Going to restaurants that are considered institutions can be tough, after many years, restaurants that don’t change will eventually lose their clientele. It happened in Boston with 150 year old Locke Ober closing late last year. Sometimes restaurants adapt like Canlis did with bringing in Eleven Madison Park chef Jason Franey to update the menu. Sometimes the restaurant falls victim to the economy and problems with the partners. This was the case with Philadelphia institution Le Bec Fin. Le Bec Fin was founded 40 years ago by chef Georges Perrier and for many of those years was considered one of the best restaurants in the US. It was an over the top, white glove experience with course after course of decadent and rich French inspired dishes. I had the pleasure of dining there once back in the late 1990’s and it is still the greatest restaurant meal I have ever had.
The economic downturn and infighting between the owners lead to the departure of Perrier and an attempted relaunch after the restaurant lost its way. There were rumors that a Michelin starred chef, Justin Bogle, was being brought in to right the ship.
Well, that rumor was true, but it means that the institution that is Le Bec Fin will be Fin at the end of June. I think changing tastes and a ton more competition in the industry really lead to the downfall and it is sad to see such an institution close, but it was probably time. I will always have fond memories of that meal and I do own the Le Bec Fin Cookbook, so who knows, there might be a dinner in the cards for sometime this fall…
Speakeasy is a long time San Francisco Brewery that recently started distributing their beer in Washington. I have been to the brewery in SF, so I was excited when Annie S. invited me over to do a tasting of Speakeasy beers. Their amber is one of the first beers that Speakeasy brewed when they started and is available on tap, six packs and in 22 oz. bottles, which run around $4. This review is for the 22 oz. bottles.
From the Speakeasy website:
Prohibition Ale is the first beer we bootlegged back in the early days of the brewery. Anything but traditional, Prohibition pours a deep reddish amber hue, with a fluffy tan head that leaves a beautiful lacing on the glass. A lush, complex aroma teases the senses with juicy grapefruit, citrus, pine, spice and candied caramel malts. Mouthfeel is creamy, with a silky, medium body and modest carbonation.
Style: American-Style Amber Ale
ABV: 6.1%
IBU: 45
Color: 15L – Copper, Dark Amber, Red
Barley: Two Row Pale, CaraMunich, Chilean Caramel
Hops: Chinook, Cascade, Centennial
Yeast: California Ale
The beer pours ruby in color with a cream head. The nose has a light malt profile with decent amounts of floral hops. The beer has a slightly sweet, upfront character which transitions into a lightly floral and bitter lingering finish. The sweetness is much more pronounced as the beer warms, which was a bit off-putting for me, but I know people who like that style of beer. If you like more hop character from the beer, serve it around 40-45 degrees. If you like more malty sweetness, serve the beer at 50-55 degrees.
Speakeasy Prohibition Amber Ale is an easy drinking beer that, considering the price point, is one you should have in your fridge when you are looking for something nice to drink but don’t want to break out the really good stuff.
Speakeasy Prohibition Amber Ale sneaks up to the hidden door and gets in with 3 secret passwords out of 5.
Rose Levy Beranbaum’s Rosemary Focaccia Sheet from The Bread Bible. To quote:
This intriguing dough presents an apparent contradiction: it is incredibly light yet moist and satisfyingly chewy. Consider the percentage of water in this dough! In relation to the flour, it has 113.5 percent water, making it the highest percentage of any dough in this book. [ed: most doughs generally run 60-70 percent water as a percentage of the flour weight.] Who would have thought it even possible to make a dough this wet and still produce bread? And that is the secret of its incredible texture. The exceptionally high amount of water keeps the gluten in the flour from breaking down during the very long beating process. This enables the dough to develop into long stretchy strands that hold the air and give a chewy texture. It will remain a soupy batter until toward the very end the twenty-minute beating, when it suddenly metamorphoses into a shiny, smooth, incredibly elastic dough.
I adapted this recipe from my favorite neighborhood bakery, the Sullivan Street Bakery in New York City…
So yeah, that’s some great pedigree. I had four hours before I needed to be out the door, instead of the five hours called for the recipe, so I goosed the yeast a little and figured I’d sacrifice a bit of the flavor associated with the rising time — the bread was getting rosemary and a healthy amount of salt and olive oil anyway, so it seemed like a reasonable tradeoff.
The recipe (notes are in italics)
390 g AP Flour
3/8 tsp instant yeast (I increased this to 3/4 tsp)
442 g warm water
3/4 tsp each sugar and salt
36 g extra virgin olive oil
2 tsp rosemary, fresh
1/4 tsp sea salt or fleur de sel
Sheet pan
1. Mix the dough. In the mixer bowl, with the paddle attachment on low speed (#2 Kitchenaid), combine the flour and yeast. With the mixer running, gradually add the water, mixing just until the dough comes together, about 3 minutes. It will be very soupy. Increase the speed to medium (#4 Kitchenaid) and beat until the dough is transformed into a smooth, shiny ball, about 20 minutes. (This never happened, or at least it hadn’t after almost 30 minutes. It just stayed soupy. I wound up adding about 1/2 cup+ of flour so that the dough would cooperate. It was a humid day, which may have effected it somewhat. I added a tiny amount of salt and sugar to compensate for the added flour — otherwise it might have tasted “flat”.)
Add the sugar and salt and beat until they are well incorporated, about 3 minutes.
This went on for too long.
2. Let the dough rise. Lightly oil a bowl, cover and let rise for about four hours. (I did this directly in the Kitchenaid bowl. With the greater quantity of yeast that I used, this only took about 90 minutes.)
3. Shape the dough and let it rise. Coat the sheet pan with a heaping tablespoon of the olive oil. Pour the dough onto it. Spread the dough as thin as possible without tearing it. Let it rest 10 minutes, then stretch again. Cover the pan and let rise until doubled 1-1/2 to 2 hours. (I used another sheet pan upside down as a cover. Mine was ready after about 60 minutes. Typically I use parchment paper to make “unmolding” easier. As it turned out, this dough decided to completely cement itself to the tray. The unmolding was a hassle.)
4. Preheat the oven. Preheat the oven to 475 degrees F for 1 hour before baking. Have an oven shelf at the lowest level and place a baking stone or baking sheet on it before preheating. (Maybe I’m just too cheap… I let it preheat 30 minutes. I can’t believe that the oven will retain *that* much more heat if I let it go for an hour. I used a baking stone.)
5. Sprinkle on toppings and bake. Uncover the dough and drizzle on the remaining olive oil. With oiled or wet fingertips deeply dimple the dough. Sprinkle evenly with the rosemary and salt. Place the pan directly on the hot stone or sheet tray and bake 12-13 minutes or until top is golden. Remove from oven and drizzle on a little extra olive oil if desired. (Mine was done at closer to 15 minutes.)
—
Other than resolutely sticking to the pan, it was a nice bread. I wouldn’t call the texture “incredible” like Beranbaum does, but for a fairly fast bread it was better than serviceable. The crust had a light chew to it. The crumb had an almost spongy, open texture, similar in appearance to the structure of a luffa. (Appetising, I know — I mean that in a nice way.) The hole size was very consistent throughout. (It really sucked up Iron Chef Leftovers’ terrific pig sauce.)
One reason I chose to try this bread, as close to the recipe as I had time for, was the 20 minute mixing time and super high hydration. Both of those parameters were well outside of what I make usually make. Normally I would try to minimize the oxidizing of the dough by not mixing for that long, but for this bread, it worked. I can see making this one again, though I’m sure the Kitchenaid won’t dig having to run for that long if I choose to make multiple breads for a crowd.
For a crowd, though, the Go To potato onion focaccia recipe is here.
Almost everyone is doing a pumpkin beer these days and that is not a bad thing since I love them. My issue is that most of them are a liquid pumpkin pie – lots of spices with a small amount of pumpkin flavor. Because there tends to be so much of that on the market, I tend to gravitate towards the styles of pumpkin beers that are different. Big Black Jack is an Imperial chocolate pumpkin porter. Chocolate? Pumpkin? Porter? They had me at hello. The beer is available seasonally in 22 oz. bottles and on tap. This review is for the bottle which ran about $7.50.
The description from the Oakshire website:
This malt-forward ale is a medium-bodied beer with flavors & spices that evoke fall. Pair Big Black Jack’s rich character with the seasonally favorite foods keeping you warm as the temperature drops: spicy Indian and Mexican dishes, molé, smoked goose, buttery aged cheddar, Irish cheeses, Gouda cheese, chocolate and peanut butter cookies, toasted coconut, pumpkin tarts and chocolate soufflés.
Part of our Single-Batch Beer Series, Big Black Jack became a fall favorite when we first released it in 2011. The Imperial Porter also won the 2012 North American Brewing Awards Gold Medal for Hybrid Beers. It is a warming autumn delight at 7.5% ABV.
The beer pours jet black with a creamy tan head. The beer has heavy overtones of pumpkin and roasted pumpkin seeds on the nose with notes of chocolate, nutmeg and cinnamon. The initial taste yields a slightly bitter chocolate hit with a quick transition into pumpkin seeds and roasted pumpkin. The pumpkin lingers for a bit before transitioning in into a spice finish with notes of nutmeg, cloves and cinnamon with a hide-and-seek pumpkin flavor. When the beer warms the pumpkin flavor becomes much more pronounced with subtle notes of oak and spice. A really complex and interesting pumpkin beer, which does a great job balancing the roasted flavors with the pumpkin ones. If you are in the mood for something with more depth than the run of the mill pumpkin beers, pick up a bottle of Oakshire Big Black Jack.
Oakshire Big Black Jack Imperial Chocolate Pumpkin Porter doubles down its bet with 4 split aces out of 5.
As my boyfriend and I are finishing a celebratory dinner at Le Bernardin, on West 55th Street, a couple in their 50s wearing festive sweaters sits down at the next table.
Waitress (to the couple): “Can I offer you a drink before dinner?”
Woman: “I’ll have an unsweetened iced tea.”
Waitress: “O.K.”
Woman: “Do you have free refills?”
Waitress: “Uh, I’m not sure. I’ll have to check.”
Woman: “Check, and if you do, then I’ll take it with ice. If you don’t have free refills, I’ll have it with the ice on the side.”
Waitress: “Got it.”
I am making an assumption here that we are talking about the dining room at Le Bernadin and not the lounge. If you are unfamiliar with Le Bernadin, it is a restaurant in NYC belonging to Bourdain-pal Eric Ripert and has 3 Michelin Star and 4 stars from the NY Times, oh and is considered to be the #19 restaurant in the world.
The menu is basically a bunch of fix priced offerings: between $124 and $194 per person, excluding tax, tip and beverages, depending on the options you choose (there is no al a carte menu). I find it hilarious that someone that is dropping a minimum of $160 per person is worried about a $5 glass of iced tea, if it is event that much. Some people just really confuse me.
Every once in a while, you come across a beer that will please multiple segments of the drinking population; Populuxe Pale Ale is one of them. The latest new beer in the ever growing Populuxe lineup. Lighter than you would expect, this beer clocks in at 4.8% ABV and is a nice summer addition to their lineup. As with all of their beers, it is only available on tap in their tap room.
The beer pours golden straw in color. Grain and hops dominate the nose with hints of malt. The beer starts out very mild – much lighter than you would expect based on the way it smells and then you get hit with the wall of flavor – light sweetness gives way to a significant hop profile without being bitter. You know there are hops in this beer but they don’t overpower everything else. The hops linger for a bit before giving way to a really nice long grain finish, sort of reminiscent of a hoppy pilsner. The beer is probably a little hoppier than a light beer drinker would enjoy, but it has a restrained enough hop profile that a good number of beer drinkers would enjoy. The added bonus is that the beer has enough character and complexity that a hop head like me would not hesitate to order one (or two or three) as the beer goes down easily. I could see this being my go-to beer for a warm, sunny day out on the back deck when I want hops but don’t want to be drinking a hop monster IPA.
Run down to the Populuxe brewery and try their pale. You won’t be disappointed.
Populuxe Pale Ale sings in with a beautiful 4 Whiter Shades out of 5.
I love pumpkin beers and there are a ton of them out on the market these days. Fall also brings us the annual pumpkin beer festival at Elysian Brewing, who seem to roll out somewhere around a dozen pumpkin beers themselves, with just a few making it into bottles. Hansel & Gretel is one that made it this year into the bottle. From the Elysian press release:
Brewed with organic pale, Weyermann Munich and Cara-Hell malts, with pumpkin added in the mash, kettle and fermenter. Spiced with fresh ginger and hopped with lots of Czech Saaz hops 4.5% ABV
This beer is unmistakably a pilsner – golden yellow in color with a fizzy white head. Initially you get a good amount of grain on the nose, but as you get closer, there are strong notes of ginger with a pumpkin background. The is initial sip is a strong hit of spicy ginger, like biting into a ginger snap cooking without the sugar, but it is so strong that your taste buds never fully recover from it. The ginger gives way to a distinct pumpkin flavor and it finishes just a bit sweet with a touch of spicy heat from the ginger. Any grain notes are completely overwhelmed by the ginger and there are no discernible hops on the nose or the palate. The spiciness is more pronounced as the beer warms and really overpowers everything else. There aren’t many pumpkin pilsners on the market so this beer has the potential to be a good one with more balance so you get more than a one note beer (and make pumpkin the star, not the ginger), but it is not quite there yet.
This was not my favorite pumpkin beer of the patch; so as a result, Hansel & Gretel skips into the gingerbread house with a score of 2 children out of 5.
If you are making burgers, meatloaf, sloppy joes, etc., there is something to be said for grinding your own meat. When you buy pre-ground meat, you never know exactly what it is composed of. Grinding it yourself eliminates the guesswork and makes for a better product. It is also much easier than you think it is – if you own a kitchen aid stand mixer, the grinder attachment runs about $50 and works really well. If you don’t, go to your local butcher (or even your local megamart if they have a butcher counter), buy the cut of meat that you want to grind and then ask them to do it for you. Trust me, it makes a difference.
Recently PW and her husband came over to the Iron Chef abode for dinner. I asked what protein they would like and I was told chicken burgers. I thought back to some chicken burgers I have had in the past – they were bland and dry and I wasn’t going to serve that. I then remembered back to a really good house-made chicken sausage that I had at a restaurant years’ ago and decided that would be the base for my recipe. I wanted something that was moist and flavorful but easy to make. This is what I came up with.
The key to this recipe is using freshly ground chicken thighs. You can probably use pre-ground chicken but you run the risk of the burgers drying out and will probably pay more per pound for the pre-ground meat than you will for the thighs. This recipe will make 4 good sized burgers, but can easily be scaled.
The Software
1 lb. boneless, skinless chicken thighs; ground
1 teaspoon minced sage
1 teaspoon minced rosemary
1 teaspoon minced oregano
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground black pepper
1/3 cup apple, peel removed and diced into 1/8 inch pieces
½ large egg, lightly beaten
The Recipe
If grinding your own chicken, cut into 1 inch cubes and freeze for 10 minutes to firm up the meat before putting it into the grinder. Add all of the ingredients to a bowl and gently toss to combine. Divide the mixture into 4 equal parts and gently form into patties (you could make sliders and probably get 8 out of this recipe). Set on a plate, cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least an hour (the burgers can be made in advance and kept in the fridge for 24 hour until ready to use). Preheat a skillet over medium-high heat and add a tablespoon of olive oil. When the oil is shimmering, add the burgers. Cook on the first side until a crust forms (about 4 minutes) and carefully flip. Reduce heat to medium and cook until the internal temperature reaches about 175 degrees (7-10 minutes, depending on your stove). Remove and serve to a hungry public.
Notes
The recipe can also be made on the grill. I would highly recommend starting these out on a cast iron skillet to form a bit of a crust before putting them on the grill surface – the burgers will seem loose and gravity will pull them through the grates of the grill initially. To check your seasonings, cook a very small amount of the mixture and cook it in a pre-heated skillet – it should cook in about a minute and this will tell you if you need to add anything seasoning wise. I used a Fuji apple for this, but you can use just about any apple you would like. It is important to use the apple – it helps to keep the chicken very moist. I suppose that you could use chicken breast for this, but you would run the risk of the meat drying out before it is done. I used fresh herbs when I made this dish, if you use dried, cut the amounts in half and test the seasonings – you can always add more but you can never take any away. This is a pretty mild tasting dish – if you want to ramp it up, some jalapeños or crushed red pepper would be really nice. Letting the formed patties sit in the fridge is important. If you don’t do it, they will fall apart when you cook them. You could freeze them and cook them later if you aren’t going to use the entire batch.
One of the things I love about the mountain beer program at NW peaks is that if you sign up for 2 growlers and invite some friends over, you can compare and contrast both styles that they put out each month. A few months ago, it was stouts, and considering the way the weather had been, a stout tasting was very much in order. The beer is still available in growlers from NW Peaks if you are so inclined (or was as of this writing – check with the brewery).
The description from the brewery website:
Since Mt Stuart is one of the most noticeable, bold, non-volcanic peaks in WA we tried to make the beer bearing its name similar. We based this beer on last year’s recipe but reduced the munich malt and changed hop varietals (but the hops have the same characteristics). This resulted in a slightly smoother, lower-bodied beer while retaining the dark roastiness making Stuart Stout a rich, full bodied, deeply roasty interpretation of the style. A fine beer to drink anytime, but best enjoyed in front of a fire on a cold rainy winter evening.
Malts: 2 row, roast, chocolate, crystal 40, wheat, and a smattering of oats. Hops: Apollo, Goldings. ABV: ~4.75%
The beer pours jet black with a fizzy tan head. Lots of roasted malt notes on the nose with hints of chocolate and coffee. The initial taste yields a pleasant, slightly burnt roasted flavor (think dark roasted coffee) yielding to mild chocolate flavors with some sweetness and hints of oatmeal. The beer finishes long with a pleasant roast notes. As the beer warms, hints of cocoa powder show up and the finishes seems to go on forever.
Stuart Stout is a great beer to sip next to warm fire on a cold day to feed the soul.
NW Peaks Stuart Stout hikes into base camp with a tasty 4 s’mores out of 5.
FlatbreadGarden 