Beets Rock!

Tonight, I figured it out. I hadn't realized it before leafing through the August Gourmet (trying to find some great skillet-cooked potato recipe). I hadn't thought about my blogging muse before a colleague of mine asked earlier today. Naiveté. Youthful exuberance, perhaps. I came across a recipe for beet carpaccio with goat cheese and arugula and was instantly overjoyed by the fact that I had all three of those ingredients sitting in my fridge. Right then I knew it was a post.

I suppose when I spend $50 per Whole Foods trip I shouldn't be so surprised to find myself with ingredients, but at that moment all the planets had lined up and that beet carpaccio and I were destined to be together, for however short a time.

Local chevre, even local-er arugula, and golden beets. Man, it rocked. I don't even know where to start. Alabama, I've got to hand it to you. Y'all's got some good produce. The arugula from Jones Valley Urban Farm was the most assertive green I've ever eaten. Arugula is typically peppery, but this batch lit my mouth on fire (in a not unpleasant way). And the Belle Chevre goat cheese is available nationally at some specialty retailers. The effusive arugula heat matched the sharp chevre and the mild beets.

Tonight, I repurposed a drink shaker to make my salad dressing. perfect.

Quick Balsamic Dressing (serves 1)

1 1/2 tablespoons olive oil

2 1/2 teaspoons balsamic vinegar

1/8 teaspoon dried thyme leaves

1/8 teaspoon dried oregano

1/8 teaspoon dried rosemary (more like a heaping 1/4 fresh rosemary)

Shake and pour. Come on, who needs to buy salad dressing. Remove the strainer from the shaker when pouring. May as well get the herbs.

The Afterglow: S'Mac

Ever since S'Mac opened last summer in the East Village, I'd been dying to try it out. It was buzz city, for sure; there was great press, there was good press, and then there was the mac'n'cheese backlash. (And after it all NBC chimed in with some good press; it's a relief to know they're on top of things ...)

And I would have gone sooner; I must have tried over a dozen times. Each time was the same: talked to an eating partner, they agreed, we set a date, then they'd cancel.

Finally, Liz and I felt sufficiently driven to give it a shot last week. The smallish room was crowded for 8pm on a Sunday, and and the radiant heat from the cast iron pans did well by cutting through the early spring chill. She chose the 4-cheese, I went with the Cajun, and we both opted for the bread crumb topping.

The 4-cheese was quite bland and almost too runny, but the Cajun spicy/creamy combo did the job very nicely. I ended up making two meals out of the medium portion size, Major Munch.

Overall, it wasn't the best mac n' cheese I'd ever eaten but it was a strong contender. I will be back, but only when I feel a crushing need to fill myself on cheese and carbs.

The Afterglow is a reoccurring feature where Gourmetros visit buzzworthy places a bit after the buzz. Call us lazy if you must, but we just want to find out for ourselves if the places were ever worth it.

16 oz Queso Fresco, 8 Meals

Sometimes I talk myself out of buying exotic ingredients. Whether they're expensive (meyer lemons), difficult to locate (farro), or just plain scary (uni), I can come up with many reasons to avoid a potentially awesome dish.

I had talked myself out of making macaroni with cream and cheese, Gourmet Feb. 05, for some of the above reasons. It had a number of red-button items in the ingredient list; it called for over 1 pound of chili peppers (I'm scared of spicy things, though I do often like them), and two types of Mexican cheeses: queso fresco (a firm, crumbly cow's milk cheese, similar to a mild feta), and crema (like creme fraiche, but more viscous).

While the recipe was not on the top of my list for those reasons, I happened upon all of the ingredients in my trusty SpaHa Associated. After buying some, I realized I had forgotten the serrano chiles but decided the poblanos would be spicy enough. (I was right, though I've heard the serranos are not quite as aggressive as they could be)

The recipe was incredible, the balance between the chile heat and the mild, creamy cheese made it totally worth it. Roasting the chiles was another first experience for me; I probably could have charred the outsides a bit more, but I was afraid I'd overcook them. The chiles came out tender and gave the dish a significant cumulative spiciness, but nothing unbearable.

At the end of the meal I was left with 3/4 of the queso fresco wheel. For a day or so I considered remaking the macaroni, but then the Feb. 07 Gourmet came. And with it, another intriguing recipe containing about a half-pound of queso fresco: an Andean potato stew. The editors billed it as comfort food, and considering the extreme cold it sounded ideal.

The achiote seeds seemed like they'd be difficult, but I found them, surprise surprise, at the same supermarket in the spice section. And the bottle was about 25x larger than I needed, so I'll be set with achiote for a while. Let me know if any of y'all need to, say, color some American cheese or dye some textiles (other popular uses include Mayan warpaint)

Preparation was easy and the product was satisfying. I'd say I increased the total poundage of potatoes to about 5; with the original 3 1/2, the potato stew was somewhat paltry on the potatoes (though I may have stretched it into more meals than the recipe foresaw ...). For clarity, the additional potatoes were cubed, not mashed. The queso fresco muted the mild achiote heat and looked quite handsome topping the stew. The avocados were crucial.

All of that left me 4 oz queso. I ate 2 oz standing over the range waiting for the potatoes to boil, and sliced the rest and topped it with red wine vinegar (kind of gross; balsamic would have been better).

One wheel of queso fresco, 8 meals. (It might have been 10...)



Technorati Tags: Food, Cooking, Queso Fresco, Cheese

This cheese will kick your ass

I am no stranger to offensive cheese. Sometimes I welcome it, but this 14 oz. wheel of Coulommiers definitely took me by surprise. It was, and may still be, on sale at Fairway for $6.99, and was within my budget so I thought I'd give it a shot.

Coulommiers is from Brie. On first sight, I got the idea that this cheese would not be quite as mild as I'm used to--instead of the usual mostly-white Brie rind, there was a lot more grey, and even some yellow (yes, a little yellow).

The meat, as it were, of the cheese is not out of the ordinary by any standards, but the rind is some of the most odiferous and terrifying stuff I've ever eaten. The innards are wonderfully smooth and creamy (note fat contents on the picture), but the rind was often distracting. I felt bad when I ate the stuff in the break room the other day and the entire room started smelling like cheese.

The taste, minus the rind, which is more-or-less indescribable, was slightly nutty and very tart. If you ignore the texture, you might have a taste experience similar to goat cheese, in its tanginess.

Did this cheese deserve its own post? Definitely.


Technorati Tags: Food, Cheese, Coulommiers, Fairway

Dispatches from the Monger, vol. II

What, praytell, is a quince?

The question has plagued me for ages. Or maybe just whenever I go into the fancy produce section of Whole Foods. The quince is a foodstuff, like jicama, that I really want to incorporate into my cooking somehow, but am sort of freaked out how to go about doing so (and if anyone has any jicama recipe suggestions, let me know).

But the latest reason the quince question has come up again is because of membrillo, a quince paste that is (so they tell me) a part of Spanish cuisine.

In my Adventures in Cheesemonging, I come across many people who a) love cheese, and b) know new ways to consume cheese. And trust me, they let you know what the best way to consume it is, whether you want to know or not.

One of our most popular cheeses is a rosemary manchego - the loverlyness of the 'chego, rolled into all sorts of herby goodness. MMM. A lady came in the other day and asked me if I had tried said manchego with the membrillo and she GUSHED that it was absolutely the most amazing thing she had ever had, that's how they eat the stuff in Spain, and that I MUST try it. Fine lady, yeesh, I'll try it already! But really, I spend half my paycheck there anyway, so I picked up some manchego and membrillo and went on my merry way.

And what did I discover?

a) A quince is in fact a sort of a pear/apple hybrid.
b) Quince paste, though it may conjure up images of some gross glue-eating kindergartener, is not paste-like at all, but looks more like a firm jelly. However, it is not quite as spreadable as jelly and is more sliceable, which makes it quite convenient to slice and place on top of the 'chego or whatever else you enjoy. But if you don't like the slightly grainy texture of pears, quinces are probably not for you, nor is their paste.
c) The paste on its own? Too sweet. It definitely needs something savory to balance out the flavor. Even if you like sweet jams, this might be a little too much (on its own) for your morning toast or PB&J.
d) But the membrillo and manchego together? Delicious. The sweet slipperiness of the quince paste was perfect paired with the creamy zing of the manchego, and was even more delicious on top of a piece of raisin walnut bread. Could be breakfast (with the bread), could be dessert on its own. I've heard that Italians do a similar thing, drizzling honey over their peccorino for dessert, but I have yet to try that.

Why don't we Americans incorporate cheese into our desserts more often? Are we freaked out by combinations of the sweet & savory? Or does our gluttonous nature only allow us to think of seven-layer chocolate cakes as dessert?


Technorati Tags: Cheese, Quince, Jicama
Special thanks to Scoobymoo over at Flickr for this awesome photo of quinces.