Now pinch the cartilage bone hard bit that runs between the gills from the belly to the mouth and twist to pull out the entrails.

3. Pretending your pinky finger is a rather dull knife, run it gently down the belly of the fish, from head to tail. Remove any remaining organs.

4. Massage the fish’s spine until it comes loose from the flesh. At this point, you may either discard the spines, use them for a festive tablescape, or do as my friend Tom Hudgens would and fry them up into crispy chips. He does things like that.

You may also remove the head and tail, if you like. I prefer my fish to look as much like fish as possible, so I leave them on. 

Repeat until there are no more anchovies to filet or your enthusiasm for the job leaves you entirely.

5. Lay your filleted anchovies skin side down and sprinkle moderately with salt. Leave them on your counter, go do something constructive like calming any anchovy haters* in the vicinity, and return 30 minutes later to rinse the salt off the fish.

6. After offering a sincere apology to the anchovies for ripping them open and pouring salt into their wounds, place them in a shallow baking dish.

7. To make the marinade, add one part lemon juice to three parts olive oil, add as much dill as seems reasonable to you and whisk together.

Pour enough marinade over the fish to drown them, cover the dish, and place in the refrigerator until they are ready to be eaten and you, in turn, are ready to eat them.

Before serving, taste one of the fillets. If you feel they are not salty enough, sprinkle with a little more.

Serve the First-Day anchovies on their own, with just a drizzle of the marinade and a squeeze of fresh lemon.

Serve Second-Day anchovies on toasted bread with great lashings of butter.

Serve Third-Day anchovies to your cat.

Do not serve Seventh-Day anchovies on the Sabbath.

* Make certain to wash your hands thoroughly before comforting.

Posted in Meatness, Rants and Stories, Savories | Tagged , , | 31 Comments

Mrs. Webb’s Fried Chicken

Posted on July 16, 2012 by Michael Procopio

There is nothing else to call it except “Mrs. Webb’s Fried Chicken.” It’s her recipe and I want to spread the news of it like a televangelist spreads the Gospel.*

Except I won’t be asking you for any money. Nor will I condemn you for not believing it is the One True Fried Chicken Recipe.

But it may very well be.

Every summer, I fry a batch or two of this poultrified miracle and enjoy the false memories it conjures.

I think of the beautiful childhood picnics I never went on. Laying out my hand-stitched quilt on a grassy patch of park free of dog feces, the well-timed automatic sprinklers offering me a refreshing spritz of mist at 15 minute intervals, drinking freshly squeezed lemonade and eating my Grammy’s homemade fried chicken.

How I miss Anaheim.

If a summertime picnic was to be had, it was generally done in my backyard on an old, frayed electric blanket (unplugged). Just myself and my dogs, Cindy and Penny, who were not, as one might think, named for Cindy Williams and Penny Marshall. The coincidence of my childhood with Laverne and Shirley is simply bad timing.

No sunscreen– we didn’t feel the need for such things in those days. All I needed for a (temporary) deep, golden tan was the mayonnaise dripping from my bologna sandwich. I know what you’re thinking… and you’re right. My neighbor Kim and I once slathered Best Foods all over our bodies and then baked ourselves in the sun. We thought nothing of it until we began to smell. That was about the time Kim’s mother found us and screamed something about us being walking salmonella and wasting her good mayonnaise. She then sprayed me down with a hose and sent me home. But I digress.

Unfortunately, we were not, by nature, fried chicken eaters. The occasional Shake n’ Bake-assisted fried chicken was ingested, but without relish. Or mayonnaise, for that matter. I think, though, that I had always wanted to be a fried chicken eater.

Perhaps it was the trappings that went with its eating: red checkered picnic cloths, watermelon, happy families, a sack race. That seemed like a great summertime sort of lifestyle.

My fried chicken education didn’t happen until well into adulthood. I had invited my cooking school partner Todd over for dinner one summer evening and thought fried chicken sounded like a good idea. As I took the chicken legs out of their plastic seal and began to place them directly into the flour mixture I’d made, Todd cocked is head like a confused dog and asked, “What are you doing?”

I thought it was fairly obvious what I was doing and said as much.

“That’s not how my Mama makes fried chicken and my Mama knows fried chicken.” His voice had suddenly developed the long, rounded vowels and deep base of an imaginary Kentucky Colonel– decidedly un-New Jersey-like– the state in which Todd learned to speak. He then explained that his mother was from West Virginia. We went to the market to purchase what he needed to make proper fried chicken, then I stood back and watched him work. Since the chicken needed to soak overnight, we went out for burritos that evening instead.

He came back the next day to fry it all up. I was floored by the results. Now I realize that everyone thinks they know what the perfect fried chicken should taste like. Well, you’re wrong, plain and simple. Thank you Todd, wherever you are. And thank you, Mama Webb, for showing me into the light.

Mrs. Webb’s Fried Chicken

The added bonus of the particular recipe is the stack of onion rings it produces. Where as the onions infuse the chicken, so does the chicken infuse the onions. That’s how the system works. The system called reciprocity.

That last bit is from a Broadway musical and it is sung by a prison matron. I will stop there.

Serves 4 to 6. Or one shut-in for 3 to 4 days. 

Ingredients:

• 12 pieces of chicken (I like thighs and drumsticks. Breasts just seem like a waste for frying)
• 1 quart of buttermilk (low fat will do just fine)
• A generous amount of salt
• 1 onion, sliced into rings or Lyonnaise style, if you like– you’re the one eating them
• 3 cups of all purpose flour (at the very least)
• Lots cracked black pepper
• As much cayenne pepper as you dare
• 1 1/2 quarts vegetable oil** for frying (corn, safflower or whatever. Don’t get fancy with the oil or people will laugh at you). Or, if you prefer, vegetable shortening. Or, as my friend Carrie just informed me, beef lard. That would probably be too much happiness to bear.

Preparation:

1. In a large bowl, coat the chicken pieces liberally with salt. This not only salts the chicken, it draws out impurities, preventing unsightly blood spotting as you fry. Let the chicken sit in the salt for one hour.

2. Rinse the salt from the chicken. Rinse the bowl, too, for reuse.

3. Return chicken to the bowl and add the sliced onion. Toss together and cover with buttermilk. Cover and set in refrigerator overnight or for one full day. Or two.

4. In a large skillet, pour one inch of oil and heat to 325 degrees. Try not to let the oil get hotter or the chicken will burn. I use a thermometer to gauge the temperature. I suggest you do, too, since the oil temperature drops significantly when the cold chicken is added.

5. In another large bowl, combine flour and brave amounts of salt, pepper, and cayenne. I’ve never bothered to measure the amount of this I use and neither should you. Just go for it.

6. Remove all the chicken from the buttermilk-tainted bowl. I don’t care where you put it as long as you put it somewhere clean. Shake excess buttermilk from a piece of chicken and roll it in the flour mixture. Dip the chicken back into the buttermilk and once more into the flour. If you’re not into double-crusting, fine. Add the chicken to your pan as you go, skin side down. I find that adding the chicken gradually to the pan helps to maintain a more constant oil temperature. Just make sure you have some sort of system for knowing which pieces have been in the longest. I work clockwise. You do what you want.

7. Wash your hands between chicken-dipping or you will no longer be able to find your fingertips. Skim the pan for floating bits of crust with a fine mesh strainer between batches.

8. Fry the chicken until golden brown, about 10 to 12 minutes per side. Make sure you’ve got some music appropriate for frying playing. This is going to take a little while.

9. As each piece finishes frying, place on a rack to drain. Why waste paper towels?

10. Now you have these wonderful onions to fry up. Proceed as with the chicken, battering and double dipping.*** How nice to have a side dish built right into the recipe. Serve hot or cold. Not the onion rings, of course. I like the chicken cold. For picnics, you know.

* This is a post updated from four and a half years ago. It was originally titled “Fried Gallus Gallus.” However, I love this recipe so much that I needed to rename it after the woman who (indirectly) taught me how to make it.

** The amount of cooking oil used for this recipe is enough to fill an 11″ frying pan to the depth of 1″. If you use a smaller pan, you will need less oil. Of course, in fried chicken preparation, the wider the pan, the better.

*** If you find you don’t have enough flour/spice mixture left over, just make more. You already know how easy that is.

Posted in Savories | Tagged , , , , | 19 Comments

Howdy, Neighbor.

Posted on July 11, 2012 by Michael Procopio

When I heard a knock on my apartment door a couple of weeks ago, I did what any normal person would do.

I hid.

I wasn’t expecting anyone, I was exhausted, and my living room had requested no visitors because it wasn’t feeling well. I made myself as small as possible and retreated to the kitchen, where the noise of a running faucet might conveniently mask the sound of any future knocking.

It couldn’t have been anyone I knew. I could hear my downstairs neighbor growling like Satchmo to his houseplants. He’s the only person who ever comes to my door and only then to complain that he can hear Blossom Dearie singing through my open window. It couldn’t have been my neighbor across the hall. We don’t speak to each other after the last 3:30 am incident which involved screaming, the vibrating pulse of mediocre Techno-Pop, much profanity, and the involvement of the police I didn’t have to summon.

And it definitely wouldn’t have been his friends who also lived in the building and liked to bang on his door at 2 am on weeknights while wearing nothing but a six-pack of cheap beer in front of their genitalia because, as I could hear one of them drunk whisper, “Dude, it’ll be hilarious!” Their departure from the building was swift and merciful.

 It was a knock that didn’t sound urgent or angry, I wanted to be alone, and so I forgot all about it.

When I opened my door the next morning, I found a note written in cheerful orange ink. Attached to it were two cookies: one chocolate chip and one of the peanut butter variety.

 It was a delightful surprise. It also made me realize that I had been acting like a cynical shut-in.

Their gesture cheered me because they had taken the neighborly welcome and turned it on its head. It’s the pre-existing neighbors who should be offering foodstuffs and assistance to the newly-moved in, not the other way around. However, in this particular building, that wasn’t going to happen.  I admired their spunk. They sent cookies and notes to all the tenants.

I decided to return the favor and send them cookies in return.

But what kind? Chocolate chip and peanut butter were out of the question. I didn’t want them to be too intricate or esoteric. They should be something homey and easily approachable. And not too beautiful because the last thing I wanted to do was show up these nice people in some sort of cookie-baking showdown. But I did want them to be good.

I knew precisely what I wanted to bake for them. Perhaps “precisely” isn’t the right word.

That same week, another display of cookie-related neighborliness occurred at work. Before the dinner rush began at my restaurant, our chef Erik handed me half of an oatmeal cookie and said, “Try this.” I dutifully placed it in my mouth and began to chew.  My tongue had discovered that dried blueberries replaced raisins, much to my raisin-avoiding delight, and there was the occasional bit of white chocolate in the mix as well. The cinnamon was present, but not pushy. It was the best half of an oatmeal cookie I ever remembered eating. I asked him when they were being put on the menu.

“Oh, they’re not mine,” he said, “The woman on table 5 sent them to me. And don’t even think about asking her for the recipe because I already tried.”

Damn. I did approach the lady and thanked her for the cookies she sent, but I didn’t dare ask her for the recipe. Instead, I set about trying to recreate them myself.

I baked off a batch and carried them down to apartment #7, gave a firm rap on the door and waited. Neither Dawn nor Tim were home, so I left the cookies at their door with a thank you/welcome note. That was more than two weeks ago and I have yet to still meet them, which is a pity.

Perhaps they’ve knocked again when I was away at work, or perhaps not. Two things are certain, however: 1.) People who bake cookies and leave nice notes for an entire apartment building are not by nature anti-social, so our eventual meeting is an inevitability and 2.) The next time I hear someone knock on my door, I’m answering it. There might be more food involved.

Blueberry Oatmeal Cookies

These cookies, though not exactly the same as those left by the wonder woman at Table 5, are quite good. And, thank heavens, they are easy to make. I’m not normally a white chocolate sort of fellow, but it has its place. That place happens to be in these cookies.

Makes enough cookies to dole out to a 12-unit apartment building, minus the man across the hall.

Ingredients:

• 3/4 cup of softened butter
• 3/4 cup white sugar
• 3/4 cup light brown sugar, packed
• 2 large eggs
• 1 1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 3 1/2 cups rolled oats
• 1 1/4 cups dried blueberries
• 1 cup chopped white chocolate

Preparation:

1. Heat your oven to 350°F.

2. Combine flour, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt. Combine well.

3. Cream the butter, white sugar, and brown sugar with the paddle attachment in your stand mixer or what-have-you until light and fluffy.

4. In a small bowl, whisk eggs and vanilla together until fairly uniform in texture, but not airy.

5. Alternate adding egg mixture and flour mixture to the creamed, sugary butter until everything is combined. Remove paddle, lick it once or twice, then wash.

6. Add oats, blueberries, and white chocolate into the batter until well-mixed. Refrigerate  said batter for at least an hour, covered.

7. Mete out the chilled, firm(er) dough onto an awaiting cookie sheet (I line mine with a silpat, but I imagine un-greased parchment would do perfectly well) by weight (I like 26 grams) or by eyeballing them, if you’re that sort of person. Roll the dough into tight little balls and place on the cookie sheet a dozen at a time. Bake for 8 minutes in the center of your oven, then turn the sheet 180 degrees. Continue baking for about another 6 minutes or until they are done (ovens, like neighbors, vary).

8. Remove from pan from the oven, allow to cool for a couple of minutes, then transfer the cookies to a cooling rack to do what the name implies.

9. Serve to your neighbors, to the owner of the coffee-house across the street who is wearing nothing but a Marilyn Monroe wig and an American flag, and to your friends. Or keep them all to yourself and die alone. It’s really up to you.

Posted in Sweets and the Like | Tagged , , , | 30 Comments

Like An Arancino

Posted on June 21, 2012 by Michael Procopio

When I think of my grandmother, I think of arancini.

It is an odd association, since she never once stuffed and fried a ball of leftover risotto. It hardly matters, since I don’t think about her making them.

Instead, I think about her being one of them.

There is a particular story that everyone in my family remembers in great detail about my grandmother. The primary reason for this vivid recollection is that it is packed with drama, violence, and excellent set design. As I boy, I enjoyed the tale because, in it, Grandmom did her own stunts. As a grown up, I love it because it explains her nature better than any other story could. And because she did her own stunts.

I fondly refer to this tale as The Affair of The Handbag.

This isn’t your typical, heart-warming, food-related Granny story. The lady may have been a phenomenal cook, but she wasn’t the type of woman about whom most food writers like to reminisce.

She never thought to teach me how to make her famous meatballs. There were no moments of deep, generational connection over a pot of simmering minestrone. She was more the type to roll her eyes at me as I shrieked at the sight of her bludgeoning an octopus in the sink.

My grandmother was a tough broad with excellent posture and a mind of her own. She held her nose high when she wasn’t busy sharpening it against the grindstone of hard work; her home and her person were as immaculate as the Holy Conception in which she believed; and she knew the value of a hard-earned dollar, several of which she wisely invested.

As a girl, she abandoned her legal first name and demanded that everyone refer to her as “Rita.”  As a woman, she hopped a train bound for California with her son and left her husband, her family, and Philadelphia behind. Within a year, the entire family moved to be with her. On her turf. My grandfather came, too, but on her terms.

She frowned upon extravagant outward displays of wealth. Money, she believed, was to be invested and not flaunted. She wasn’t what I would ever consider miserly– especially where her loved ones were concerned– but she was never lavish. It was entirely against her nature to shower her grandchildren with toys and candy on Christmas. She gave us U.S. Savings Bonds instead. She preferred to invest in our futures rather than our entertainment.

She was insufferably practical and marvelously intimidating.

And only a stranger or a fool would try to separate her from her money. Which is precisely what someone attempted to do in Palermo.

Because Rita did not enjoy the idea of being told where to go and when to go there, my grandparents ditched the end of their air-conditioned bus tour of Europe and hopped a plane for Sicily which, as the homeland of her parents, was where she had wanted to go in the first place.

One afternoon in Palermo, they found themselves wandering a quiet residential street during the riposo. My grandmother  likely enjoyed the lack of noise, but was disappointed by the drabness and decay of the houses. The streets were tidy, but the stucco on the houses peeled and cracked. No color. This was not how she imagined Sicily to be.

She didn’t have long to process her disappointment. The annoying buzz of a motor scooter approaching from behind broke her concentration. It was a Vespa Lambretta– a mode of transportation charming when used by likes of Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck in Roman Holiday, but upsetting when the rider is a purse snatcher with no obvious Hollywood connections.

The thief may have viewed my grandmother as an ideal target– a sixty-something American tourist, which in thieving circles means: lots of cash, not much resistance.  He did exactly what you might have expected him to do: he rode up behind her and grabbed her handbag. Unfortunately for him, my grandmother refused to play the role of the victim.

She held on to her purse.

Leaving my grandfather behind once again via an abrupt choice of transportation, she decided she would rather be dragged to death than let that dirty son-of-a-bitch of a scippatore win. Her new and utterly confused chauffeur traveled with her for a block before he gave up. Though her nylons may have lost the battle, Rita won the war. It was the shortest excursion of her holiday, but it left the deepest impression.

As convenience would have it, my grandmother was deposited directly in front of the home of a luncheoning doctor. He ran to his window to find a woman of extreme middle age lying in the street below him: smudged, bloodied, and white-knuckling a handbag. (To this day, my cousin Ann Marie still marvels at the quality of that purse’s stitching). He helped her to her feet and brought her inside where he could examine her more closely.

Upon entering the doctor’s house, my grandmother fell into a state of severe shock. Though her injuries were fortunately minor, it was the interior of this kind stranger’s house which caused her convulsions.

She could not get over how beautiful everything in his home was. She was overwhelmed by the fact that a house, whose façade was so dull and cracked and unassuming, could hide such inner richness.

As a headstrong woman with the apparent upper body strength to match, she recounted the story as though it were a foregone conclusion that she should be victorious over the purse snatcher. She was always more interested in telling us of the fine paintings, the sparkling crystal of the chandeliers, and gorgeous detail of the fabrics and draperies she found inside the doctor’s house. She sounded like a female Ali Baba stumbling into the cave of the forty thieves rather than into the home of a good Samaritan.

When she talked of the doctor’s furnishings, however, she wasn’t bowled over by his wealth. Instead, I sometimes came away with the impression that she was moved by something else. Something deeper: the idea that something plain and sturdy and old  could hold within its walls a beauty and a hidden richness that only those who are allowed inside can see.

When she told that story, I don’t think she saw herself as the victor over the thief. I think instead she saw herself as the doctor’s house.

At least, that’s the way I see her now. A crusty old woman with a no-nonsense façade, but with a warm, rich heart shown only to those lucky enough to be allowed in to see.

Or, in culinary terms, like an arancino.

Arancini

An important thing to remember about arancini is that it means “little oranges” in Italian. I’ve heard one man on television tell his viewers that he likes to make them pear-shaped, which would necessarily make them “piccole pere.” He clearly has no respect for the Italian language.

I doubt very much my grandmother ever gave the matter much thought. It may have never occurred to her to make risotto in the first place, since it’s a Northern Italian thing. However, one of the most delightful notions about arancini is that the Sicilians have taken a food staple of the North and made it something very much their own.

It’s almost as if they’re saying, “Eat me, Po Valley” every time they make it– a culinary thumbing of the nose. Or, if you want to be more authentically Italian, this gesture.

Makes about 10 little oranges.

You can stuff your arancini with whatever suits your fancy. The following recipe, though bloody good is merely one example.  Just be certain to make the flavors bold. There is no room for subtlety in these little fried balls.

Ingredients:

• About 550 grams (20 ounces) of basic risotto, refrigerated. About 5-ish cups of the stuff. I am not teaching you how to make risotto today. If you’d like to know how try this place or this one, but for god’s sake not this one. Just make a lot, so you can have enough left over to make this recipe.
• Approximately 150 grams of pancetta (2 1/2 inch-think slices) finely chopped
• 1 1/2 cups of grated smoked fontina cheese (I did not measure this in grams, but it’s honestly not important.)
• 1 tablespoon of finely chopped parsley. I used Italian for obvious reasons.
• 3 whole eggs
• Plenty of Panko bread crumbs. About 2 cups. Regular breadcrumbs are more authentic, but I am not authentically Sicilian and therefore do not care.
•  A good amount of all-purpose flour, for coating and dredging. I wouldn’t dream of measuring this and neither should you.
• 1 quart of vegetable oil for frying
• As much salt and pepper as you are willing to invest.

Preparation:

1.  To make the filling, dice up the pancetta* and cook gently over a low-to-medium heat until it releases a good amount of grease. Once it is sitting in a puddle of its own hot fat, turn up the heat to medium and cook until browned and fairly crispy. Remove from heat, drain onto a paper towel-lined plate. Once the pancetta has cooled, mix it together with the grated cheese and parsley. Cover and refrigerate overnight or until ready to use.

2. Pour the vegetable oil into your pan to a depth of 1 to 1 1/2 inches deep. Warm the oil over low heat on the stove while you’re assembling the arancini. I would strongly suggest you use a frying thermometer to properly gauge the ultimate, desired temperature, which is 350ºF. If you are experienced enough to interpret the subtle changes in hot oil temperatures, you will not need one and you have my full respect.

Pre-heat your oven to 400ºF.

3. Clear a good-sized workspace on your counter. Assemble ingredients to be put into three separate bowls: 1) Two eggs, lightly beaten with about 2 tablespoons of cold water, 2) all-purpose flour generously sprinkled with salt and freshly cracked pepper, and 3) bread crumbs. Remove risotto and arancini filling from the refrigerator.

4. Divide the risotto into equal portions. I prefer to weigh mine for the sake of consistency to 55 grams, which is a substantial weight. If you’re planning to serve your arancini as hors d’oeuvres, you will want to make them smaller. Roll the filling into balls roughly the size of a tablespoon and set aside.

5. Take one of the risotto balls and press a deep hole into the middle of it with your thumb. Inside it, place the ball of filling and gently shape the rice around it until you have a smooth, even sphere. Repeat until all of the risotto balls have been filled.

6. Roll each ball in the bowl of flour, shaking off any excess. Next, dip the floured ball in the egg wash and shake off any of this new-found excess. Finally, roll the floured, egg-washed ball in bread crumbs, gently pressing them into the surface of the sphere, making it as round and lovely as you dare. Repeat until you run out of materials or get utterly bored.

7. Place the balls into your 350ºF frying oil two or three at a time. Do not over crowd the pan. Turn the balls gently as you fry them, making sure they brown evenly. Once they are sufficiently golden in color, remove them from the oil and let them drain on to a paper towel-lined plate. About 2 to 3 minutes per batch.**

8. Place as many arancini as you and/or your guests can eat onto a parchment lined baking sheet and pop into your 400ºF oven for about 10 minutes. You’ll know they are ready to eat when their bottoms begin to bubble, which signals that their insides are now properly molten.

9. Serve hot with either your favorite tomato sauce or a simple wedge of lemon to squeeze over them. If you want to serve them the way my grandmother would, if she had cared to make them, make sure everyone else is fed, apologize for the remote possibility that they might not be your best effort, (outwardly) brush aside any and all assurances to the contrary, and only sit down once everyone at the table has begged you to do so and that the dishes left in the kitchen can wait until after dinner is over.

* I have found it’s best to slice pancetta when it is cold. It’s much more easily done this way and will save you time and emergency room fees.

** At this point, your arancini can be held for a couple of hours at room temperature before serving. However, it will take a little more time in the oven until their bottoms bubble properly.

Posted in Rants and Stories | Tagged , , , , , , | 36 Comments

Arnold Palmiers, A Tee Time Treat

Posted on June 4, 2012 by Michael Procopio

I don’t understand Arnold Palmers. I know what they are, of course. I just have no idea as to why they’re so popular.

The idea of taking two distinct beverages and throwing them into the same glass has not always been met with the same success as the Arnold Palmer, which every third person seems to order at my restaurant during lunch service. If I remember correctly, the higher-ups at ABC television did their best to sell the concept of Milk and Pepsi to 1970′s America via Laverne Defazio. The fact that this drink did not become a trend remains high on my gratitude list every Thanksgiving.

For those of you unfamiliar with the Arnold Palmer, it is a blended, non-alcoholic beverage: half iced tea, half lemonade. For those of you unfamiliar with the Arnold Palmer, he is an 82 year-old male who is famous for manipulating a small, dimpled ball into a hole in the ground using a variety of sticks: half man, half golfing legend.

Whether or not Arnold Palmer actually drinks himself is unknown to me*. I would imagine a glass of the stuff has touched his lips from time to time, at least for publicity’s sake but, if he’s anything like me, he would wonder what in god’s name is so appealing about taking freshly brewed iced tea, mixing it with recently squeezed lemonade, and having it taste like something as artificial and commercially sponsored as a Nestea Plunge?

I just don’t get it.

But I am trying because a) I am a fan of both iced tea and lemonade, b) I often take hot tea with lemon, and c) it’s just something I need to get over because there are so many other irritations worthy of my time.

So, in an effort to warm up to the idea of the Arnold Palmer, I’ve decided to turn it into a cookie because, as one of my mentors is known to say, “A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down.”

Or ten, in this particular case.

The Arnold Palmier

There are other Arnold Palmer-inspired cookies out there but, to my shock, no one seems to have thought to make Arnold Palmiers. Or, at the very least, no one seems to have thought to make them and have any evidence make itself known to Google**.

They just seemed ripe for the making.

Their flavor is as subtle as a golf clap, which is intentional. To make them as bold as a pair of golf pants would be too much for one’s mouth to bear.

Makes 16 to 18 cookies, depending on how good one is at measurements.

Ingredients:

• One sheet of puff pastry, thawed. Or, if you are using frozen Dufour’s puff pastry like I do, one half of the sheet.
• 10 teaspoons of sugar
• 2 teaspoons of Earl Grey tea, ground as fine as black pepper cracked through a pepper mill.
• 2 teaspoons of finely chopped lemon zest. I prefer Eureka to Meyer in this case.

Preparation:

1. Pre-heat your oven to 400ºF. Line a baking sheet with either a silicone baking mat or parchment paper and set aside.

2. Combine sugar and tea together, set aside. (Combine them days ahead of time, if you happen to be a good planner. This will give the tea time infuse its scent into the sugar, like a great aunt’s perfume might permeate the clothing of a small child who has been excessively hugged.)

3. When the puff pastry is thawed enough to unfold without tearing, do so onto a clean work surface which has been littered with a generous scattering of plain sugar (NOT with the tea-sugar mixture). The sheet used in this recipe measures approximately 10″ by 10″. It is meant merely as a guideline. Other lengths and widths will work just fine as long as the dough is wide enough to be folded to a quarter of its original width.

4. Cover the top side of the dough with a generous sprinkling of the tea sugar. Disseminate the lemon zest over the surface, then add a little more tea sugar, if you wish. Gently glide a rolling-pin over the surface to press in the sugar and zest.

5. Fold the bottom edge of your dough up to the center. Fold the top edge down to the center, so that the two edges meet in the middle. Sprinkle the surface with more tea sugar and again glide a rolling-pin over the top with all the force of an aged, asthmatic moth.

6. For the final fold, bring the bottom edge up so that it rests directly and evenly on the top edge (read: fold exactly in half.)

7. Sprinkle more tea sugar on top, do the whole gentle rolling-pin thing one last time. If the dough has become too warm at this point (read: if it feels as droopy as a retired wet nurse’s bosom) place the folded dough onto a tray and pop it into the freezer until it is once again pert.

8. Slice the dough into 1/2″ thick pieces. Wet your index finger, taking one cookie at a time, rub your moistened finger along the top and bottom of said cookie, dip each side into the tea sugar, then place on the same tray you used when you put the dough in the freezer. Repeat until all cookies have been fingered and sugared. Return your almost-ready-for-baking cookies to the freezer to chill for about 15 minutes.

9. Transfer the cookies to your lined baking sheet and place sheet onto the center rack of your oven. Bake for about 18-20 minutes (turning the sheet once in the middle of baking) or until browned. You will know when your Arnold Palmiers are ready because you will see that each one will have a small pool of caramelized sugar bubbling up from its bottom. At this point, remove from the oven, let cool for a couple of minutes, then transfer with a spatula to a cooling rack.

10. Serve with tea, or milk, or tea with milk, or tea with sugar, or tea with milk and sugar, etc. Hell, dip them in vodka for all I care. If you serve them with Arnold Palmers, however, the poor cookies will be overwhelmed. Whatever you do, don’t serve them with coffee, because that’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard of. Besides, I just tried that.

The truth is, I really don’t give a damn how you serve them, as long as you do it the same day as they’re baked. They’re marvelous in their heyday, but a little sad to think about when they have passed their prime. Much like some golfers I know. Except Mr. Palmer, I mean.

*An Arnold Palmer with a generous amount of vodka added to it is called a John Daly. This means that John Daly could quite literally drink himself to death, which would not be funny at all, given the fact that he is a recovering alcoholic.

**Well, there wasn’t one when I checked a week ago. I have since found another “Arnold Palmier”. No recipe, but it is savory, using lemon thyme and cheddar cheese. How this makes it Arnold Palmer-y remains uncertain to this author. However, they do sound delicious. The link remains elusive, but I will add it as soon as I can find it again.

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