If you have a couple hundred dollars and a few hours this Thursday, you can head to the Sushi Chef Dream Team Event at the Bell Harbor Center. All of the proceeds go to the Japanese Earthquake victims. It is an impressive lineup, highlighted by the return of the almost completely retired Zen sushi master Shiro Kashiba, long of Shiro’s Sushi fame. The man rarely, if ever cuts sushi in his namesake restaurant anymore and this is probably one of your last chances to have sushi prepared by possibly the greatest sushi chef in Seattle history. This makes the price of admission worth it.
You really want this guy cutting your sushi. Trust me.
Nancy Leson asked today, “Who would be your sushi dream team?” For me, it would be Shiro, Hiroki Hajime from Mashiko’s in West Seattle and Ryu Nakano from Kisaku in Wallingford.
Being a good catholic boy and being pretty hungry tonight, I decided I needed something quick and filling to take care of my situation. I also wanted something with a kick. I had some nice gulf shrimp, so I decided to use them. I came up with a simple, recipe that won’t take more than 15 minutes or so for a nice sautéed shrimp dish.
Toss in a few capers, and you get something that looks like this.
The Software
3/4 lb raw shrimp or prawns, peeled
1/3 stick of butter
1/3 lb pasta, cooked (I prefer penne for this dish, but any pasta will do)
1 tablespoon flour
1 teaspoon powdered garlic
1 teaspoon red pepper flakes
1 tablespoon Mama Lil’s Goathorn Peppers
1 tablespoon heavy cream
2 tablespoons minced parsley
Salt
Ground Black Pepper
The Dish
Peel the shells off the shrimp (and save them for stock – you could put them in a zip top bag and freeze them). In a bowl sprinkle flour, a small amount of salt, a few grinds of pepper and garlic on the shrimp and toss to coat. Let sit until pasta is in the water, about 10 minutes.
Bring a pot of salted water to a boil. Add pasta and cook to al dente, about 6-7 minutes. Drain but do not rinse the pasta. Reserve a little pasta water.
When the water is at a boil, add butter to a sauté pan over medium-high heat and melt until foam subsides and butter begins to turn a bit brown (it shouldn’t take more that 2 or 3 minutes, so you need to keep an eye on it). Take shrimp, shake off excess flour and add to pan with red pepper flakes. Cook on first side for about 2 minutes until lightly browned. DON’T MOVE THEM IN THE PAN – your pan will be hot enough that they won’t stick. Flip and add the goathorn peppers and cook for another 2 minutes 30 seconds. Remove from heat. Add pasta, parsley, cream and, if you want a little more sauce, a bit of pasta water and toss to combine. Check seasonings and add any additional salt and pepper if desired.
Notes
The amounts in this recipe are a best guess on the seasoning, feel free to adjust them as you like, especially the pepper flakes. I use the Mama Lil’s Sweet Hot Peppers, but any pickled pepper will do, or, if you like, you can leave them out altogether. I highly recommend using either a stainless steel or non-reactive aluminum sauté pan for this, rather than a non-stick pan – you won’t be able to see when the butter begins to brown in the non-stick pan and you risk burning it. I used 16-20 count shrimp, which I think are the ideal size for this recipe, but you can use whatever size is convenient. The smaller the shrimp, the less cooking time you will need. I would highly recommend not using anything smaller than 26-30 count (also known as Extra Large) as they become difficult to peel. Make sure your shrimp are raw and they should be untreated. Shrimp treated with Sodium Tripolyphosphate tend to be really soggy and don’t properly sear. If you are buying them frozen in a bag, check the ingredients – it shouldn’t contain more than shrimp and salt. If you are buying them from a fish counter, ask the fishmonger if the shrimp have been treated with anything.
TCM has a new host and a new format! Or so the trailers tell me. Apparently when they reformatted the show, they forgot to cast an actual set of master chefs. Don’t get me wrong, the lineup is impressive, but when I hear the term “master”, I am really thinking of guys like Bayliss, Tsai, Waxman, etc. – old chef who have served their time working in the kitchen and now draw people based on their names, not because they are on the line every night.
Season 3 is a decidedly different demographic – the lineup is loaded with up and comers, winners of “Best New Chef Awards” and a couple of grizzled veterans. Honestly, the lineup looks more like a regular “Top Chef” season than a “Masters” one. There are also only 12 contestants this season, so it is probably going to be a short season.
That being said, I am probably going to watch, so here are my favorites:
Naomi Pomeroy - I really want to see her do well in TCM - Season 3. How can you not root for someone who loves pig as much as I do?
George Mendes – he has worked at El Bulli, owns ALDEA in NYC (it is very well received), owns a Michelin Star and is probably the best new chef you have never heard of. He is all over the place with his resume, so he is probably the most well suited to win the competition since he can cover just about any style.
Naomi Pomeroy – the only Northwest chef in the competition, Pomeroy is the chef/owner of Beast in Portland – one of the Iron Chef’s top 5 places he wants to eat in 2011 (but that is for another post). She has a boatload of awards – lots of best of’s, but I honestly don’t see her winning this entire thing. You really have to cheer for the only local chef in the competition.
Alessandro Stratta – probably the best of the “old guys” in the competition. He has worked at some of the best restaurants in Vegas and probably can handle the pressure better than just about anyone in the competition.
No, it’s not pasta with crackers, it’s pasta and crackers. What got my attention is that they’re basically the same recipe:
Eggless Pasta
Ingredient
Crackers
2 cups
Flour
1 cup
1/2 cup (hot)
Water
1/4 cup
2 TBP (Olive)
Butter or Oil
2 TBP (Corn)
1 tsp
Salt
1/2 tsp
These are both “4 servings.” I’ll rescale the pasta recipe so that the flour is equal in both:
Eggless Pasta
Ingredient
Crackers
1 cup
Flour
1 cup
1/4 cup (hot)
Water
1/4 cup
1 TBP (Olive)
Butter or Oil
2 TBP (Corn)
1/2 tsp
Salt
1/2 tsp
The more I cook the more I’m convinced that most recipes are just variations on a theme. For example, compare those two recipes to Ming Tsai’s shallot pancake recipe that I posted in January 2011:
1 cup flour: Check.
1/2 cup (hot) water: This is the variation, it’s wetter, as it’s a bread/dough rather than pasta or crackers. Related sidenote – I’m beginning to think a key to making crackers may be keeping them as dry as possible without totally dehydrating the flour.
1 TBP Oil: Check again, in this case it’s sesame oil.
1/2 tsp salt: Check.
As far as the actual recipes go —
The pasta recipe recommends letting the pasta dough rest for at least 30 minutes after kneading, then rolling out and cutting the dough. (Again, the Ming Tsai Shallot Pancake recipe calls for a rest too, as do many recipes that involve hydrating flour.)
The cracker recipe does not specify a rest, though I’ve seen cracker recipes that do. Roll out the cracker dough thinly and cook in a 400 degree oven for about 10 minutes or until lightly browned.
Source for the Bittman recipes: The excellent “How To Cook Everything Vegetarian“, which also gets a “Favorite Cookbooks” recommendation.
A few weeks ago, Coltrane and I went to a cooking class at Le Gourmand and one of the items on the menu involved Jerusalem Artichokes, also known as Sunchokes. What is a sunchoke you ask, well here is your answer (from wikipedia):
The Jerusalem artichoke (Helianthus tuberosus), also called the sunroot, sunchoke, earth apple or topinambour, is a species of sunflower native to eastern North America, and found from Eastern Canada and Maine west to North Dakota, and south to northern Florida and Texas. It is also cultivated widely across the temperate zone for its tuber, which is used as a root vegetable.
The humble sunchoke
Mrs. Iron Chef is not much of an advernturous eater, so I haven’t really played with Sunchokes over the last couple years and just forgot how good they were until the class. Well, flash forward to last Sunday – I am wandering through the Farmer’s Market in Ballard and what do I see, but some amazing looking sunchokes. I think to myself, “Iron Chef, those are calling your name for a nice sunchoke puree.” So I buy a pound and bring ‘em home.
Flash forward to tonight – I make my puree. Sunchoke puree is a flavorful, nutty, slightly sweet dream. A recipe so easy, a caveman can do it:
The Software
1 lb Sunchokes, rinsed. You can peel them but your don’t have to.
1/2 cup Chicken Stock
1/4 cup Vermouth (or any white wine)
1 teaspoon minced onion
salt and pepper
The Puree
Cut the sunchokes into 3/4 inch pieces. Combine all the ingredients in a pot and bring to a boil. Once at a boil, reduce heat and simmer covered until sunchokes are easily pierced with a fork, about 8 minutes. Transfer the solids to a blender with half the braising liquid and puree until smooth. You are looking for the consistency of slightly thin mashed potatoes. Add more liquid if necessary to the puree. Taste. Season with salt and pepper. Server as you would mashed potatoes.
Notes
Personally I had mine tonight with some sautéed Fiddlehead Ferns, but turkey would work well too; if you want to be boring. Sunchokes are also delicious raw.
I am a regular customer of Thundering Hooves. I like their products (pastured, humanely raised livestock out near Spokane), their prices are good and one of their pickup locations was less than a mile from the Iron Chef homestead. Needless to say, I was sad when I read their newsletter today:
Due to unfortunate financial circumstances Thundering Hooves LLC is ceasing all operations immediately. All existing orders and all new orders for our products will not be filled or delivered. We are extremely sorry to inform you with this news and for any inconvenience this may cause you. There may be a limited amount of inventory that will become available. Check the website for updates.
Thank you all for your business, your confidence in us and our products, and your friendship.
Most sincerely,
Joel Huesby
Managing Member
I know they were changing their operations because they had gotten too big, too quickly and couldn’t handle it. I am going to miss their products (and their sales), especially the bacon, a favorite of Mrs. Iron Chef. So long Thundering Hooves. I just wonder what the hell happened.
About a month and a half ago, there was an article in The Stranger that contained the 10 reasons why Seattle should be jealous of Vancouver BC. I have spent a bunch of time in Vancouver and I love the city (and Mrs. Iron Chef is convinced that I am part Canadian), but from a culinary standpoint, Seattle is the winner in that fight. Yes, Vancouver has some terrific places and has vastly better Chinese food than Seattle, but the truly great places in Vancouver are a bit spendy (especially when you factor the 13% sales tax and the 1:1 exchange rate) and booze is not cheap in BC. You give me the choice between the two and I am going to take Seattle every time.
That being said, there were a couple of points that the author had that I would like to comment on.
4. Bacon brioche at L’Abattoir. I had an exceptional meal at this haute spot, where chef Lee Cooper was in the kitchen expediting despite having a broken back. Snowboard accident. Gawd, the guy’s got game. Dinner was fantastic, but it’s the soft, porky brioche that’s seared in my memory.
We visited L’Abattoir in February and let me tell you this was one of the 10 best meals I have ever had. The food is a modern take on classic French dishes – there is a lot of molecular gastronomy involved and foam (Marcel would be proud), but I was absolutely blown away by the meal. The bread basket was worth making the trip for – in addition to the Bacon Brioche, there was an anchovy-cheddar twist (phenomenal) and a black sesame cracker which I thought was better than the brioche – high praise from someone who would leave his wife for the right pork-centric meal. As phenomenal as the food is at L’Abattoir the real reason to go is:
5. Tales of the Cocktail. Did you know America’s premier boozing bash is hitting the road and making its first stop ever outside New Orleans in Vancouver in March? Yup. I got a sneak sip of some of the cocktails that will be poured and damn, those were some well-crafted drinks. Oh, and the bartender at L’Abattoir is aging cocktails like Manhattans and Negroni in whiskey barrels!–a trend started in forward-drinking London.
The bartenders at L’Abattior are true craftsmen. Go for the drinks, stay for the food. I need to do a proper review of the place sometime soon.
6. Oyama Sausage. Yes, we’ve got Salumi, but the range of animals represented at this Eurocentric salumeria in Granville Island’s busy marketplace is staggering. There’s cured bison, elk, and antelope, and venison, wild boar and duck prosciutto. Yes, there’s even boudin noir and Scottish black pudding. Hot dog!
I like Salumi, but I much prefer DaPino’s – the sausages are just as good and there is never a tremendous line to wait for your food. Besides, Pino does tend to do a few things that the Batallli’s don’t (Wild Boar anyone). Oyama reminds me of DaPino’s with an even bigger selection. The Mrs. And I have smuggled their chorizo and wild boar salami back across the border, risking confiscation from surly border agents. To sample some of their wares, head to their shop on Granville Island or check out the Salt Tasting Room in Blood Alley.
Speaking of Granville Island, why is the Granville Island Market not on this list – it is Pike Place with a significantly better food focus. Locals actually shop there. Also missing from this list – the Richmond Night Market. Seattle (or Portland for that matter) doesn’t have anything close to it.
I finally got around to setting up Cheap Seat Eats on Facebook. Find us and become our friend, if you really can stand the humiliation of being seen hanging out with us.
Update – I just realized – this is post #200 for Cheap Seat Eats. Wow, we have written a bunch of stuff.
New category! Favorite Cookbooks. First up is Little Foods of the Mediterranean by Clifford A. Wright.
The book contains 500 recipes — tapas, meze, hors d’oeuvre, and antipasti from around the Mediterranean — everywhere from Spain, to Italy, Greece, Tunasia, France, Morocco and Egypt. Wright is a scholar as well as a food writer; the book contains historical information about the origin of many of the dishes. There is also quite a bit of text about the history of the region that the dishes belong to.
The Chapters:
Canapes, Crostini, Bruschetta, Little Sandwiches, and Croutes
Dips, Spreads, and Pates
Cheesy Mouthfuls
Frittatas and Other Eggy Delights
Saucy Little Dishes, Part I (Chicken, Meat, and Seafood)
Saucy Little Dishes, Part II (Vegetables)
Stuffed Vegetables
Salads and Other Cold Vegetable Dishes
Filled Pastries, Puffs, Pies, and Baked Turnovers
Pizzas, Calzones, and Empanadas
Fried Turnovers
Fried Tidbits
Roll-Ups and Wraps
Seafood Salads and Platters
Kebabs, Skewers, and Other Grilled Foods
Pickled, Marinated, and Preserved Little Dishes
Sauces, Condiments, and Spice Mixes
Pastry Doughs and Batters
There is some “weird stuff” in the book — it’s helpful to have a fairly expansive pantry to call on. Overall though, there are hundreds of great recipes that can be done with common ingredients.
From the back cover:
This vast compendium encapsulates the type of Mediterranean food that I love: simple, tasty, unpretentious, and easy to eat. Whether they are tapas, meze, or antipasti, they represent Mediterranean street food at it’s best. I especially applaud Clifford Wright’s great research into the similarities and the differences among the little foods of the eighteen countries of the Mediterranean basin.
FlatbreadGarden 