rognons a la moutarde

For most people, watching Anthony Bourdain eat offal makes for some good television, but it does not necessarily inspire too many people to get in the kitchen and cook the stuff. So why does he always seem to shed a tear of happiness when confronted with a plate of kidneys, tongue, brain... the "nasty bits" as Bourdain calls them?

Well here's my guess. Offal is can be intimidating if you don't know how to prepare it, and turning something like tripe into a delicious dish takes some practice and skill. Whenever Bourdain eats on his show, he's already identified the best cooks and restaurants in town. Even if it's street food, he's put his fate in the hands of a nice old lady who has cooked tripe her entire life. Probably a safe bet if there ever was one. Of course put tripe in the wrong hands and it quickly becomes tough, smelly, and generally off-putting. On the other hand, when prepared by deft hands, its best qualities are revealed. Magic! Off-putting smells and textures are eliminated and it's elevated into some seriously good eats. Liver, for example, becomes sweet, blood is transformed into a rich spicy sausage, and pork trotters... well they just become the most rich, unctuous thing on the planet.



When I lived in the Bay Area I had the privilege of eating at some of the country's greatest restaurants. One of my favorite meals was at Bistro Jeanty. The fact that it's sandwiched between Ad Hoc and Bouchon and has stayed in business since 1998, never mind that it has a Michelin Star, should tell you something about the place. I only ate there once, which is not exactly a large enough sample size to put any sort of label on it. Nevertheless, the Rognons de Veau au Poivre Vert (veal kidneys with a green pepper sauce) is something I won't soon forget. As with all of the dishes on Jeanty's menu, this is a true classic. The kidneys are sauteed quickly and a mustard, green peppercorn, and mushroom sauce is made with the pan drippings. The dish comes together in less than ten minutes.Yet here I am still talking about it eight years later.

So what made the dish so spectacular? I think it just comes down to having cooks that know what they're doing and using the freshest products available. The kidneys were tender, yet with a perfect bite to them (like a great hot dog). The kidney flavor was there, but it wasn't so pronounced that it's all you could taste. Using veal kidneys helps - they're milder than beef kidneys. The mustard, peppercorn sauce doesn't hurt either. There are a lot of strong flavor there. In the end, it's just a really simple - and perfect - dish, and the cooks just knew how to execute it.

I was at the supermarket recently and noticed some very fresh looking veal kidneys. Now this isn't something you normally come across in most supermarkets. Even at the largest Whole Foods you'll probably need to place a special order for them. Luckily for me, I have easy access to this type of stuff at the Dekalb Farmer's Market and the Buford Highway Farmer's Market, neither of which are actual Farmer's Markets... but let's not go down that road today. And so when I noticed a large batch of fresh kidneys next to hearts, tongues, and brain at Dekalb, I immediately remembered my meal at Bistro Jeanty and was off and running, kidneys in hand.

There are some great cookbooks on how to cook and prepare offal. Primary among them is Fergus Henderson's Nose to Tail Eating. I would highly recommend that book to anyone interested in learning more about how to skillfully prepare any offal you can think of. This time however, I wanted that traditional bistro dish that I remembered from Napa, and so I turned to Anthony Bourdain Les Halles Cookbook. Bourdain's sauce was simplified in that it had no mushrooms or green peppercorns (though these would have been great additions). The kidneys cook 4 minutes a side, and the sauce comes together in just a few minutes. The verdict? There's a reason this dish is a classic. It's not exactly very pretty, but it sure is tasty. Not a bad place to start if you're inclined to give the "nasty bits" a try in your kitchen.

Rognons de Veau a la Moutarde (Serves 4)

2 veal kidneys, cleaned

1 tbsp oil

2 tbsp butter

2 shallots, thinly sliced

1/4 cup white wine

1/2 cup chicken stock

2 tbsp dijon mustard

parsley for garnish

Directions

Cut Kidneys into small pieces, season with salt and pepper

Cook kidneys with 1 tbsp oil and 1tbsp butter over high heat, 2 minutes a side

Reduce heat to medium, cook 2 more minutes on each side

Remove kidneys from pan, drain excess fat, add butter back into pan

Cook shallots until soft, about 3 minutes on medium high heat

Add white wine and chicken stock to deglaze. Simmer 5 minutes.

Whisk in mustard and serve kidneys with the sauce spooned over the top. 

Garnish with parsley and enjoy!

(Make sure to have lots of fresh bread on hand to mop up the sauce)

cold cod and gribiche

Sometimes the simplest things are the best right? This meal could easily be reassembled into fish cakes or a soup. However, I decided to serve it simply and keep each ingredient separate and intact. No muddled flavors here - what you see is what you get. The center piece was some steamed cod, chilled and served with a gribiche sauce. Gribiche is essentially mayonnaise with chopped hard boiled eggs, capers, pickles (preferably french cornichons), some lemon juice, and herbs (usually tarragon, parseley, and chervil). It's a perfect accompaniment for fish, crabcakes, or if your so inclined, tete de veau. In fact it's great on a lot of things and a perfect opportunity to make your own mayo.


Tom's Cod & Gribiche Plate (serves 2)
2/3 lb cod or other white fish, steamed
1/3 cup gribiche sauce (or as much as you want!)
1 tomato, quartered and seasoned with salt
1 egg, hard boiled, quartered
1 yukon gold potato, boiled until tender and sliced
8-10 olives, preferably oil cured
12-15 asparagus, steamed

Gribiche Sauce (1/2 cup)
1 large egg yolk
1/2 tsp Dijon mustard
1/4 tsp lemon juice or vinegar
1/3 cup canola oil
1/2 hard boiled egg, finely chopped
2 tbls cornichon (or sour pickle), finely chopped
1 tbls capers, finely chopped
2 tbls parseley, finely chopped
1 tbls tarragon, finely chopped
1 tbls lemon juice
salt and peper

Directions
Mix the mustard, egg, and lemon juice
Slowly drizzle in the oil as you whisk up your mayonaise
Add all the remaining ingredients and adjust seasoning

light carbonara

Just joking, it's Carbonara - it's probably never going to be light! I did try to lighten this classic up just a bit this time around though. Carbonara is one of those convenient dishes that I always like to whip up when in a pinch. It's certainly filling and very quick to make. The sauce is a mix of egg yolks, cream and Parmesan. You add it to the pasta right before serving along with bacon and peas. You should be able to get everything ready in the eight minutes it takes to cook pasta. Can't go wrong there!

Unfortunately I didn't have any cream this time around, so I decided to sub in yogurt. This worked out better than expected. The yogurt gave the Carbonara a tart flavor, almost as if I'd added a little lemon juice. Definitely noticeably lighter than the original, but certainly not lacking any flavor. I also didn't have any peas, but I did add in some basil. Of course, you can really mix in just about anything you want to this dish. Asparagus, fresh cherry tomatoes, green beans... anything along those lines would work well I think. Just don't forget the bacon - that would obviously be a terrible shame!

Tom's Light(er) Pasta Carbonara (serves 2)
10oz your favorite pasta
4-6 strips thick bacon, cut into small squares
2 large egg yolks
1/4 cup plain yogurt
1/4 cup grated parmesan
Salt + Pepper
4 basil leaves, chopped

Directions
Cook your pasta in salty water according to the directions on the box
Cook your bacon to your liking
Mix the egg yolks, yogurt, parm, salt, pepper, and basil in a bowl
Strain the pasta when it is cooked through (save a bit of the pasta water to thin out the sauce if necessary)
Mix everything together, but don't cook the sauce, just let the residual heat do the work

Enjoy!

chilled tomatillo and cucumber soup

Sounds like it's been unseasonably warm in a good portion of the country this week. Here's a cool soup that's perfect for hot summer days. It's also a great use of tomatillos (I always seem to default to making salsa verde with them otherwise...) A little heat from some sriracha or your favorite hot sauce goes a long ways. And don't be afraid to try other herbs instead of basil as garnish. Dill, cilantro, and/or mint would work well here too.

Chilled Tomatillo and Cucumber Soup (serves 4-6)
1tbls oil
1 large onion, diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
4 large cucumbers, seeded and roughly chopped
5 tomatillos (1lb), husks removed and chopped rougly
3-4 cups chicken or vegetable stock + 3-4 cups water
1/4 cup of cilantro, finely chopped
Juice from 1 lime

Salt and Pepper to taste
Garnish: Yogurt, Hot Sauce, Basil

Directions
Cook onions and garlic for 5 minutes over medium heat in a large pot
Add tomatillos and cucumbers and continue cooking 5 minutes
Add liquids (enough to cover by an inch or two) and bring to a boil
Remove from heat, add lime and cilantro, and let cool
Blend in blender or with immersion blender until smooth. Thin out with more water if necessary.
Adjust seasoning (you'll probably need a fair amount of salt, especially when its completely chilled)
Serve cold with garnishes

bean salad

Contrary to what you might think, I actually cook simple meals more often than not. Tonight's dinner - a warm black bean salad with half an avocado. The key here is that this is an extremely flexible dish. Missing an ingredient? No lime? Use vinegar. Don't like peppers, use cucumbers. Think beans make you fart too much? Skip them altogether and make a veggie salad instead!

Tom's Black Bean Salad (Serves 4)

2 cans black beans, strained; or 250g dried black beans soaked overnight and cooked in boiling water for about two hours, or until soft
1/4 cup olive oil
2 shallots, sliced
2 cloves garlic, minced
2-3 ears corn, kernels cut off
1 green bell pepper, small dice
1 serrano pepper, minced
3-4 tomatoes, diced
1/4 cup parsley and/or cilantro chopped
1 lime, juiced
1/2 tbls dijon mustard
Salt&pepper

Directions
Heat olive oil over medium heat and gently cook shallots, garlic, and serrano for 5 minutes
Add corn and bell pepper and continue cooking for 5 more minutes, then let cook 10 minutes
Mix all ingredients together, making sure to get all the oil out of the pan (salad dressing!)
Adjust seasoning and enjoy.

vietnamese (inspired) noodle and shrimp

My introduction to Vietnamese food some 15 years ago was a bowl of room temperature vermicelli noodles topped with grilled pork, various herbs, peanuts and a bowl of a fish sauce concoction on the side. I didn't quite know exactly what I was eating, but I knew I liked it - a lot. While I eventually went on to discover all the other dishes that make Vietnamese cuisine one of my favorites, Bún Thịt Nướng and other noodle dishes still hold a special spot in my heart.

With the temperatures now hovering awfully close to 100 during the day in Atlanta, a cool noodle salad seemed like a perfect dish to have for dinner tonight. I didn't really feel like making the dish as authentically as possible. Instead of grilled shrimp which is more traditional, I made a delicious shrimp cake flavored with lemongrass, ginger, garlic, and fish sauce (a poor man's crab cake!). I also opted to serve the whole thing on a plate instead of a bowl, since it just seemed to work better with the ingredients I had. The lettuce was tossed with nuoc cham (dipping sauce), a little canola oil, and some coconut vinegar. The noodles were topped with a mix of cilantro, basil, and mint. Of course, I didn't want to stray too far from the original, so the whole thing was served with plenty of nuoc cham on the side. yum!

Shrimp Cake (Serves 2)

1/2 lb raw shrimp, peeled and cleaned
     1/3lb roughly chopped with knife
     1/6lb pulsed in a blender
2 Tbls oil
1/2 onion, small dice
1 stalk of celery, small dice
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 tbls ginger, minced
1 serrano pepper, minced
1/2 stalk of lemongrass, minced
1 tbls fish sauce
2 tbls mayo
2 tsp mustard
1/3 cup bread crumbs, fresh if possible

Slowly cook the onion, celery, garlic, ginger, pepper, and lemongrass on a skillet with 1 tbls oil on medium heat, 10 minutes. Let cool 5 minutes.
Mix all the ingredients together and shape 2-4 patties. The pulsed shrimp binds everything together, but you may need to adjust the bread crumbs depending on the type you use.
Cook 2-3 minutes per side, or until cooked through, on medium high heat using the remaining oil.

Nuoc Cham
1/3 cup lime juice
2/3 cup water
5 tbls fish sauce (I use 3 Crabs brand)
4 tbls sugar
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 serrano pepper, minced

Mix all ingredients, dissolve the sugar, and adjust all ingredients to taste. I added just a touch of vinegar to mine to brighten the flavors. Serve cold.

Other Ingredients
Chopped lettuce, sliced cucumber, and strips of carrots
Chopped mint, cilantro, and basil
Chilled cooked vermicelli rice noodles (1/3lb = 2servings)
Salad dressing: nuoc cham, canola oil, white wine vinegar

american pumpernickel

What the heck is pumpernickel anyway? Well, in Westphalia (Germany), it's an extremely dense, crustless bread, made with rye flour and cooked very slowly to achieve a deep brown color, sweet, dark chocolate, coffee flavor, and earthy aroma. Not bad...

In the US however, pumpernickel is an entirely different beast. Instead of relying on a slow baking process, American bakers add molasses, coffee, or cocoa to emulate the flavors of the original German bread. Wheat flour is also usually added to help provide additional lift. On its own, rye flour doesn't have that much gluten, so you have to add something to get create the gluten structure that results in a light crumb. By using wheat and all-purpose flour, and a faster cooking time, you get crusty, light loaf. Carraway seeds are also almost always added to pumpernickel bread in the US to give it a unique anise-like flavor.

With all do respects to the Germans, a light, crusty loaf sounds far more appealing to me. So that's what I set out to recreate today. The resulting loaf was pretty much exactly what I was after, even though I didn't use wheat flour. I did however use the now well known no-kneed recipe, my homemade sourdough starter, and a fair amount of all-purpose flour. The only thing I would do differently is lower the cooking temperature. At 500F the bottom of the loaf burned a little (because of the molasses).

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Tom's No-Kneed Pumpernickel Bread

Ingredients
100grams sourdough starter (or 1/4 teaspoon commercial yeast, and add 50g AP flour and 50g water)
15g salt
250g water
150g rye flour
200g AP flour (can replace with 100g AP and 100g Wheat Flour)
50g mollases
10g carraway seeds
10g cocoa powder

Directions
Stir all ingredients together until dough is "shaggy"
Let rest 12-16 hours at room temp, covered with kitchen towel
Pour dough out onto flowered surface and let rest 15 minutes
Shape into ball and place in very lightly oiled bowl for 2nd rise - 2hours
Preheat oven to 450F
Cook bread in covered Dutch Oven for 35 minutes (pyrex or cast iron dishes work as well)
Remove lid and finish cooking for 15-20 minutes

khao man gai

Everyone else is doing it, so now it's my turn! Khao man gai is the Thai version of chicken rice. Much like it's Singaporean counterpart, Hainese Chicken Rice, it has a legion of devout followers. Everyone is very particular about exactly how the dish is prepared, so I'm not going to claim my take on it as anything other than my version of the dish!

My inspiration comes from many street-side meals I enjoyed while studying in Thailand. While it looks deceptively plain, the dish couldn't be more flavorful. More recently, my good friend Lan, posted about the dish in her blog. Our friend Steph also made the dish recently, and has been soliciting input from her parents in Thailand. Add that to the plethora of recipes online, and deciding exactly which technique I was going to follow was surprisingly hard. In the end, like Lan, I followed this bloggers recipe and adjusted it slightly. Here's how it went down:

Chicken

• Bring enough water to submerge your small chicken to a boil.
• Add 2 tbls salt and a few slices of ginger to the water.
• Dunk the chicken in boiling water and bring the water back to a boil.
• Turn off the heat, cover the pot, and let stand for 50 minutes (for 3.25lb bird, adjust for different size birds)
• Remove the chicken from the hot water and dunk it into an ice bath to bring it back to room temperature.

Rice

• Use the broth from the chicken to cook some long grain Jasmine rice.
• I used a 1:1 ratio of rice to broth, and rinsed the rice first. I recommend following the directions on the rice bag.
• I added 1 whole clove of garlic, a pinch of salt, a dash of soy sauce and 2 slices of ginger into the water
• I cooked the rice in a rice cooker.

Sauce

• I followed Lan's recipe, but I used fermented bean paste, not black bean sauce. 
• I also cut the recipe down by half, which should be plenty for 2-4 people.

Soup

• I brought some of the broth back to a boil and seasoned it with salt.
• I added some chopped kale before serving.

Green Mango Salad
In addition to all this deliciousness, I also made a green mango salad. I bought a new serrated peeler to help me cut green mangoes (or papayas) into thin strips, and it worked like a charm. All this made for a ton of food, but it was well worth it!

Ingredients (serves 2)
1 green mango, cut into very thin strips
4-8 cherry tomatoes, halved
2-4 green beans, cut into 3/4" pieces
handful of toasted peanuts

Dressing
1 tbls fish sauce
1 tbls sugar
1 tbls lime juice
1 tbls dried shrimp (optional)
1 small clove garlic, minced
2-3 small chilies, finely diced (to taste)

Just mix everything up and your good to go!

garifuna tapado

As you may have noticed, I get much of my inspiration in the kitchen from my past travels. A couple years ago, I went on a whirlwind 10-day tour of Guatemala. In that time I managed to climb a (very) active volcano, visit the amazing Spanish influenced town of Antigua, tour the ancient Mayan ruins of Tikal (also known as Yavin 4 for you Star Wars nerds), kayak across beautiful Lake Atitlan, and finally spend some time in the remote Garifuna influenced Caribbean port-town (turned back-packer destination) of Livingston.

Of all the places I visited, the best food memory I have is of a delicious coconut and seafood soup I thoroughly enjoyed in Livingston called Tapado. As is often the case when different cultures mix, people adopt the best parts of each cuisine and develop something unique and exciting. Tapado is just that, a beautiful soup influenced by the Maya, Garifuna and Ladino people of the region.

One recipe kept appearing in all my Google searches, but frankly, it just didn't seem complete, so I adapted it slightly. The soup base is fresh coconut milk. It's seasoned with ground annatto (achiote), salt, pepper, oregano, and cilantro. I also added a bit of garlic and ginger to the mix. Veggies include onion, red bell pepper, tomato, and a mix of starches (yuca, green bananas, ripe plantains, ripe bananas are most typical). Finally, the recipe recommends adding snapper, but what I had in Livingston had a mix of fish and shellfish. Crabs, welks, shrimp, snapper, pretty much whatever is fresh out of the ocean will work very well.

I did learn to make fresh coconut milk for this recipe. To do so, you simply take a brown coconut, remove the meat from the inside and then blend it with a 3-4 cups of hot water. After the coconut meat is finely ground, you strain out the liquid and that's your coconut milk. Much lighter than the stuff you get in a can! I didn't use any yuca, but I did throw in a ripe plantain, a green banana, and a couple small boiling potatoes. For the seafood, I used two lively blue crabs, a handful of whole shrimp, and some small whole white perch, which I initially seared with the garlic & ginger.

So, the end result? Well as you can see above, the soup turned out to be a bit more of a stew. I added a few too many starchy ingredients I guess, but that didn't diminish the flavor. It was relatively easy to prepare, but a bit more challenging to eat - crab, whole shrimp, and whole fish made for a messy dinner. To simplify, you could certainly use pealed shrimp, fish filets and larger crabs. The flavors were great though, and the whole thing is very filling. Below is a picture of the bowl of Tapado I ate in Livingston - obviously the main difference is that the broth was much thinner. Otherwise, not bad for a first try.

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Garifuna Tapado (serves 3-4)

Ingredients
1 brown coconut
4 cups hot water

1 tbls canola oil
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 tsp ginger, minced

1 medium onion, large dice
1 red bell pepper, large dice
1/2 tsp ground annatto
1/2 tsp dried oregeno
1/4 tsp black pepper
1 tbls salt (to taste)
1 bay leaf

6-8 small boiling potatoes, halved
1 green banana, sliced

1 very ripe plantain, sliced
1 large tomato, large dice2 blue crabs
8 large shrimp, deveined
4 small perch

2 tbls cilantro, chopped for garnish

Directions

• peal the coconut, cut the meat into small chunks and blend in hot water until very finely chopped
• strain coconut water and reserve
• cook garlic and ginger in oil over medium heat (1 minute)
• add onion, pepper and spices, and cook over medium-high until onions begin to soften (3-4 minutes)
• add coconut milk and bring to a boil
• add potatoes and green banana and cook on medium high heat until almost tender (8-10 minutes)
• add a little water if you need to thin it out and bring back to a boil
• add plantain, tomato, and seafood and cook until everything is cooked through (4-5 minutes)

Serve hot with cilantro garnish and enjoy!

kung pao shrimp

It was a pleasure seeing some of you in Chicago this weekend at the Kellogg reunion. Thanks for all the input and kind words about the blog. Certainly good inspiration for me to keep at it.

Although thoroughly exhausted from the long weekend, the first thing I did when I got home was to jump back into the kitchen. There wasn't a ton to work with in the fridge, but there was just enough to pull together a pretty delicious plate of Kung Pao Shrimp. Back when I ate Chinese food three times a week from Won's Oriental Restaurant as an undergrad, the Kung Pao Chicken was one of my go-to favorites. God only knows how many pounds (tons?) of the stuff I ate. Spicy, crunchy, salty, tangy, and slightly sweet sweet... what more could you want?!

I did a bit of research post-cooking, to read up on the history of this dish. Feel free to read the full story here, but basically it was created in the 19th century by a Qing Dynasty official in the Szechuan province. The original version of the dish is made with Szechuan peppercorns, which provide that unique mouth numbing sensation. Since the US banned the imporation of Szechuan peppercorns until 2005 (for fear that they would carry a tree disease that can wipe out entire crop of citrus trees), the version of Kung Pao that became popular in the US used different types of chilies. Not the end of the world, but it was certainly lacking that numbing sensation that only the Szechuan peppercorns can provide.

Since I didn't actually have any chicken in the fridge I went with whole shrimp I had stashed away in the freezer. Yes whole! As in not guillotined! Gasp! Using whole shrimp is a phenomenal way to add A TON of flavor into your shrimp dishes. Not only does it add a certain sea urchin-like sweetness to the dish, but it helps add flavor to the shrimp meat itself. If you have the option of cooking with whole shrimp, do yourself a favor and give it a shot. Peeling the shrimp at the dinner table makes it a bit messier to eat, but I guarantee you won't be disappointed.

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Kung Pao Shrimp (Serves 2)

Ingredients
1/2 tsp canola oil (ideally infused with szechuan peppercorns)
1/4 tsp sesame oil
1/4 cup unroasted peanuts (using roasted is ok)
1/2 large onion, sliced or diced
1 large carrot, sliced
2 celery ribs, sliced
1 large bell pepper, diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
1" knob ginger, minced

1/2 lb shrimp (use any protein here)


Sauce
2 tbls soy sauce
1 tbls Shaoxing rice wine (sherry wine is a good substitute)
1 tsp brown sugar
1 tsp rice wine vinegar (apple cider vinegar is a good substitute)
1 tsp oyster sauce
2 tbls chili sauce, adjust to taste (use Szechuan peppercorns if you can!)
1 tsp cornstarch
2 tbls water

Directions
If using unroasted peanuts, stir fry on high heat in the canola and sesame oil (1min), otherwise skip this step
Add in vegetables (including garlic and ginger) and stir fry on high heat (5min)
Disolve cornstarch in water
Add all ingredients into the vegetables and cook till shrimp are cooked through (3-4min)
Do not overcook the shrimp!!!!!!!
Serve with white rice