SAHADI HONEY

Coconut and Lemon Wheat Crêpe, with Dulce de Leche

This is a butter-less crêpe (in the batter mixture), instead I used grape seed oil (measured just as much) -  the oil I bought in Mendoza, Argentina (wine country) last month. The desiccated coconut and lemon zest add rusticity to the whole wheat flour batter, thick and crumbly, and when cooked the cake achieves a gorgeous South Pacific color and wave. Here, Dulce meets Gauguin on the sand and draw each other out - and put the honey in my mouth. As the title of the post suggests, all my ingredients come from the "Persian Food Empire" Sahadi's in Brooklyn. The act of eating this crêpe is "ruminative": you roll it up from the side like a tobacco leaf - then bite and inhale. How often do you do that? That's why I like writing after eating. 

(Ingredients: 1 cup wheat flour, 1/4 cup dried shredded coconut, 1/4 cup muscavado sugar, zest of 1 lemon, a pinch rock salt, 1 1/4 cup whole milk and 1/4 cup grade seed oil. This is your batter.)

For the Dulce de Leche, well.. you can presumably make it at home using only 3 ingredients: whole milk, white sugar and baking soda; and 3 hours of your time. In a double boiler pot, pour half a gallon of milk and half a cup of sugar - boil them up, and reduce heat to low right after. Watch for change in color (as when the sugar darkness in the milk, 20-30 minutes in), then add a teaspoon of baking soda. The liquid will heave up (this is normal, as the powder reacts to the acid); just be prepared to stir it in to avoid boiling the foam over the brim. Leave to simmer for a little more than 2 hours, stirring roughly every 12 minutes... until thick and honey brown spreadable. Let cool, and transfer to a cute glass jar (must refrigerate).  

Gauguin said he likes to look at his paintings over a glass frame - for they look more real... 

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SPICY AGLIO E OLIO "CHIMICHURRI" CHITARRA AND HERRING IN FRIED POTATOES OREGANO "PIE"

I started with the garlic paste pictured in the small bowl - my "chimichurri" in chili emulsion. Summer is upon the city and stove-less cooking the better for you, and the better for the rest of the planetary environment. I boiled a head of garlic in the pasta water first with two bay leaves and a cinnamon stick, and halfway to its tenderness added the chitarra until cooked through with the garlic, and saved the liquid. (Cinnamon stick, you might wonder?) It was an executive impulse decision to add it, telling myself a slight "Aztec"/mole-sweetness to the garlic will enhance its flavor - a fact which truth can't be verified - a very Kurt Gödel or Alan Turing theory - but in the end you can't tell off; it's lost being there.) Anyway, to make the paste simply add rock sea salt and pepper and two parts more of chili flakes on the mashed garlic, and a bath of olive oil. Blend and taste. There should be a film of heat over the aromatic pungency.  Put pasta in a large salad bowl while still hot, toss a couple of spoons of soft butter, stir in, then exfoliate the chitarra with the chimichurri. About the pie, it's pretty basic. Heat both oven to 375 and oil on a large iron skillet with grape seed and canola (under medium). Add and spread scalloped potatoes in the pan, salt and pepper, and brown. Turn and brown the other side at the same time adding chopped onions and red bell peppers, a little salt and Herbs de Provence, until almost caramelized. Whisk in the beaten eggs (4) and a quarter cup of milk, turning heat to lowest. Arrange smoked sea herring on top like a pie, scoop up cottage cheese and dollop around, flash over fresh-cracked black pepper corns, and finally an homage sprig of fresh oregano in the middle. Transfer to oven - about 20 minutes - until the bosom of Poseidon rises. 
    Prepare your picnic basket and chilled wine (preferably Torrontes), and go to a nearby river, if you have one. Have a splendid time!       

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"MY FIRST"

Ladies and Gentlemen, allow me to introduce the inauguration of FOOD CLUB!

It's my home food catering business in New York - and my very first event is the Transition of Care (Pediatric to Adult) Interprofessional Forum hosted by the Initiative for Women with Disabilities. It's a twelve-member, all-women health care providers and directors group, and the request was for a high tea-type of menu (petite sandwiches and drinks) to be delivered at 4 pm. Argentinian medialunas came to my mind immediately, owing to my recent trip/training in that country. Medialunas are essentially pastries to go with coffee (mini-croissants traditionally), but afternoon snack sandwiches they are too. When you go to any bakery in Buenos Aires they abound! - those crust-less, playing card-size, thin white bread sandwiches filled with morning or afternoon glories, like the ones I did for the catering: Jamon Pimiento, Huevos y Olivos, and Roasted Cauliflower and Sweet Potato Escarole! Plus an invigorating Tea Punch made of Chai leaves, Greek mountain tea and cinnamon and vanilla - chilled like a champagne (it's a muggy and humid 70 degrees in the city; everyone's begging this drink)!

To be a "food clubber," all you need to do is contact me, order your request - and I'll get your party going. Cheers! 

                              By the way, here's my card ;) 

Gary: 718-708-0393, garyestan@gmail.com

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NAMING FOOD

Intellectually, this is what binds the creative process of cooking. I start with the ingredients I have, and what they are (this is obvious) is what is ultimately served up. But what is not obvious is the technique through which they can be processed to deliciousness. The alchemy is really intrinsic to what the ingredient is - you can't make a compote from a butt cut, but from a fruit or citrus (separately they can be combined, of course.) My point is: name food from the "chemical" level - derive the salivation from the food prior to taste.

An example: Calamansi-Lemon Marmalade Bread Cake (which I had made recently for our visiting guests from the Philippines); for last Sunday's brunch prior to attending the Frieze Show on Randall Island, owing to a brilliant East River weather, I made Caesar Lettuce and Pink Apples Salad, and for the main dish a Roasted Garlic and Curly Parsley Cacio e Pepe Pasta; and last night I was thinking protein, so I cooked up a kind of  mixed traditions rice bowl or Korean bibimbap using Whole Wheat Berries (boiled in tea leaves) with Salted Herring (marinated in lemon juice and Argentine Torrontes - a white wine) and Topped With Fried Red and Green Mung Beans Cake dressed with the juice of the herring marinade) and Melting Egg Yolk.

Naming good is its audience expectation. The good it will become is entirely up to the cook. So I follow the "watering" in my mouth.  

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FOODNOTE: World-(Working)-Class Food in Brooklyn

Sabor Latino

347 Union Ave, Williamsburg

The truth is: I have eaten at this Ecuadorian restaurant many times before since moving from Portland to Brooklyn in the summer 2011. But having just come back from a trip to Argentina (a week ago), I decided to check it out - I was craving for pescado, having had too much carne in Tangoland. I had been drawn to Sabor because of how simple and delicious the food is - yet better, no matter how frequent I go and eat the same combination of food - fried fish with white rice and lentils gravy - the consistency has not lowered a crunch - I mean, a notch. (Quite a number of high-end restaurants in the city sometimes hit or miss the taste mark, but not Sabor. I'm actually still quite surprised why the restaurant hasn't received a proper review and rating, and discovered by Mr. Pete Wells.) The taste from the spoon to the mouth is trans-delectably Central American - I think the "tierra" or the "playa" are infused I don't know how; and I say this because you start with a yuca-creamed leek soup with a wedge of lime evoking a fishing village lunch, and then comes the fried ocean catch! vinegared on top with raw onion and tomato salsa (I like eating this too-good-of-a-food like a snake gulping a whole egg) - so I down the fish-fry with a spoonful of soup cutting through the "tempura dungeness meat"straight to my esophagus with the tea rice and bloody good legumes - and release the town's church bells like a marriage announcement I am eating Galapagos, Ecuador with love! It's weird how food makes me write this way.

But I'm not exaggerating. All for $7.95.

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Canelones Selfie Letter

Dear Chef Manuel,
First, about this selfie. Well, it's a brand new app called Frontback, and the idea is, from the viewfinder perspective of your mobile camera, a two-sided shot is made -  one the object you are taking, and the other who's taking it. In blogging this recipe, my  intention was "twofold": to show you my version of the canelones de ricota y verdura you'd taught me while I was in Argentina, and also show you the exact moment when I had finished cooking the dish and had put it on my table here in New York - the prize of my learning from you. 

For the filling, chef, I incorporated three vegetables (shredded Idaho potatoes, shredded Napa cabbage and "professionally" julienned cored tomatoes) to a process of sweating out their juices on a hot pan with oil and butter and salt, plus a couple of skin-on crushed garlic cloves. Following your recipe, after the filling was fully wilted and cooked (in fact the potatoes achieved crispiness on the sides) I transferred it in a bowl and added the cheese. (I used a mild-aged edam, which was in my fridge when I got home, as well as the leftover though fresh-looking produce waiting there like ice cream begging to be eaten; no waste.)

The crepe was to the tea of your technique, chef, without browning its skin; ditto the bechamel sauce. The only thing different I did was to cook the white sauce (no red sauce, chef; no mas los tomates) right after the filling, essentially de-glazing the bottom of the pan, rich with flavor from the oozing veggies and garlic. What do you think about it, Chef Manuel?

Ed is on-call at the hospital this weekend and I am about to finish up this letter (it's around 630pm, Friday), and head out over to him so we can have dinner together. But first, I have to roll up the canelones and heat them up in the oven for about 10 minutes to melt the sauce, just like you did back there. My mouth is already watering, chef, as it did when I couldn't wait tasting your perfect version of the dish! I'm pretty sure Ed would like it too.

Asta luego, chef!

Your happy student,
GARY

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