Recipes & Cooking: October 2003 Archives

I had a nice time here. We were looking for a place to eat around NYU at about 10 Monday night (a couple places we tried were closed), and someone said he ate at Bar Pitti a lot. It's crowded, with warm yellow walls (as far as I remember) and mirrors. Their specials menu, which is written on small chalkboards and is in Italian, is about as long as their regular menu, and features lots of specialties that regulars recommend: meatballs, a daily parpadelle, etc.

I wasn't very hungry, so I had some kind of cured meat, thinly sliced, very mild with pliable sheets of Parmesan and sliced arugula. The other dish I tried, some kind of sausage with lentils, was pretty good. Todd had a pork sandwich and someone else had a spaghetti-type pasta with, I think, garlic, artichokes, leeks, olive oil, tomatoes. (I almost ordered that, but you know you can't have duplicates when you try a new place.) Everyone seemed happy. It was reasonably priced for Italian, and fairly good. I'll go back (although I hear it's usually pretty crowded during normal dining hours).

This was easy to scale down to one (actually two, but I like leftovers), from Food & Wine. First you saute about 1/3 pound 1-inch chicken cubes in olive oil until browned, then take them out of the pan and add 1/2 diced onion and 1 leek, sliced thin, reserving some for garnish. (This was the first time I used a leek, and I cut it in half lengthwise, then sliced it thin and put it in a bowl full of water and swished it around with my hands. The leek pieces float to the top and the sediment settles at the bottom of the bowl, so I skimmed the leek off the top of the water and shook it dry, then put it in the pan.) Cook until they start to soften, then add 1 cubed sweet potato and saute another 3 minutes. Then add 1 1/2 cups chicken broth, 1 bay leaf, a pinch or two of sage, salt, pepper and the chicken and simmer until chicken is opaque and potato is soft. Then I mashed some of the potato cubes with a potato masher right in the pot, added 1/2 cup milk and sprinkled with the reserved raw leek slices (these fresh, crunchy leek slices are have a sharp, oniony flavor and contrast with the sweetness of the soup). I love savory sweet potato dishes, and this was good and relatively healthy.

I've wanted to take another crack (haha, ugh) at making a cheesecake, and I had leftover almond paste so I thought I'd make this recipe. The cake has a good, kind of firm texture and is not too sweet. A pretty strong almond flavor, too, but not overpowering. This one cracked, too, while cooling, but the crack seemed to close up at the cake continued to settle. Plus you cover the top with the sour cream topping.

This is what Todd usually orders when we go to Cabana (or one of his usuals), so when I saw the recipe in Food and Wine I decided to make it. We started with about a 2-pound London broil-type steak, beef shoulder or something like that. We were making half a recipe (the full recipe supposedly made 8 servings, although we're going on 7 servings now with half the recipe). Todd cut it in three pieces, with the grain, seasoned it liberally with salt and pepper, and browned it on both sides in a little bit of oil over high heat. Then he added 4 cups of water and a bay leaf, and the whole thing simmered for 1 hour 40 minutes. I turned the meat over halfway through.

Removed the meat from the pan and set aside 1 1/2 cups of liquid, which looked like beef stock (discarded the rest). Sauteed 1 each thinly sliced red and green bell pepper and white onion until everything was getting soft and the onion was browning, then added 7 minced garlic cloves. Added the reserved liquid, 1 14-ounce can whole tomatoes crushed with my hands, a cinnamon stick, 4 whole cloves, another bay leaf and a couple tablespoons of capers. Simmered for about 20 minutes, then added the meat back in to heat. We ate it with rice.

Last night we had leftovers wrapped in flour tortillas with diced avocado, scallion, lime juice and Frank's hot sauce. I preferred it that way.

I used almond paste for the first time this weekend. It was this modest, old-fashioned looking little can I found on the baking aisle, so I had one of those sticker-shock moments when it rang up at five dollars. I'm not cheap, I just had a limited amount of cash on me and it was sitting there next to the 99 cent packages of sugar, so . . . I sound so naive.

I even pulled out my food processor for this one, and mixed 1 stick butter with 1/4 cup almond paste until smooth, then added 1 1/4 cup confectioners' sugar and 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract, then combined. Dropped 4 egg yolks (I freeze the whites) and 2 whole eggs, one at a time, through the tube while the processor was running. Added 1/4 cup sour cream and processed to combine.

In a large bowl I mixed 1/2 cup each cornmeal and cake flour and 1 teaspoon baking powder, then added the mixture from the food processor and folded it all in together. Baked it in a buttered and floured 9-inch round cake pan, 350 degree oven, for I think 30 minutes, until the top was golden and the sides were pulling away from the pan. It actually wouldn't come out of the pan so I just left it in there and cut slices straight out of it (the buttered-floured pan never works for me). Great light texture, with a little of that cornmeal graininess, and the scent of almonds. It was best warm, but good even after it had cooled off.

Now I have about 1/2 cup of the almond paste left to try in something new.

A coworker brought me some figs from the trees in her yard, so I made some jam with the ones I couldn't eat fast enough. It was an epicurious recipe, but I didn't have any lemon juice, so I used balsamic vinegar (I know it sounds kind of gross, but it turned out pretty good). It was basically sugar and water boiled together until the sugar was dissolved, then I added quartered figs, a splash of the vinegar and some cloves and cardamom pods. Once the figs were soft and the liquid was thick, I stirred in some toasted sesame seeds, which also sound weird but give the jam a nice toasty taste. The first day this was good, but it got even better the next few days, almost perfumed. I ate it with goat cheese on a toasted baguette.

A coworker brought me some figs from the trees in her yard, so I made some jam with the ones I couldn't eat fast enough. It was an epicurious recipe, but I didn't have any lemon juice, so I used balsamic vinegar (I know it sounds kind of gross, but it turned out pretty good). It was basically sugar and water boiled together until the sugar was dissolved, then I added quartered figs, a splash of the vinegar and some cloves and cardamom pods. Once the figs were soft and the liquid was thick, I stirred in some toasted sesame seeds, which also sound weird but give the jam a nice toasty taste. The first day this was good, but it got even better the next few days, almost perfumed. I ate it with goat cheese on a toasted baguette.