The nose knows

Meet Egbert.
Egbert is an eggplant we got from Harvest.
Egbert, unlike every other eggplant in the world, had a nose.

It didn't bother him any.
He was able to rest sunglasses on it
as he sunbathed on the kitchen counter.






It was also very useful for playing the piano.


But after a week of enjoying his very pleasant company, we decided that Egbert was starting to overstay his welcome.

So on Sunday night we took out Jose Andres' beautiful Spanish tapas cookbook- a truly gorgeous work sure to inspire numerous dinner party dreams. We prepared a Catalan-style chicken stew, with plum tomatoes, chicken thighs, garlic cloves, a Spanish onion, green bell peppers, a zucchini, bay leaf, thyme..... and Egbert.

No picture of the stew unfortunately but rest assured that it was muy tasty.

We drank some rioja for our fallen homie.

Saying Goodbye... with an awesome fish stew

Lots of changes going on at my workplace: one dear friend is moving to NYC; another has gone on maternity leave with her first baby. Both departures happened within the same week.
We decided to celebrate such exciting life changes by getting together at the mom-to-be's brand spanking new house out in a more rural area of MA. The three of us are unabashed foodies and loved the idea, on such a cold January day, of making a hearty Brazilian fish stew.
The image at the left is of me and L. adding the shrimp to the ceviche-like thing going on in the pan- cod was already marinating in a lime juice/pepper/garlic/salt mixture. What you can't see is the hilarity going on in the scene: everything was all slippery and gross and we just kept tucking shrimp into the spaces we could find underneath the fish. Hm, one would probably have to be there for this to be funny. Anyway, the photo above shows some of the process. The other part of the process involved chopping up a ton of veg.
It's a true one-pot meal: it invoves making beautiful layers of bright, beautiful vegetables: "
Put tomatoes in bottom of a wide 5- to 6-quart heavy pot. Top with onion and remaining tablespoon garlic, then sprinkle with bell peppers. Place plantains on top of vegetables. Sprinkle evenly with remaining 1/2 teaspoon salt. Arrange fish in 1 layer on top of plantain. Sprinkle cilantro and parsley over fish, then arrange shrimp in 1 layer over herbs, reserving marinade. Pour oil and marinade evenly over mixture in pot."
After that, you clap the lip on the pot and set it on the stove and listen to the happy noises going on inside it for twenty minutes. When at last you lift it off, you can see that all of those vegetables make this really wonderful rich broth and you have a lovely stew.
Of course, it's from Epicurious. Here's the link: http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/238413.
We made the polenta, but it really wasn't necessary. Just have some good crusty bread to sop up the juices and free-flowing wine- Malbec seemed to do the trick for us- and a good time will be had by all.

Tony and the Bearded Clams: A New Year's Eve Tale

New Year's Eve this year was a true gastronomic adventure: it started out delightfully classy at a friend's house, where they had prepared some dumplings (being fried on the stove there, steaming up all sumptious-like), some spring rolls chock full of shrimp and greens and mint and many other good things besides, and a notable cocktail to start the evening: a bellini-like drink made up ginger simple syrup and prosecco, dolled up with a crystallized ginger candy at the bottom of the glass. (The rest of the gastronomic adventure of the memorable evening included using Smartfood to "cleanse our palates" at the wine tasting we went to next, and the food adventure finished up around one a.m. with me deliriously and frantically stuffing the remains of a pu pu platter into my mouth.)
Our own contribution to the first part of the evening was Spicy Thai Steamed Mussels, a recipe derived from- as so many of our meals are- Epicurious (originally in Gourmet). It makes a LOT of mussels, which seemed like a good idea: calls for 5 pounds (fortunately, as they come in 2 lb bags, I sensibly bought only two bags), 3 limes, a can of unsweetened coconut milk, 1/3 c of dry white wine, 1.5 tbsp of Thai red curry paste (frankly, I say go nuts: 2 full tbsp), 1.5 tbsp minced garlic, 1 tbsp of fish sauce, 1 tbsp of sugar, and a buttload of cilantro: 2 full cups! Tony and I both winced a little at this last- cilantro scares us a bit.
Anyway, the title of the post comes from the job I gave Tony of scrubbing the beards off the mussels, which led me to make numerous sophomoric jokes (actually, just the same sophomoric joke over and over) and then cackle.
After you deal with the bearded clams, you: Squeeze enough juice from limes to measure 1/3 cup. In an 8-quart kettle boil lime juice, coconut milk, wine, curry paste, garlic, fish sauce, and sugar over high heat, stirring, 2 minutes. Add mussels, tossing to combine. Cook mussels, covered, stirring occasionally, until opened, about 5 to 8 minutes. Chop cilantro and toss with mussels.
Super easy, but damn, was it tasty. Had we not been in polite company I'd've slurped the spicy coconutty broth up by the ladle.

Thanksgiving Diary

10:30am: We begin the stuffing. In one of those moments where the obvious momentarily overcomes my lifelong thick-skulledness, we realize that the difference between stuffing and dressing is that stuffing is stuffed into the turkey, and dressing is not. This was a perennial topic of discussion at family Thanksgiving dinners.

11:05am: It's very hard to separate the turkey skin from the meat, which we have to do in order to rub in the maple herb butter. We discover that the only way to do it successfully is to become violent with the turkey. Danie made the maple herb butter last night, which consists of:

2 cups cider, .5 cup maple syrup. Reduced to .5 cup liquid. Whisk in .5 cup butter, lots of herbs. Chilled overnight.

We rub the maple herb butter under the turkey skin, stuff the bird, and put it into the oven.

11:29am: On to giblet stock.

11:35am: We have identified neck, heart, liver, and something else.

11:56am: A short lull. Danie is talking about something called "vegebles." These seem to be related to vegetables.

11:48am: Danie just cleansed her nalate. It is the first of what we assume will be many nalate cleansings today.

12:20pm: Alice's Restaurant begins.

12:52pm: Alice's Restaurant concludes. I like the part when all the convicts are scared of Arlo Guthrie because he's in for....littering. The turkey stock, after smelling nasty for a while, now smells good. Cinnamon and coriander helped.

1:24pm: Turkey check. It is distressingly dark brown on the drumsticks. We are worried. We realize that this is probably due to the high concentration of maple herb butter in this area, cooking faster because of the sugar. We wrap the drums in another layer of foil.

2:27pm: Turkey out! Gratin in! Potatoes mashed!

3:30om: Dinner served. We had:

Maple Herb Butter Turkey
Homemade Turkey Stock Gravy
Sweet Potato and Sausage Gratin
Roasted Garlic Mashed Potatoes
Green Beans, Roasted Fennel, and Shallots

Apple Almond Streusel from Clear Flour
Talbott Case Pinot Noir 1998

Yum!

Skiver Me Timbers!

Aebleskivers

An inauspicious start for the morning: no bacon in the house, first of all, and then the secondary dismaying realization that we were out of milk. I was starting to whine, a little bit. We remembered that we had Bob's Red Mill Wholesome Goodness! Buttermilk pancake mix in the pantry and on the back of it was an intriguing recipe for something called "Aebleskivers."

It was fun to say, and we had pears that were starting to go gross, so we decided to make it (paereskivers?). Aebelskivers are apparently a kind of spherical Dutch pancakes that are loaded with apples. The flaw in our plan was a tragic lack of an aebleskiver pan, which we noticed belatedly (after Tony had already ripped off his shirt to intimidate the egg whites). But a muffin pan was called into service and it seemed to do OK. We minced the pears with some vanilla sugar, butter, and cinnamon, and spooned them into the batter.

Here's the basic Bob's Red Mill Wholesome Goodness! recipe:

2 Eggs, separated
1.5 cups Bob's Red Mill Wholesome Goodness! Buttermilk Pancake and Waffle Mix
1 cup water
2 tbsp melted butter
butter for frying
powdered sugar

For the pears:
2 pears
2 tsp vanilla sugar
.5 tsp cinnamon
1 tbsp butter, melty

In a medium bowl, beat egg yolks until light. Stir in Bob's! etc, water, and 2 tbsp melted butter until blended. In a medium bowl, beat egg whites until stiff but not dry. Fold whites into batter.

Generously butter each aebleskiver cup... or muffin cup, as the case may be. We heated the muffin pan at 350 then filled each cup 3/4 full with batter. We spooned in the pear mixture to the top of it, probably just a teaspoon into each 'skiver, sprinkled an extra dash of cinnamon on top of each for good measure, and popped it in the oven.

So we're not sure if what we made is really an aebleskiver, because aebleskiver pans seem to be more stove-based, but whatever: they still cooked, the house smelled lovely, and we kept anxiously poking the 'skivers with toothpicks til they came clean.
Covered 'em with a dusting of sugar and some maple syrup for good measure- and heated up leftover pear mixture to make it more of a compote- and ate. I had four, and Tony managed eight. They were really light and fluffy, looked like little cupcakes- I guess that was inevitable- and while the ingredients weren't all that different from pancakes, were much less heavy, and much more fun, to eat.