blue_dolphin

Once you start a conversation and it’s out there in the world, there’s no telling where it will go!

Yeah, I should have added -ish to all those cocktail names not least because I’m using Bruto Americano instead of Campari as I like its increased bitterness and reduced sweetness. I took my permission to play from Tony Cecchini’s NYT article, where he said, So says the man who puts 2 ryes and 3 vermouths in his Boulevardier 🙃 Edited to add that I realized that I’d previously only made the proper bourbon Boulevardier with proper Campari so I went ahead and made an improper Boulevardier-ish cocktail with equal parts bourbon, Cocchi vermouth di Torino to wrap up Negroni week. Very nice.

What a great tradition! My cousins often have some of their little grands for Saturday night sleepovers and "Papa's pancakes" are a huge highlight!

Not a looker, but it hit the spot. Green eggs and ham quesadilla with sautéed Brussels sprouts, diced country ham, green hot sauce, egg and pepper jack cheese. I had plans for better accompaniments but after encountering 2 avocados well past their prime, I just dipped this in tomato chutney.

My Negroni week observances thus far... Monday: Black Lime Negroni - equal parts black lime-infused Dolin blanc, gin and Amaro Angeleno. Basically a white Negroni variation. This is one of my favorite summer cocktails. Tuesday: Boulevardier - Equal parts Cocchi vermouth di Torino, rye and Bruto Americano. Obviously not a Negroni but it was a gray and chilly evening so I was in the mood. The Cocchi is my summer vermouth, not really made for this. I would have preferred Punt e Mes or Carpano Antica but I don't switch until the equinox, at least. Still hit the spot. Wednesday: Negroni Rosa - Equal parts Cocchi Americano Rosa, gin and Luxardo Bianco Bitter. Got this from a Jeffrey Morgenthaler cocktail that used Yzaguirre Rosé Vermouth and a lemon peel garnish called a Rosé Negroni. The orange does look jarring there though it tasted OK. Another favorite summer cocktail. Thursday: Negroni - Equal parts Cocchi vermouth di Torino, gin and Bruto Americano. That covers my usual Negroni-ish suspects. Not sure what's up next. Maybe a mezcal Negroni something with sake? I need to think about this. There's some time left.

Yes, I shouldn't have written "wok burner" when what I had in mind was something simpler like this Iwatani butane burner (eG-friendly Amazon.com link) Not that there's anything wrong with a wok burner if that's what someone's set on. They do look pretty dramatic. It's just too scary and would be overkill for me.

I also have a 32 cm wok and agree that most people would recommend a larger one for a family of 4. However, with an induction cooktop, you don't get as much heat transfer up the sides of the wok as you can get with a gas burner so some people suggest cooking meals in multiple batches instead of letting everything get steamed. In that case, a smaller wok could work. Though if I used a wok a lot for a family, I'd get the bigger wok and a separate wok burner.

I took my guidance from this article, The Making of Maneki's Black Cod Collar Miso about how it's done at a Seattle restaurant. I also tried to improve my photos from round 2 but I lack the skills to make black food look appetizing. At least, they should give you a better idea of what I did. I'll start with a photo of the finished plate. Anyone squeamish about raw fish parts should stop here. This was an excellent, finger-licking meal. Kinda like black cod wings! I did the rice again, mostly to catch any juices from the fish. Since this is very much finger food, I figured corn on the cob was a good combo. Same shiso-vinegar pickled watermelon radish and pickled ginger as I had yesterday, both nice to cut the richness of the fish. These guys got an O/N marinade in same miso/mirin/sake marinade I used for a short time yesterday and the longer time made a nice difference. Even some of the charred fins were tasty. In the article I mentioned above, it sounded like the restaurant is rinsing the collars after the marinade so I tried both rinsing and then adding a sprinkle of salt and just blotting off the marinade. In the photo below, they've already been marinated but look pretty much the same as they did before that step. The two on the left just got blotted so you can see some little flecks of miso, the other three got rinsed and then blotted. I couldn't taste much difference in the fish itself but I think fins that still had some marinade on them were more tasty. They do look like birds, don't they? For scale, that's a 1/4 sheet pan. I weighed the 4 collars that I cooked yesterday and they came to 240g before cooking or about 60g/collar. They do vary in size so I should have weighed the whole bunch for a better estimate. They were $3.00/lb and I ordered 2 lbs for $6.00, which was pretty inexpensive for such a tasty treat. Here they are after 2 min under the broiler: I flipped them and gave them another 2 min. I was trying to see if there was a difference between starting skin-side up or skin-side down. I think I got crispier skin with the skin-side up start but both were good. Yesterday, I just cooked them all skin-side up and didn't flip for fear of drying out the meat but I think cooking them on both sides makes them a bit tastier and they're so fatty, there wasn't a risk of overcooking.

Broiled black cod collars over white rice, watermelon radish marinated in shiso vinegar, steamed broccoli, pickled ginger and a soy/citrus dipping sauce, which turned out to be entirely unnecessary. The black cod collars, which look like a pile of charred birds in my photo, were an add-on item in my fish share. They were very good, if messy, to eat. Pre-broil, two of them just got sprinkled with salt, the others got a 30-min miso/mirin/sake marinade. I have more in the marinade to cook tomorrow and see if that makes a difference.

A rather overstuffed browned butter omelet of asparagus, shallot, goat cheese and a bit of Spanish chorizo with tomatoes and toast.

Pasta with shrimp, asparagus and cherry tomatoes and TJ's lemon pesto, doctored up with a big squeeze of lemon juice.

I've heard of that trick but it does require advance planning unless you always keep cups of frozen water at the ready. I usually resort to inspecting the ice cubes. I suppose those of you with multiple freezers scattered about might not have ice cubes in all of them. I've only ever had the one attached to the fridge.

I believe so

I think the Snoop Dog thing has been pretty successful for her!

They are conventionally published (hard copy & ebook) cookbooks written by these TikTok stars. Since some of these TikTok stars have millions of followers, the publishers view them as a built-in audience for the books and are actively recruiting them.

Sorry for the jargon. WRT = With Respect To

I'm an avid cookbook user but not a social media maven so not quite sure what to make of this NYT article: How TikTok Is Reshaping the American Cookbook (gift link) The only book mentioned in the article that I own is James Beard award winner, Korean Vegan, which I purchased after listening to several interviews with the author and I like it. Had no idea she was a TikTok presence 🙃 Obviously, TikTok cookbooks aren't an area I'm familiar with but it seems pretty similar to any other sort of "celebrity" cookbooks, which is nothing new and hardly "reshaping" anything, They both seem to be great money-makers for the publishers but not so appealing to me. I've purchased cookbooks by old-school bloggers like David Lebovitz, Deb Perelman, Heidi Swanson, etc. who earned my trust by publishing reliable recipes over the course of many years but many of these people sound clueless WRT writing and testing recipes. As to the article itself, I'm not sure why they felt the need to cite everyone's age.

Yesterday's doctored up mornay with spinach, country ham and caramelized onions got warmed up, slapped on toasted sourdough and broiled into a mornay-toastie!

I agree with the Heidi Swanson recommendation. She doesn't post as frequently as she used to but there are tons of good recipes there and if you like what you see on her website, I can recommend her book, Super Natural Every Day. Quite a few recipes in there that I make often, some I know well enough that I no longer need the book!

Since I still stand by all of these and am too lazy to re-type, I'm going to start by quoting a more general recommendation I made a couple of years ago in the Vegetarian Cookbooks topic. I'd especially recommend Deborah Madison's The Savory Way and Mollie Kaizen's Still Life with Menu for you, along with Ottolenghi's Plenty and Plenty More. On to newer books, a recent Eater piece, This Cookbook Isn’t Vegetarian. It’s ‘Vegetable-Forward.’ might be of interest to you. Of the books they mention, I'd definitely recommend Hetty Liu McKinnon's Tenderheart for you. It's organized by vegetable and they're all widely available, nothing that only turns up a special farm markets on the first full moon after the last frost. The recipes are all straightforward and I've enjoyed everything I've cooked from it. There's a photo for every dish, everything is vegetarian with suggestions to vegan-ize all but the egg-centric dishes. I also really like Abra Berens' three books, Grist (with a focus on grains and legumes), Ruffage (focus on vegetables) and Pulp (focus on fruit). I think of them as "idea" books because they are full of variations, riffs and suggestions for substitutions. They have a limited number of photos and some of the recipes are barely sketched out (a few in Ruffage are literally just little drawings!) so I wouldn't recommend them to someone who doesn't know how to cook but someone who knows what they like and enjoys taking ownership of what they're cooking can find some great ideas to run with. You might appreciate the sections in Grist on "a week of _______ with no boredom" where the blank might be black beans, barley, etc. There are photos, but relatively few of them. Also mentioned in that article, I just got Susan Spungen's VEG Forward but haven't cooked from it yet and I have Nik Sharma's VEG TABLE on pre-order and am looking forward to it. If you like Ottolenghi's style but aren't sure about Plenty and Plenty More, the recent Ottolenghi Test Kitchen book Extra Good Things by Noor Murad might be one to consider because of its tables and pull-outs to help choose recipes (see my post here to see what they look like.)

This was supposed to be lunch but I wasn't hungry 'til late enough to call it dinner. Tandoori Swordfish Steaks from Nik Sharma's Season. The fish gets a tandoori-style marinade with yogurt and spices but is grilled, not actually cooked in a tandoor. It's served on a pumpkin-garlic purée and topped with a coconut oil tadka.

I doctored up the leftover mornay from yesterday with caramelized onions, diced country ham and spinach, used that to make a grilled breakfast sando:

I find using a fork can help avoid that result.

It may just be a weird American way of differentiating that style from what some of us crazy Americans refer to as "French Service" where the waiters bring platters of food to the table and use serving utensils to place the food on the diners plates. Usually each waiter has one platter and they move around the table until everyone has been served each dish. There's also "Butler Service" where the servers present the platters, with utensils, to each diner in turn and the diner uses the utensils to transfer their serving from the platter to their own plates. My experience with these types of service has always been in banquet situations, although occasionally in restaurants with set menus. Edited to add that I suspect there is a lack of consistency in the use of these terms, both across countries and even within countries.

Inspired by this article in the LA Times, describing the Croque Matthieu from Pasjoli restaurant in Santa Monica. This description lured me in: Since the article also provides a bit more info on how it's constructed, I had to give it a try. Sorry for the bad photo. But not disappointed with the result!