Tucson Bound

Tomorrow, Andy and I are trading in the brownstones and blustery winds of Brooklyn for the sand and Saguaro cactus of Tucson. We’re on a three-day scouting trip to see what Andy thinks of the University of Arizona, but I’ve got another agenda: to eat lots and lots of Mexican food.

The regional cuisine is actually called Sonoran Mexican, named for the desert that stretches from Mexico through Baja California and Arizona. My research tells me that the local specialties range from chimichangas (deep-fried burritos), menudo (tripe soup), and the Sonoran hot dog.

This final delicacy is a hot dog wrapped in smoked bacon topped with ketchup, mayo and salsa. Not my typical fare, but all my healthy eating rules go out the window on vacation (especially where Cheetos are involved).

Vacations offer a welcome excuse to ignore your cell phone, your email, and your diet. While I don’t advocate gorging yourself on food you could get at home (unless, again, we’re talking about Cheetos), I do think you’re particularly obliged to try as many local foods as you can. Although I am still a bit squeamish about eating cow stomach (the tripe that comprises the menudo), I may have a flash of bravery in the end.

More on our Tucson culinary excursions when we’re back next week. Hasta luego!

Lemon Pudding Cakes

I have an extreme fondness for lemon desserts. Lemon curd is my favorite, especially when served atop lemon pound cake with a dollop of whipped cream. And while I'm not a big donut fan, I always gravitate to the lemon-filled at Krispy Kreme, fantasizing that one day, the artificial lemon filling will actually taste as good as homemade Meyer lemon curd. I shall keep dreaming.

Last night I had a few friends over for dinner, and I once again found myself serving a lemon dessert. In fact, the entire meal had either lemons or orange in it, but the lemon pudding cake recipe was the impetus for the rest of the dishes, and a perfect ending point. The cake gave me exactly what I love about my favorite lemon curd and pound cake combo, without all the extra work, and with considerably less butter.

You prepare the batter almost as you would a souffle - the key to the lightness of the cakes is beating the egg whites until firm, and folding them into a mixture of sugar, flour, milk, lemon juice, and egg yolks. My favorite part about these cakes is that they had a pillowy denseness at the top crust, but the bottom was like a pudding - fabulous! We had ate ours with blueberries on top, but I think the lemon flavor shines better on its own. Next time I will try this with Meyer lemons.

Lemon Pudding Cakes
(recipe from foodandwine.com)

Ingredients:

• 3/4 cup granulated sugar
• 1/3 cup all-purpose flour
• 3 large eggs, separated
• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 1 cup skim milk
• 5 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
• 1 teaspoon finely grated lemon zest
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• Fresh raspberries or blackberries, for serving

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 350°. Spray six 6-ounce ramekins with vegetable oil spray. In a medium bowl, whisk the sugar with the flour. In another bowl, whisk the egg yolks with the butter until well blended. Whisk in the milk, lemon juice and lemon zest. Pour the lemon mixture into the sugar mixture and whisk until smooth.
2. In a medium bowl, beat the egg whites with the salt until firm peaks form. Gently fold the egg whites into the lemon mixture. Pour the batter into the prepared ramekins and transfer them to a small roasting pan. Place the pan in the oven and pour in enough hot water to reach halfway up the sides of the ramekins.
3. Bake the pudding cakes for 35 minutes or until they are puffy and golden on top. Using tongs, transfer the ramekins to a rack to cool for 20 minutes. Serve the cakes in the ramekins or run a knife around the edge of each cake and unmold onto plates. Serve warm or at room temperature with the berries.

The CA Beef Recall

If you (like me) have the habit of checking nytimes.com and cnn.com every morning to see what national news unfolded overnight, then you most likely saw that the USDA is recalling 143 million pounds of beef from a California meat packing company, Hallmark/Westland (read more here).

There are lots of disturbing details here, but the most appalling to me is that the meat was recalled not because it was proven to carry e. coli, listeria or another foodborne bacteria, but because the company slaughtered "downer" cows - those cows which can no longer walk. The USDA prohibits the slaughter of diseased or disabled animals because these animals are more suseptible to illness, and pose a greater risk for contaminating the food supply.

The Humane Society of the United States released this video, shot last year, of downer animals being abused at the Hallmark plant in Chino, CA. Workers are seen kicking the animals in the back of a truck, ramming them with the prongs of a forklift, and carrying and dumping the dehabilitated cows onto the ground.

These graphic images should cause anyone who doesn't already question the origin of the animal food they eat - be it poultry, fish, pork or beef - to take pause. Often times we have no way of knowing where our food comes from and how it was treated, especially when eating out. If these things are important to you, at the grocery store you can choose organic meat and poultry, or those that are certified humane. The Certified Humane website offers fact sheets, information for consumers, and a link to find certified humane products in your area.

Obviously, you pay a premium when you purchase humane meat and poultry, so I rarely eat beef, and only eat chicken once or twice a week. In the Northeast, you can by Murray's chicken, which is certified humane and comes from a collective of small family farms in Pennsylvania. You just have to put your blinders on when you see the boneless-skinless chicken breasts for 99 cents a pound for sale next to the organic and free range chicken, which goes for $2.29-$7.49 a pound, depending on what cut you buy.

Meat by no means has to be the centerpiece of every meal. Why not try chickpeas and lentils? I particularly love red lentils, and one of my favorite ways to prepare them is with spicy red curry paste. The following recipe is low in fat, high in fiber, and pleasingly colorful on your plate. Serve it over jasmine rice.

Spicy Lentils with Spinach, Tomatoes and Chickpeas

1 1/2 Tbs. extra virgin olive oil
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 tsp. Thai red curry paste
1 C. red lentils, rinsed and picked through
1/4 C. orange juice
1 C. diced tomatoes, with the juices
1 1/2 C. water
1 14.5 oz. can chickpeas, drained and rinsed
6 oz. baby spinach
salt and pepper to taste
rice for serving

In a large pot or dutch oven, heat the olive oil over medium heat. Add the garlic and saute 1 minute until fragrant. Add the curry paste and with a wooden spoon or rubber spatula, smash the garlic together with the paste.

Add the lentils and stir to coat with the garlic curry paste mixture, about 30 seconds. Add the orange juice, tomatoes and water to cover. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to simmer until lentils are tender, about 15 minutes.

When the lentils are almost tender, add the chickpeas to heat through. Then add the spinach and continue to simmer until the spinach is wilted. Season with salt and pepper to taste, and serve over rice.

Makes 4 servings.

Brooklyn Biscuit-off

My brother Brian is in town for the weekend from Seattle, and in the spirit of sibling rivalry, I suggested that we have some sort of cooking competition. We somehow settled on biscuits. I'm not sure why I thought I could take him on, since I've only made biscuits once before. My brother, on the other hand, claims to be a pretty good biscuit maker. His recipe is posted to his blog.

We couldn't just eat biscuits for dinner, so inspired by the Williams & Sonoma catalog I recently received with a shout-out to New Orleans on the cover, I decided to try making etouffee (not buy more stuff from W&S).

Etouffee, as I mentioned in my new year's resolution post, is a Creole dish that I love but have never tackled before. It's simple enough: make a roux of oil and flour, add in some chopped onion, celery, garlic and green pepper. Sweat the veggies for a bit, then finish off with cayenne, Cajun spices, parsley, tomatoes and some liquid (I used bottled clam juice) to get it all simmering just right. Throw in some shrimp when the veggies are finally tender. You end up with a lusciously rich gravy that you "smother" over some rice (hence, the French word etouffee means 'smothered' or 'suffocated').

Brian assisted with a tasty side of okra and tomatoes, and homemade banana pudding with pound cake. We were sure to be in pain later.

But let us not digress from the biscuit competition. Each cook was equally distracted with other dishes to pull off, but admittedly I had the home court advantage. I did warn him that I had no self-rising flour and my oven was a little cold. Also, I had no pastry cutter, the nifty tool used to cut butter into flour for biscuits and pie crust.

Brian's technique was impressive, choosing to freeze his butter, then grate it before incorporating with the flour. I thought I'd use my food processor, but at the last minute I panicked and decided instead to just break the butter with my fingertips and roll it into the flour. This is NOT the best way to incorporate butter into flour, from my limited knowledge of the subject, since the heat from your fingers is likely to melt the butter, which is not a desired outcome.

The goal of any pastry dough (again, limited knowledge here) is to coat each tiny grain of butter
with flour, so that when your pastry goes into the oven, each bit of butter melts and forms the flaky layers that we all find so appealing in the likes of croissants and other buttery delicacies.

Brian and I used equal amounts of flour, but I decided to use only 5 Tbs. of butter to Brian's 8 Tbs. (a half stick). We both used buttermilk. Aside from technique, the only other departure of note was that I used more baking powder, and I cut my biscuits into traditional circles, unlike Brian's squares. The squares don't leave you with annoying scraps of extra dough, however.

The biscuits came out in separate batches, but we had three volunteers on hand, armed with butter and jam, to test each entry, hot out of the oven.

The most satisfying part of the biscuit eating experience for me is going to separate the biscuit and having it flake apart into two perfect halves. I don't mean the way Pillsbury canned biscuits flake like layers of onion skin. There is something eerily wrong with those biscuits. But my biscuits didn't give nearly as easily as Brian's did, though his tasted drier.

Brian quickly revealed his secret was the fold the dough over on itself in two layer before rolling it out to achieve that perfect break.

Form aside, the group (Brian included), came to the conclusion that Brian's biscuits had the buttery flavor advantage, but they were too dry compared to mine. I was declared the winner.

The victory was anti-climactic for me. It's hard to feel supreme when you know the guy sitting next to you has been making cream puffs and pies since he was 15, and he didn't have to look at recipe for his biscuits, while you did. But the competition wasn't so important as the superb meal that followed.



Recipes we used:
Shrimp Etouffee (note - the extra 1/2 stick of butter at the end is not necessary)
Okra and Tomatoes (note - we substituted coriander for cardamom, and used frozen okra)