I talk about Bloody Marys plenty. I love to drink them, I love to make them. Seems to be the drink that has a preparation most like cooking (and drinking it is alot like eating). And though I am loyal to a sturdy classic drink, I love the bells and whistles that people come up with to adorn a Bloody Mary making it achieve even more than its perfect basic self. Seven kinds of seafood on a stick, gold dusted rim or 30 year old scotch are not necessary to the success of a Bloody Mary, but I wouldn’t turn them down either. The beauty is in the flexibility. It is a kind of very sophisticated open relationship.

It’s not about one particular recipe so much as striking a balance which can be achieved in many ways, adventurous and non. Go ahead! Use fish sauce and hot pepper purees, roasted tomatoes and wine. It just needs to consists of that savory drinkability, slight thickness, peppery bits and stand up to a decent spill of vodka (or whatever spirit one chooses to use). My ideal also provides a slow heat and a briny under-layer. To get it right I usually taste, adjust, taste, adjust, etc. just like cooking. Some batches are better than others and some kill it! Sometimes all the favorite ingredients are on hand and often there is creative substitution. And then there’s mixing drinks with that person who insists on their own carte blanche move (i.e. my friend who always uses dijon mustard). It’s cool, it all works and I’ll drink it to hell. But I’ll always have my own crazy concoction to go home to.

ORI’S BROOKLYN BLOODY MARY MIX

(makes about 10 drinks)

6 cups tomato juice

1/4 cup horseradish

1/4 cup pickled jalapeño juice (or dill pickle juice)

2 tablespoons Pick-a-Peppa sauce

4-5 shakes Worcestershire sauce

1/4 cup fresh squeezed lemon juice

juice of one lime

1/2 teaspoon chili powder

1 teaspoon celery salt or regular salt

1 teaspoon black pepper

dash cayenne

a few shakes of your favorite hot sauce until desired spicy-ness is reached. (I like Texas Pete)

• Stir all ingredients together in a pitcher.
• Fill a short glass with ice.
• Pour 2 ounces of your favorite vodka (I like Tito’s) and approximately 6-8 ounces of Mix over the ice and stir. Garnish with Spanish olives, pickles* of any sort and/or celery.

QUICK PICKLES

2 cups of vegetables (approximately)

1/3 cup vinegar (white, cider, rice or white wine)

1/4 cup water

2 tablespoons sugar

1 tablespoon kosher salt

• Peel, slice and prep your vegetables accordingly and place them in a bowl. 
• Put vinegar, water, sugar and salt in a small saucepan and bring to a boil. Stir to dissolve the salt and sugar.
• Pour vinegar mixture over the vegetables and wait 10 minutes. Veg should be submerged in liquid. 
• Let stand in the brine for at least 2 hours or up to 24. When cooled place in the fridge.
• Drain and enjoy within a few days.

Recipes are guidelines not rules!

Tartines are a fun thing. A hefty piece of bread with some sort of substantial topping, it takes buttered toast to the next level. I am not sure what defines a tartine exactly. Savory or sweet, any combination of ingredients seems to fit the bill as long as one is spreadable. Also, it is always ‘openfaced’ or else you’d have what we in the biz call a sandwich. Just kidding… everybody calls it a sandwich. Anyway let’s not ruin a damn good snack with labels.

While living in France I put together this not-timid tartine often. The secret was the perfectly correct blue cheese, the name of which has been long forgotten, and a good and bumpy blueberry preserves. The sweet and the salty with the tart and tangy, the jam and the unctuous bite of the cheese is some magic. Since then I chase the dragon, trying out blue cheeses with this naughty little brekkie in mind but had never really hit it until recently.

MG picked up a few cheeses at out favorite neighborhood place and wound up with Azul Penacorada among others. A Spanish cow’s milk cheese, the Penacorada is creamy and rich and not too crumbly. It snaps you back from its deep blue haze with that salty crystalized texture that some cheeses have. Though it’s not French, as soon as I tasted it I said, ‘I’ll be right back’ and ran out for some blueberry preserves. The next morning on the fattest pieces of Amy’s whole wheat pullman toast I put a good layer of the jam, a serious crumble of the blue (you want them to fight for space in your mouth) and that’s it. Tartine for kings and queens.

“Breakfast, then, can be toast. It can be piles of toast, generously buttered, and a bowl of honey or jam, and milk for Mortimer and coffee for you. You can be lavish because the meal is so inexpensive. You can have fun, because there is no trotting around with fried eggs and mussy dishes and grease in the pan and a lingeringly unpleasant smell in the air.”

– M.F.K. Fisher, How to Cook a Wolf

Grilling is the carnivore’s dream. Firing up the backyard bbq is a perfectly acceptable reason to cook up two, three, even four animals at a time. And I am totally down with that. But this post is to champion the underdog: vegetables. In support of vegetables everywhere, it could not be easier to add them to your grilling repertoire than with a good old vegetable grilling pan. Just prep your veggie (or fruit!) selection, drop it into the pan and place over the flame. You can shake it around, you can keep it still, but don’t take it off until charred to your preferred shade of black. I am not one for extraneous gadgets and all-around extra ‘stuff’ but the vegetable grill pan is a real summertime pal.

Zucchini, pineapple, jalapeno and shallots. Just chop into bite sized pieces and toss into the grill pan. When done add basil and lime, s + p.

Blackened Brussels with orange zest vinaigrette.

Experimenting es bueno.

MG rides his bike with two saddle bags strapped to each side. When he comes through the door after work and opens them up, an unexpected treat usually comes out. The other day it was a dozen t-shirts, today it was a whole red snapper packed in ice and last week it was a couple of sausages and a nice block of ramp butter from Dickson’s Farmstand. That ramp butter took the prize.

A ramp is a wild baby leek, indigenous to the New York area. Small bulb with a thin leaf stalk, ramps are cute and delicious. Chefs and food writers go hellbent for them during their short appearance in the early spring. A way to prolong their pleasant stay is to blanch them quickly, chop and stir into some softened butter, as the Dickson’s crew did. Store it in the freezer and you can unleash the magic for seasons to come.

MG threw the sausages on the grill and I got to work on a few side dishes with whatever was loitering in the kitchen. There was at least an apple and a cucumber. Though I am not in the habit of cooking cucumbers, I recalled a recipe that comes from Australian superchef Stephanie Alexander in which the cukes are sauted in butter. Having tried it once as written the result was interesting but didn’t really have any pizzaz. I thought that problem could be remedied by adding some more dimension; bright red freckled apple for sweet and sour, ramp butter for its herbaceous onion-likeness to go with the unusual juicy/crisp warm cucumber. It really came together, turning out just perfect to buddy up with grilled food.

CUCUMBER APPLE SAUTEE with RAMP BUTTER

1 crisp red apple such as Fuji or Gala

1 English cucumber

3 tablespoons ramp butter

salt and pepper

• Chop the apple and cucumber.
• Heat the 2 tablespoons of ramp butter in a skillet until foamy.
• Toss in apples and cucumbers and saute vigorously for 7-10 minutes.
• Taste for desired texture.
• Season with salt and pepper. Taste again!
• Spoon remaining ramp butter on top of warm cucumber and apples before serving.

The last post has had me thinking about tasting food at all stages of preparation and all the people I see not doing it. Getting into this habit makes one a better and more confident cook for the long haul. And until you are a salty old chef like my former boss who can cook anything with his eyes closed and a beer in his hand, you should remember to practice it. Sampling and adjusting will keep you in control of what you are creating with an end result of a well-executed dish done thoughtfully.

Recipes are only fighting half of the battle. With so many floating around on TV, the internet and in magazines it is very important to not be overly dependent or trusting of every word. The goal is to develop instincts as you handle food, giving some attention to the words while constantly forming an understanding of what ingredients will do together or how they will react to different treatments, etc. Soon you will know exactly when to add flax seeds and how substitute whole wheat flour all by yourself. The recipes act as loose guidelines, like suggestions, and you can create things in your own style. Power!

Here is a recipe. An easy one. It tells you what to do but it wants to play just a little. It’s a quick, restorative soup that is passable without being properly seasoned but when done right it is completely awesome. Fish sauce, soy and lime season the broth. No one can tell you how you like it. Find the balance. Understand the balance. Enjoy.

KALE LIME SOUP

(serves 4)

1 tablespoon oil

1/2 cup onion, diced

4 cloves garlic, minced

1 carrot, chopped

1 parsnip, chopped

4 cups veg or chicken stock

1 tablespoon soy sauce or to taste

1 tablespoon fish sauce or to taste

3 cups kale, chopped into one inch pieces

2 tablespoons cilantro, chopped + extra for garnish

2-3 limes

1 jalapeno, thinly sliced

sriracha (optional but strongly recommended)

• Heat the oil in a medium saucepan. Saute the onion until softened. Add garlic, carrot, parsnip and cook 3 minutes more.
• Add stock, boil and reduce heat. Season with soy and fish sauce. Taste it! Adjust.
• Simmer 5-10 minutes. Add kale and cook until all vegetables are tender, about 10 minutes. Taste them!
• Add 2 tablespoons cilantro at the last minute and squeeze a lime into the soup. Taste it again! Adjust more.
• Cut the other limes into wedges and serve as garnish along with jalapeno slices and extra cilantro and sriracha, if using.

Here’s the thing about empanadas, you can stuff just about anything you can imagine in there. Traditional fillings include beef, chicken, cheese, tuna, guava, spinach, etc. Though empanadas seem like a big project to undertake, if you cheat a little and buy the dough circles  pre-made*, they are quick and easy to the point where I actually made them for breakfast and believe me, I am not good for much in the morning. Truth be told, I made the fig jam the night before. Even better.

If you happen upon a set of flavors that sounds especially good, with a little engineering, it can usually serve as perfectly good filling. In the first run of this sweet, slightly savory combo of homemade ‘fig jam’ with rosemary and ricotta, my oversight was that I didn’t mix the fruit and the cheese together. It was as if they were divorced. The empanada was filled on one side was straight fig puree and the other was rather bland and plain soft cheese. There was potential but no real pow.

On the second try I reconciled the two sides, stirring them together in a bowl, adding some lemon rind and salt to brighten up the day. Not only did it save a step in assembly, it worked out great. Inside the crisp empanada lived a creamy, tart-sweet epicenter, a way better result than the first. We couldn’t keep our hands off of them, the true test of an empanada’s success.

After including the new tweaks, I added  an extra step to the recipe. A direction I would like to use in all of my recipes at various points; ‘Taste it!’ It is unbelievable how often people fail to taste something as they are making it. By tasting often, the cook remains in complete control of where a dish is going…. and, most importantly, how it arrives.

FIG and ROSEMARY EMPANADA with RICOTTA CHEESE

(makes 20 empanadas)

for Fig and Rosemary Quick Jam:

10 ounces dried black mission figs (about 2 cups), stems removed

3 tablespoons sugar

3 sprigs rosemary

1 tablespoon lemon juice

• Place figs, sugar,  rosemary sprigs and 1.5 cups of water in saucepan and bring to a boil.
• Reduce heat and simmer until most of liquid is evaporated and figs are easily pierced with/ a knife, 20-30 minutes. Remove rosemary stems.
• Transfer mixture to a food processor, add lemon juice and puree until smooth, adding up to 1/4 cup additional water to thin if needed. The final product should be like a thick spread. Store in the fridge up to one month.

for Empanadas:

20 empanada dough discs or 1 package (2 sheets) of puff pastry, thawed

1 egg, beaten

1 pound fresh ricotta cheese

1 recipe Fig Rosemary Quick Jam

1 teaspoon lemon zest

1 pinch salt

1/4 cup flour

• Preheat the oven to 350F.
• In a bowl, combine the cooled fig jam with the ricotta, lemon zest and a pinch of salt. Taste it! Adjust.
• Lay a dough disc on a lightly floured surface. (If using puff pastry, roll out the dough a little and punch 10 four inch circles from each sheet). 
• Brush half of a disc with beaten egg.
• On the other half of the disc, spoon two heaping tablespoons of fig/ricotta mixture.
• Fold the dough over the filling and pinch the dough to make a scalloped edge. Alternatively, seal the edge with the tines of a fork. 
• Place the empanada on a baking sheet and brush with egg wash. Repeat with the rest of the dough/filling.
• Bake until golden brown, about 35 minutes.

* Discos are found in the freezer section.

They didn’t last until lunch… that’s what I’m talking about.

During a recent class at the Astor Center, I was asked a question that I thought deserved public answering. One of the recipes we prepared included fish sauce. As an ingredient that is often used sparingly, my student wondered how to make a dent in the bottle that sits around after being used only once in an experimental while. In other words –allow me to paraphrase– ‘what the hell do I do with this stuff?’

A little background on fish sauce; it is the liquid extracted from salted and fermented fish or shrimp. Lending an aquatic (as in the bottom of an aquarium) and briny note, it is a major ingredient in many Asian cuisines. Each country has its own process by which they produce the stuff but Thailand, Vietnam, Burma, Laos, Korea, Southern China, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Japan all use a variation of fish sauce in alot or at least a little of their cooking. In my experience with Vietnamese food, it is a ubiquitous and staple item, sort of like the t-shirts they sell in tourist shops that say ‘Good Morning Vietnam!’.

The truth is, it stinks like no one’s business only to be intensified when heated. This should stop aforementioned no one from using this product. Once mixed with other ingredients it turns on its magic, amplifying the existing flavors, doing that umami thing that I can’t describe. It does something to make a dish taste as delicious as it did sitting on a small plastic chair, overlooking the beach at Nha Trang.

Wikipedia does a great job of providing mostly the truth and lots more fish sauce details. My mission is to list a few ways to help get through that bottle a little quicker.

TOP 15 USES FOR FISH SAUCE

• in a curry
• in salad dressing
• as a marinade
• as a dipping sauce
• in a peanut sauce
• in a crab cake or fish croquette
• in a vegetable soup/stew (fish sauce loves kale!)
• in beef stew
• in (Asian style) chicken soup
• in fried rice
• sprinkle on fish before roasting/grilling
• in a dumpling filling
• tossed with noodles
• in kimchi
• in a stirfry

(‘in a stirfry’ is such a cop-out.) Enjoy!

On March 1st, issue #2 of the quarterly Where Women Cook was released into the wild. I was featured in it along with a gang of  talented ladies and their stories/recipes. It was an interesting experience to share what I do for a living and reflect on it a little. The camera even followed me to a few of my favorite gigs.

As if that wasn’t enough press, the WWC website is in the middle of posting a four-day blog blitz including my bio (April 4), favorite kitchen tips (April 5), some Mexican recipes I adapted from my 2008 trip (April 6) and a bit food porn (April 7). Check it out: wherewomencook.com

I like to make healthy quick breads to have around for easy, one-handed breakfasts. Quick bread, by definition, is a sweet or savory baked-good that is leavened by something other than yeast like baking soda, baking powder, eggs, etc. Banana bread, zucchini bread, cornbread, scones all fall under this category. I try to make it so the bread  has an inkling of nutrition to it. In other words, it can’t be straight up cake… not for breakfast anyway. I save up my pastry-in-the-morning points for when I am in France.

When I come across an interesting recipe, I’ll tweak it here and there so it meets the standards of morning fare; subbing whole wheat flour or natural sweetener, adding bran or nuts and things like that. This recipe has benefitted from some of those adjustments and the result is a slightly sweet, moist, nutty cake… um, bread.

SWEET CARROT BREAD

(adapted from Alton Brown Good Eats, 2005)

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour + extra for the pan

1 cup finely ground almonds (almond meal)

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon baking powder

3/4 teaspoon 5-spice powder

1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon salt

3 cups grated carrots

3/4 cup sugar

1/4 cup honey

3 eggs

3/4 cup plain yogurt

3/4 cup vegetable oil + extra for greasing the pan

• Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.
• Butter and flour a 9-inch round  cake pan. Line the bottom with parchment paper. Set aside.
• Put the flour, almond meal, baking powder, baking soda, 5-spice, cinnamon, and salt in a large bowl and whisk until combined. Toss the carrots with the flour mixture until they are coated.
• In a separate bowl, combine the sugar, honey, eggs, and yogurt. Whisk in the oil in a constant stream.
• Pour the wet mixture into the dry and stir until just combined.
• Pour the batter into the prepared cake pan and bake for 1 hour and 10 minutes.

I am tempted to post this photo with no words at all. But that would be depriving the reader of some really great info. First of all, this is a breakfast spread put together by my sweetheart with some stuff he whipped up and some other items from Brooklyn’s incredible Damascus Bakery. The bakery is well known for fresh pitas, lavash and a selection of breads, which are also available in other locations. Onsite they turn out an enormous variety of pastries and sweets as well as some mind-blowing prepared dips and salads. Pictured above are tabouleh, muhammara and olive tapenade with a spice crusted flatbread (zataar bread, far left). There are also MG’s flourishes of perfectly cooked eggs, dried fruit, grapes, buttered toast and some homemade ricotta with honey and pine nuts. I feel royal.

It is a little sad because Damascus Bakery is located on Atlantic Avenue right next to the extremely well known Sahadi’s and might therefore live in its shadow. And while Sahadi’s is a great spot, full of bustle and bulk, Damascus has a more homey style with hand-made goods, a friendly feeling and quite possibly the world’s best halva. Both are worthy of a Cobble Hill field trip.