akiandalex@ideasinfood.com
© 2005-2016 Ideas in Food
Writing and Photographs by Aki Kamozawa & H. Alexander Talbot
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Mustard-Sake
First up, Today Marks 15 Years of Ideas in Food
take a moment and dive into the links below to see what we have been up to on this day over the years.
Now onto the Ideas in Food:
I continue to explore the benefits, functionality and inspirations in using sake to flavor foods. I salted our pork shoulder and let it season overnight in the refrigerator. This morning I combined yellow mustard and sake. I brushed the entire shoulder with the mixture and will now let it infuse and hopefully dry overnight.
The blend of sake and mustard creates an aromatic, savory, slightly boozy mustard. My first application is with the shoulder. But I see many openings in the future from thick cut fish to hangar steak. Time and availability of ingredients will determine our next directions.
Years Past
December 5, 2004: when it all began
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Corn Nut Condiment
Years ago we used corn nuts as a topping for calamari bolognese, that we spooned over fresh corn polenta. Since then I have quietly forgotten about them. Today Aki picked up a container of salty, crunchy, nutty corn nuts and my eyes were opened again. Funny enough I had already bought a few cans of corn to make a popcorn glaze for doughnuts. The connection was made and I realized the corn nuts would be an insane topping for the popcorn glaze. The finished doughnut will be a corn-Nut.
Of course outside doughnutland these corn nuts will gain some new uses from a pasta to polenta to a crunchy topping for roasted shrimp and grilled beef.
Years Past
Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work
Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook
Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table
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The Loud Voice
We have been asked, on occasion, for jelly doughnuts. We used to make thumbprints. But as a whole we have found jelly doughnuts don't sell. Today, we brought jelly doughnuts back. I figured they would fly off the shelf because recently there have been lots of jelly requests. It turns out there were not as many requests as it seemed. There were a few loud requests. The jellies found a few happy homes. They did not grow wings and fly out the door. We will continue down the jelly path and see if the loud voices are joined by other, softer, voices leading to greater consumption.
Years Past
Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work
Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook
Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table
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Notebook Wallpaper
Last night I had the pleasure to eat at. The details were impressively striking. The last one that caught me by surprise and brought a smile to my face was the wallpaper in the bathroom. It was a cooks notebook, blown up on a massive scale. It turns out it is Adam Perry Lang's pastry notes from when he was a young cook. The use of a notebook as decor was brilliant and engaging. I'm now interested in trying out a few of the recipes.
Years Past
Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work
Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook
Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table
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Making Marmalade
Step one: macerate the fruit. We're making Cranberry-Meyer Lemon marmalade to fill doughnuts this weekend at the shop. Right now the fruit is resting with an equal weight of sugar and 0.25% salt. Tomorrow we'll cook it down to a rich marmalade and finish it with a generous splash of vanilla paste. This first step helps draw out the juices and blend the flavors. It's not required but it makes a world of difference.
Years Past
Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work
Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook
Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table
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Pressure Cooker Broth
Broth is an important element ingredient in our kitchen. The easy availability of better prepared broths has made us lazier about preparing our own. We easily rely on the pre-made organic broths to kick start a recipe. Thankfully Thanksgiving provides us with a bounty of bones and trimmings that must be converted into a rich decadent broth. Prior to the big day Aki had made a batch of chicken broth. Perhaps we were not as reliant on the prepared broth as I thought. In any case, I took the turkey and pork bones and put them in our new favorite pressure cooker. (It's simplicity, durability and ease of cleaning has won me over. Hopefully I will get the 8-qt for smaller projects soon.) I added Aki's broth and topped the bones with water. I sealed the lid and brought the broth to a boil and cooked it for one hour. I let the pressure dissipate and was rewarded with an intense flavorful liquid. It immediately sparked the need for tortellini en brodo. And that is exactly what we made.
Years Past
Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work
Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook
Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table
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Turkey Shepard's Pie
This is not a beautiful dish. It's not meant to be. It is delicious. It's the main reason I agree to mashed potatoes in addition to au gratin, sweet potatoes, and stuffing on Thanksgiving. Mix some diced dark meat chicken, vegetables and turkey broth or gravy to make the base. Top with leftover mashed potatoes and bake until hot throughout and golden brown on top. Forget the sandwiches, this is our favorite Thanksgiving leftovers meal.
Years Past
Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work
Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook
Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table
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Barrel Aged Cider Vinegar
Our friends at Blis just came out with an apple cider vinegar aged in rye barrels. They sent us a bottle as a gift and it was so good we had to share the news. The vinegar is surprisingly light and delicate, well rounded with delicate floral notes from the apple and a nice roundness from the barrel aging. It's a fun ingredient and we can't wait to put it to good use in our kitchen.
Years Past
Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work
Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook
Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table
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Rubbing Shoulders
The quality of the spice rub you buy is reliant on the quality of the spices, the blend, and the age. Recently we went Kondo on our spice cabinet. The result was a tidy space with no resources when I wanted to assemble a few rubs for our Thanksgiving pork shoulder and half-cocked turkeys. Instead of restocking our spice drawer at the 11th hour I opted to pick up some fun sounding spice blends.
Since I had already pre-salted the shoulder and the bird I searched out spice blends with little or no salt. I found two that were interesting and rolled the dice. When I got to our kitchen I opened them up. I tasted the blends. Both mixes had some pluses and minuses. They were not horrible (see my opening line), I know a glowing endorsement, and I needed to get these massive hunks of meat seasoned. I picked one for the shoulder and one for half the cocked turkey. The second half I figured I'd season with a bit of maple-soy sauce.
Since the meat was pre-salted and air dried I opted to steal the sake seasoning technique to adhere the spices. I doused the shoulder and the turkey with the sake and liberally applied the spice rubs. I brushed the other half of turkey with the maple-soy sauce and returned the bounty to the refrigerator overnight.
What I learned is that if you are going to start from scratch you must actually start. And if you are going to rely on the work of others you must be able to rely on them. I believe our shoulder and birds will be delicious and open my relatively closed mind to new blends and combinations that I might not have explored on own. It is the absence of choice that forced my hand to try something new.
Years Past
Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work
Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook
Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table
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Sauteed Brussels Sprouts And Ham
This is a super simple dish. I use "dumpling technique" to cook brussels sprouts with some julienned ham to get them soft and crispy. Clean and split your brussels sprouts. Julienne a few slices of ham. Set a large skillet over medium high heat and add a couple of tablespoons of olive oil. Once the oil just starts to smoke, add the brussels sprouts, flat side down. Season with salt. Sprinkle the ham over the top. As soon as the sprouts are sizzling, add water to cover the sprouts by a quarter of an inch and then cover the pan. Cook for about 10 minutes, until all of the water has evaporated. Uncover the pan and cook until the brussels sprouts are caramelized on the bottom. Toss the sprouts well and continue to cook, stirring occasionally, until the ham has browned too. Transfer to a serving bowl and serve immediately. We tend to eat them straight from the bowl if the rest of dinner isn't ready and usually at least half of them are gone by the time we sit down.
Years Past
Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work
Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook
Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table
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Yellowbird Blue Agave Sriracha
When I first arrived at culinary school many, many years ago, I discovered sriracha. There were giant bottles of it on every table in the cafeteria. The first time I tried it was a revelation. It was hot, yes, but also full of flavor. Garlicky and sweet and spicy, it was like no other hot sauce I had ever tried. Nowadays sriracha is everywhere but, since my husband has a distinct prejudice against it, I hadn't had any in years. On a whim I added this Yellowbird Blue Agave Sriracha to a recent hot sauce order. I wanted to see how the sauce had evolved through the years and I liked their logo and their philosophy. This sauce was only vaguely reminiscent of the sauce I remembered. It is bracing and bright and full of flavor. There's definite heat and sweet and garlic but this sauce has a bit more personality and finesse than the ubiquitous rooster brand. It's going to be a great addition to our pantry. Who knows, I may even get Alex to embrace sriracha for the very first time.
Years Past
Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work
Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook
Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table
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Sweet and Hot
I thought it was pretty smart to package both the sweet and hot sausages together. Too often we end up having to either buy one or the other or, when we buy both, we end up with an excess. Having both together makes the decision easy and we can actually use all of what we buy.
Years Past
Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work
Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook
Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table
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Habanero Pasta and Its Inspirations
I have been wanting to make habanero pasta for years. I finally put the idea into action. As I was gathering the ingredients, I noticed an array of new hot sauces that Aki had picked up for our pantry. One of the sauces was habanero and mustard based. I immediately knew I needed to integrate some mustard into our habanero noodles. I blended the peppers with mustard and water and strained the mixture. The liquid was super spicy, floral and brightly acidic. The pasta came together in the machine beautifully. For our first run I made thick spaghetti, more close to a bigoli.
The only short coming in the noodle was the color. It makes we wonder what other flavor we may integrate to increase the bright orange color and add a supporting flavor. The first ingredient that comes to mind is carrots. Time to tinker.
Habanero Noodles
200 grams fresh habaneros stem removed
400 grams water
100 grams yellow mustard
2000 grams semolina flour
6.5 grams baking soda
6.5 grams salt
Put the habaneros, water and mustard in a blender. Puree them together until the mixture appears smooth. Strain the habanero mixture through a fine mesh sieve. Weigh out 600 grams, reserve any extra in case noodles need additional hydration.
Put the semolina, baking soda, and salt into the pasta machine and mix to distribute in the hopper. With the machine running, drizzle in the habanero water. Mix the dough for 6-7 minutes. Check the consistency of the dough after 4 minutes. It should begin to resemble course streusel. Squeeze the dough together in your hand. Break the dough apart. If it breaks cleanly, the dough has enough water. If it crumbles, add additional water in 20-gram increments. Once the dough is the right consistency let it knead in the machine for a few minutes. Then, if you are in a hurry, you can begin extruding immediately. It's better to let it rest for in the machine for 10 minutes to achieve ideal hydration and then extrude your noodles
Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work
Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook
Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table
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Change Of Plans
We were planning on mashed potatoes the other night when we were overcome by a sudden desire for chili and nachos. That happens to everyone, right? So instead of mashing the boiled potatoes, we dried them in the pot and chilled them on a sheet pan. The next day we pulled out some steaks and paired them with spicy spinach and cream fried potatoes with bacon. We took some leftover bacon and cut it into matchsticks. Then we set it in a pan with some butter, just until they started to crisp up. We added the cold potatoes and let them brown lightly on one side. We gave them a quick toss and tipped in some heavy cream and a good sprinkling of salt. We cooked them until all the cream had been absorbed and the potatoes had browned. They were crispy and velvety, creamy and rich. Sometimes leftovers make the best parts of a new meal.
Years Past
Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work
Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook
Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table
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Stand Up Searing
We cooked the (pre-salted) steaks sous vide, from frozen, for 3 hours. I pulled them from the bags and stood them up, fat side down in a medium hot cast iron skillet. The fat slowly rendered and the fat caramelized. When the edge was richly browned I flipped the steaks in the rendered fat to quickly brown the surfaces. The steaks provide the fat and become more flavorfully cooked in the process.
Years Past
Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work
Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook
Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table
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Sake and Cream Burgers
I took the idea of spraying yakitori with sake, to increase umami, from Chicken and Charcoal and applied it to our burger making. I reduced the amount of cream from our cream burger and used an equal amount of sake and cream. I mixed in salt and formed patties. The burgers browned well and were extremely juicy. The flaw was the raw sake became too much in the finished burger. The alcohol overpowered the meat. Perhaps I would have been better off brushing the cream burgers with sake. Perhaps I can cook out the alcohol in the sake. The first run was delicious and has me wanting to improve and explore the use of sake in meat cookery well beyond the burger.
Years Past
Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work
Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook
Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table
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Yakitori Chef Shigetoshi Narita
While we're thinking about yakitori, there's some interesting stuff in this video of Chef Shigetoshi Narita in Mexico via Eater.
Years Past
Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work
Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook
Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table
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Blueberry, Maple, Cotton Candy Doughnuts
Years ago we came across maple cotton candy. I loved the idea of it. Recently I came across maple cotton candy for sale in the aisles of our local Whole Foods. I couldn't pass it up. I bought it and cracked open the lid. The candy was light and airy with a delicate maple flavor. I knew we needed to use it on a doughnut.
I am a blueberry pancake junky. It made sense to make a blueberry and maple doughnut and top it with the cotton candy. We used our super cakes as the base. We added maple glaze and blueberry crumbs. We nestled a tuft of cotton candy in the middle.
Years Past
November 8, 2009 (triple crust pie)
Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work
Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook
Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table
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Calabrian Kosho
The idea of Calabrian kosho has been in the notebook, really the passion project cookbook file, for years. The idea was to combine cultural icons into a delicious condiment. Yuzu kosho is currently quite fashionable. It has been for a while now. We created a quick version recipe of it in our second book Maximum Flavor. The concept of American Noodles is another fetish of mine. It is the passion project that I cannot let go of and cannot get going in the real world. The idea is a multi-influenced pasta-land where anything goes, as long as we can make a smart and delicious connection. Today I'm playing with Calabrian kosho as a foundation ingredient for pasta, meatballs, dressings, noodles and sauces. To create this hybrid I blended preserved lemons, white miso and a jar of calabrian chiles packed in oil. The result is bracing bright, funky, spicy and rich. It is an amplfied, rock star version of the classic yuzu kosho. It illustrates where I want to take American Noodles and all of our cooking.
Years Past
Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work
Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook
Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table
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Where There's Smoke
...there's flavor. We didn't grill much this summer, it was just too hot out there. So we're dubbing fall the new grilling season. Now if it would just stop raining...
Years Past
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Melting Pork Shoulder
We cut deep cross hatches into a pork shoulder and seasoned it liberally with salt. We let it sit uncovered in the refrigerator for 2 days, allowing the salt to penetrate the meat. We cooked the shoulder on a bed of miripoix with a bit of chicken broth in a covered pot for 6 hours at 250°F. The fat became meltingly tender and the meat softened into an almost spoon-cutting texture. The meat is now a blank canvas to be dressed in a variety of forms: from yuzu kosho to tomatoes with onions sweated in butter. By cooking the shoulder on its own we can now explore many paths.
Years Past
Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work
Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook
Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table
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Quick Fix
Some days you cook the crisp for an hour and there are thick dribbles of juice bubbling out of the pan. You let it rest during dinner and go to scoop it and the juices under the crust are thin and watery. Then your husband and daughter start taunting you about serving a raw crisp. So what do you do? You wrap the pie pan in foil and set it over a burner. Fifteen minutes later and the juices are bubbling and thick. You have a perfectly cooked crisp.
Years Past
November 2, 2009
Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work
Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook
Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table
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Chicken and Charcoal
The pleasure of books can be summed up in the random discovery of joy. We picked up Chicken and Charcoal: Yakitori, Yardbird, Hong Kong by Matt Abergel. The super clean pictures of butchering and the assembling of skewers is complimented by an instinctual and inviting prose describing insights on the cooking process. The obsession with the process is apparent from the first flip and I am certainly eager to dive into the process of yakitori as well as stealing the techniques for other preparations.
Years Past
Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work
Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook
Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table
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Fried Egg Salad
I have eaten plenty of salads topped with poached eggs. Aki often makes fried eggs with sauteed greens. Last week at Star Chefs ICC I tried and was smitten with a fried egg salad. It was spicy, funky, and bright with acid. It has been haunting me ever since. I made a dressing with grapefruit, mustard, fish sauce, soy sauce and cider vinegar. I sauteed the eggs in sunflower oil and deglazed the pan with a spoonful of dressing to steam and cook the top of the eggs. I dressed the greens with the vinaigrette and topped them with the hot eggs. I used scissors to cut up the eggs and tossed everything together. The salad was bright, funky, spicy, bitter and rich. It satisfied my craving and has me wanting more.
Years Past
Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work
Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook
Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table
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Momofuku's Roast Duck Ssam
This video seems very appropriate as we head towards Thanksgiving. I've often pondered the wisdom of duck over turkey, less meat but so much more flavor. Sausage stuffed duck could be just the thing to get the ball rolling.
Years Past
Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work
Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook
Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table
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Chicken Skin Tacos
We've taken to roasting chicken thighs every couple of weeks. Sometimes we roast them on vegetables and sometimes we make different salads. Occasionally there is rice or potatoes to go alongside. We take the leftover chicken and pull it, to use in other dishes. We save the leftover skin and bones for stock. On the night we roast up the thighs, Alex and Amaya harvest the crispy skins to make tacos. They stuff them with meat and vegetables and whatever else is on the table. Then they dip or drizzle them in hot sauce and savor the deep crunch and salty flavor of each delicious bite.
Years Past
Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work
Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook
Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table
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Quarter Pan Pizzas
The quarter sheet pan takes the half and half option out of the equation and allows for everyone to create a custom pie.
Years Past
Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work
Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook
Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table
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Going Green
We have not been using herbs enough in our cooking. I crave the brightness and the crisp refreshing flavor that herbs bring to our dishes. We have not been using enough jalapenos lately either. I set about solving my own problems. I made a green sauce with parsley, cilantro, jalapenos, anchovies, salt and olive in our Vitamix. I pureed the herbs, stems and all. The only stem I removed was from the jalapeno. I spread the sauce into a miniature muffin pan and put it in the blast chiller. When the sauce is frozen I will pop them out of the pan and vacuum seal the individual portions for preservation and easy access. It takes an effort to go green. But the payoff is delicious.
Years Past
Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work
Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook
Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table
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Look Up and Discover
We think we know the answer and we go around with that belief. When we take the time to look up the answer we discover paths we had no idea existed.
Years Past
Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work
Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook
Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table
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Hot and Cold
I was brought a couple of slices of pizza from L'industrie Pizzeria. What I felt was exceptional was the post cooking addition of burrata and basil. The pepperoni was cupped and caramelized. The burrata was cool, creamy and elastic. The basil was bright and refreshing. The pizza itself was crisp, foldable, airy and cheese crusted. The balance in flavors, textures and temperatures showed me fresh insight into the combination and addition of ingredients.
Years Past
Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work
Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook
Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table
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Possibilities
One of the tricks to being a good cook is being able to see the possibilities in your ingredients. There was time when I would look at these bananas and think I'd better eat them quickly. Now I look at them and think about what I could make. Roasted bananas or Bananas Foster? Banana bread with peanut butter or banana layer cake with chocolate frosting. They're on the smaller side, so maybe some scones with cashew butter or some muffins with apples and oatmeal streusel. There's enough there for banana cream pie or even a simple pudding. The possibilities are endless.
Years Past
Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work
Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook
Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table
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Pumpkin Muffins With Chocolate Chips
Sundays are a great day to make muffins because you can eat them that day and have them on hand for lunches and after school snacks in the beginning of the week. Amaya made her first batch of pumpkin muffins today and they were a smashing success. Muffins are very forgiving and therefore perfect for beginner bakers. We fill the muffin tins slightly above the top using a blue ice cream scoop. We find that the smaller muffins are not quite big enough for a snack and leave us a little hungry, so we go for a slightly larger size that satisfies with one muffin per person. These muffins are moist and light. We use a blend of milk and dark chocolate chips (Guittard) to finish them off and make them feel just a little bit indulgent. You can easily leave them out if you don't have any on hand or add some diced apple instead.
Pumpkin Muffins with Chocolate CHips
Makes 10 larger or twelve smaller muffins
1½ cups all purpose flour
1¼ cups sugar (any blend of light and dark)
1 teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon cinnamon
One 15-ounce can organic pumpkin puree
⅓ cup neutral oil (we use sunflower seed)
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla paste or extract
½ cup chocolate chips (we used half milk, half bittersweet Guittard)
Preheat oven to 350°F.
Line a standard muffin tin with papers and spray them with pan spray or simply spray the tin with pan spray.
Put the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon in a medium mixing bowl and whisk to blend. Put the pumpkin, oil, eggs and vanilla in a smaller bowl and whisk to blend. Add the pumpkin mixture to the flour mixture and stir to combine. Once the mixture has come together, add the chocolate chips and stir briefly to combine. Divide the batter among your muffin tins, filling them slightly below the top for twelve muffins and slightly above the top for ten muffins. Bake for 25-30 minutes until the muffins are golden brown, just firm to the touch, and a cake tester inserted into the center of the largest muffins comes out clean. DO not over bake the muffins, you want them to be soft and moist.
Remove from oven and let cool for at least 15 minutes before eating.
Years Past
Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work
Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook
Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table
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Tandoori Linguini with Butternut Squash and Kielbasa Bolognese
The dish is a combination of our tandoori linguini and a butternut squash bolognese sauce made with our kielbasa sausage. We topped the dish with a generous dollop of ricotta and sprinking of Parmigiano Reggiano. The kielbasa sausage is the secret to the bolognese and the tandoori spice adds a pointed focus to a tangle of noodles. The dish was an impromptu creation fashioned from a pantry of interchangeable parts.
Years Past
Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work
Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook
Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table
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Tandoori Spiced Noodles
There's a definite chill in the air, spurring us to embrace the use of warming spices. Today we added 2% tandoori spices to our base extruded pasta recipe. It was enough to give us a clear flavor of the spices to work with as we play with sauce ideas.
Years Past
Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work
Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook
Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table
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Butternut and Black Lime
In Maximum Flavor we made butternut squash capponata. The squash is bright, sweet, crispy and juicy. It is a melon with structure. Since then we have looked at other ways of serving it raw and marinated. Today we started playing with the squash seasoned with salt and powdered fermented black lime. It is sweet, sour, salty, bitter and refreshing. It is a simple combination creating a delicious salad.
Years Past
Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work
Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook
Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table
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Pistachio Stock
Pistachio stock was the revelation that brought our mortadella, cabbage and pistachio ragout together. I blended salt roasted pistachios, water and soy sauce together. I strained the mixture and the result was a rich and creamy stock. It had an intense pistachio flavor and was the liquid I needed for our sauce. It carried the element of pistachios throughout the ingredients with a saucy fullness.
Years Past
Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work
Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook
Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table
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Fall Favorites
The weather has finally turned and there is a welcome chill in the air. This afternoon there was football on tv and chili simmering in the pot. I had planned for baked potatoes and forgotten about rock climbing practice. So, the baked potatoes became twice baked potatoes, seasoned with generous amounts of butter, salt and cheddar cheese. After practice, we spooned the chili over the baked potatoes and everybody was happy.
Years Past
Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work
Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook
Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table
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Lay It Down
I love the flavor of prosciutto and speck in cooked dishes. What I do not love is the way the ham dehydrates and gets super salty during the cooking process. In order to eliminate this problem, tonight I laid slices of speck on the bottom of the roasting pan and then added my artichokes and chick peas over the meat. Finally I arranged the chicken thighs in the center and roasted the whole thing. The speck gave a gentle seasoning to all of the other ingredients and remained soft and supple enough to be scooped up with the vegetables. We'll definitely be using this approach again.
Years Past
Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work
Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook
Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table
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Season Your Shells
By seasoning the shells we have the opportunity to let flavors mingle. The seasoning concentrates and changes as we grill the oysters. When we pick up the oysters and slurp them the seasoning compliments and does not overpower the shellfish.
Years Past
Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work
Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook
Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table
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Cross Cut and Thick Cut
I have been searching for thick cut and cross cut short ribs for many years. I was too lazy to make them myself. And I never remembered I was looking for them when I was in the butcher shop. Every time I saw cross cut ribs for sale I lamented the fact that they were always so thin. Finally I found the short ribs I was looking for. My vision for the ribs was to treat them in some way like chicken wings. I wanted to salt them, cook them sous vide, chill them, dredge them in cornstarch, fry them and glaze them in spicy sauce. But when I finally found them I was running around and not prepared with the time to follow through with my vision. Instead, I salted them and refrigerated them overnight. The following day I cooked them for 20 minutes in the pressure cooker.
The ribs were good. I was disappointed. I had a vision and when the opportunity arrived I was only able to bunt. I became distracted by my vision and did not adapt to the situation in front of me. It was an important reminder to have several plans ready because the situation will not always be how you planned it.
Years Past
Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work
Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook
Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table
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Frank's and Bolognese
I made another round of Frank's Red Hot flavored noodles. I dressed the noodles with our buttermilk bolognese. I finished the pasta with a spoonful of our Frank's bulletproof beurre monte. The noodle flavor stood up to the rich sauce. The beurre monte added a final richness to the bowl of pasta.
Years Past
Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work
Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook
Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table
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Jalapeno Noodles with Pistachio, Cabbage and Mortadella Sauce
I made jalapeno noodles. They have become a regular addition to my noodle making repertoire. The intensity of the jalapenos acts as a flavorful foil for rich sauces. I started the sauce with cabbage, soffrito and minced mortadella. I made a pistachio stock with salt roasted pistachios, water and soy sauce. I pureed them together and strained the mixture. The result was an intense pistachio stock. I added it to the soffrito and cooked the ingredients together until the cabbage was tender. I finished the sauce with a spoonful of prepared horseradish. I cooked the noodles and glazed them in the sauce. I finished the bowls of noodles with grated salt roasted pistachios.
Years Past
Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work
Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook
Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table
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Flavoring Noodles
We recently made 4 flavored pastas: jalapeno, yellow mustard, Frank's hot sauce and horseradish. The flavor must be at least three times as intense as the desired end result. The flavor is diluted three times in the noodle process: in the making, the cooking, and the saucing. By making sure the initial flavor is overly assertive the final flavor becomes a delicious element in the final dish.
Years Past
Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work
Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook
Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table
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Pizza Dough Dumplings
I spent yesterday making and sharing noodles. At one point I borrowed a pizza dough, cut it up and put it in the pasta boiler. The dough cooked up into a tender, plump dumplings. Are pizza dough dumplings necessary? Probably not. But they show potential worth exploring in texture, flavor and as a creative canvas.
Years Past
October 4, 2008
Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work
Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook
Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table
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Buttermilk Bolognese With Burrata
Our latest obsession is burrata on top of pasta. We've found these smaller balls of cheese that are perfect for single servings. When you break it open over a hot bowl of rigatoni with buttermilk bolognese, you get this wonderful melding of textures and flavors: creamy and chewy, hot and cold, soft and firm. It's the perfect opportunity to play with your food.
Years Past
Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work
Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook
Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table
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Monte Madness
I prepared 4 bulletproof beurre montes for pasta-fest tomorrow at the Pizza and Pasta Expo. I am fortunate to be making and cooking in the Arcobaleno booth. I will be serving an array of noodles in the style of those we have made for American Noodles. The monte flavors are: original, Frank's Hot Sauce, jalapeno-soy, and farro-miso. They bring flavor, fat and function to a la minute pasta making. Stay tuned for the rest of the dishes.
Years Past
Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work
Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook
Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table
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Kielbasa Sausage
Salumi soffritos have been an essential element in our pasta preparations. Over the years we have used salumi as an ingredient. I finally integrated the cured meat into a fresh sausage. I am working on a few varieties. The first is kielbasa sausage. The cured, smoked and cooked sausage is a flavorful inclusion to the pork shoulder. The end result is the best of both ideas: fresh and cured.
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