Cilantro, Roasted Seaweed Mediterranean Fried Rice

My technique to must-eat-now dinner (having quickly prepped the ingredients chopped into uniformity - ribbons of the seaweed, the mortadella, the leftover falafel balls and rings of pitted Sicilians) is to oil the pan (half sesame and half olive) all at once with the aforementioned garnish, and powdering over the spices (sweet paprika and nutmeg) while heating in medium low. Mix well until sizzling; then add/fold in the precooked rice (brown and farro pearls). 

Create a hole - a caldera - through the rice, and break two brown eggs in it, topping with  mucho chopped cilantro, and salt, pepper, chili flakes. Turn flame to lowest. Sam Sifton or Mark Bittman can show you how to whisk-cook the eggs while fried ricing (check out their video blog/column in the Times), but if you trust me as learned from them, what you do is: stir the caldera like a witch until the eggs curdle - then gradually gather in the volcano rice - and flatten it "geologically" to achieve a flowering meadow! Then eat and run - ala Julie Andrews singing "The hills are alive..."

Read more »

Chickpeas, Butter Sicilian Olives, German Blue, Dry Salami Panini

For the bread, use a TriBeCa bakery baguette, and slice an eight-incher from the end. Open up the sandwich in half and stick in a four-layer, in ascending order: salami, olives (cut up as ringlets), the garbanzos and the cheese. Salt, pepper, chili flakes and oil - then put the top down, wrap sandwich in parchment, and crunch up in a panini press until the "blues" melt.

Serve with a grapefruit-Campari granita! (Go get one at Bushwick, Brooklyn's Arancini Bar on Flusing and Evergreen Avenues.) 

Read more »

MENUFESTO

Foods are organic materials of deliciousness
Foods are ecological creations
Sun is its taste
Rain its juice
And wind its sweetness
Earth is a commune table
The vine for wine
The music is people
Herbivore's milk is leaves-cheese
Feet in water and fish
Hands are our roots
Because we plant our minds
And this is how we eat

Read more »

SODA SANGRIA

Last week from the Oda House restaurant, a Georgian traditional eatery in the E. Village, I brought home an unfinished  bottle of Saperavi, a dry red wine from the Kakheti grape-growing region of that country (Georgia, for those interested, borders Turkey in the south, Russia in the north and the Black Sea in the west). Now, what to do with it?

I had the following in my fridge that seem to beg to be cocktails: Sanpellegrino aranciata rossa (blood orange soda) and a Vintage seltzer. With my leftover wine, pandering them is pretty easy. 

In a classic table-glass filled with ice, pour a third of each of the liquid in equal parts - red first, aranciata second, seltzer third - just below the brim, and stir in a stick of cinnamon and fresh cut basil leaves (snip the tip of the sprig for the leaf-stem floret) to "herbalize" your drink. Ole!  

Read more »

RED MOKA ESPRESSO

 

Make two batches -espresso and moka- and serve in demitasse. But here's what you need to prepare the day before: pan-roasted brown rice (half a cup, uncooked), stirred constantly over super low, oil-less heat, until three tones darker with uneven charring, rendered about 45 minutes, more or less.

Morning. I would play the opera Thais, by Jules Massenet, while preparing this coffee (according to the gypsy vendor in Guatemala where I bought the cocoa bars, one must seduce the "underlying" value of the chocolate to pleasure you) - so there you go.   

In a small saucepan over microheat, pour 2 cups of whole milk, and no-boil simmer. When vapors rise, add 1 tbsp of ground-to-powder (with mortar and pestle) roasted brown rice, an ounce of the gypsy-bought cocoa nibs (go to La Antigua, Guatemala the week before), one piece of Portland's Harry and David chocolate cherries, a small pinch of hibiscus tea leaves (Sahadi's would have those), and a tsp of sugar. Stir delicately with a whisk... until the "heart of the chocolate bleeds."

To make the espresso in a Bialetti is pretty straightforward. But of course: coffee matters. I'm an Illy person. Try that.

Serve: Fill demitasse with espresso to three fourths (by now you should've transferred the moka in a Turkish coffee maker because it has a lipped brim) - and "kiss" the cherry on top! 

Read more »