Would You Eat Human Cheese?

Posted by Robyn Lee, January 18, 2011 at 7:00 PM

Human-cow blend. [Photograph: itp.nyu.edu]

And by "human cheese" I mean cheese made of human milk. In case that could be misconstrued as anything else. (I don't want to know.)

Miriam Simun, a student of New York University's Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP), began her human cheese project last October to explore issues of sustainability, health, ethics, food systems, and biotechnology. You can view photos of the cheese and surveys with the milk donors at itp.nyu.edu/livingsystems. In her project statement she poses these questions on serving human cheese:

As we navigate the complex landscape of technologically modified food production, how do we understand what is natural, healthy, ethical? If we reject all technologically modified food in favor of what is 'natural,' how far back to do we go? If we are to welcome new technologies into our lives, how will we continue to redefine what is natural, normal and healthy? How will this change our relationship to each other, the natural world and ourselves? If we are determined to continue to enjoy our cheese, perhaps it is most natural, ethical and healthy to eat human cheese? And if not, what other biotechnological processes does this force us to reconsider?

At the ITP Winter Show last December, Simun shared three kinds of cheeses made of human milk mixed with goat or cow's milk—you can read more about the ingredients' origins and flavors and sign up for future tastings at miriamsimun.com. And if you want to help out Simun, the project is ongoing; in a recent interview at Food+Tech Connect, Simun says, "I am currently looking for more New York City based women that are interested in working with me."

Would you eat human cheese? If you're a woman, would you be interested in turning your milk into cheese?

[via Metafilter]

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Sake School: Misconceptions About Sake

Posted by Monica Samuels, January 18, 2011 at 6:15 PM

Editor's Note: Welcome to Sake School! Your professor will be Monica Samuels, who has trained with American Sommelier Association and the Sake Education Council. She was part of the first group to pass John Gauntner's SPC II Advanced Sake Specialist exam in 2008. She is also a Sake Educator for New York Vintners in Tribeca. Before her current role as Sake Ambassador for Southern Wine & Spirits of New York, Monica was the National Sake Sommelier for the SUSHISAMBA restaurant group. —The Mgmt.

[Photo: Hisashi Kobayashi]

Sake has been available in the U.S. for many decades; however, only in the past 20 years or so have we gained access to premium sake, which has opened the category up to a world of possibilities in food pairing and ways of consumption. Still, many myths about sake persist. Today, we'll debunk four very common ones.

Sake is alcohol made from a fermented grain. The evolution of starch to sugar to alcohol in sake is most similar to the process of making beer. Sake is made in sake breweries, and sake producers are referred to as brewers. Not only is it incorrect to label sake as rice wine, but it creates the impression that sake belongs in the ranks of cheap cooking wines like mirin and michiu.

If you've been to college-town sushi restaurants, you've probably seen kids getting wasted after one too many "sake bomb." They perch a sake glass on two chopsticks laid across a glass of beer. Everyone seated at the table pounds their fists on the table in unison and the glass falls into the beer. The whole drink is then consumed as quickly as possible.

It's also common to see sake served hotter than a cup of coffee, in a ceramic carafe with thimble-like vessels designed to knock the sake back in one gulp, boiling hot and devoid of all flavor. It's my firm belief that both these pastimes originated due to the lack of decent sake in the U.S.

We are now fortunate, though, to have access to hundreds of delicious premium sakes, and it would be a shame to serve them in a way that masked the flavor. It's a bit like choosing wine for sangria: when you make sangria, you mask most of the flavor of the wine with fruit and brandy. There's no reason to use a terribly fancy bottle. Similarly, if your sake is going to end up in the microwave or drowning in a pint of beer, you won't really taste it. But when you're lucky enough to be drinking the good stuff, take the opportunity to savor the flavors.

Excessive drinking of any type of alcohol will eventually cause a hangover. But there seems to be quite a bit of confusion regarding the alcohol level of sake. Sake yeast is only capable of fermenting a beverage until it reaches 20% alcohol, and the sake is usually diluted afterward to bring down the level of alcohol to 14 to 18% (closer to wine than to vodka, which is usually 35 to 70% alcohol.) This helps make sake food-friendly (and a beverage more suitable for sipping than slamming, which you should keep in mind if you want to avoid a hangover.) Premium sake also has no sulfites, additives or preservatives. Some people seem to be sensitive to sulfite presence in wine, but can avoid it by drinking sake instead.

Large format bottles of table sake are pretty inexpensive, but the same is not true for premium sakes, which are very expensive to produce.

Consumers who purchase sake in stores should expect to pay an average of $25/bottle (720ml) for a premium sake. It should be remembered that while a bottle of wine is considered by most to yield four glasses, a bottle of sake generally yields at least six. Also, while a bottle of wine should be consumed as quickly as possible and generally spoils within a few days, sake is more forgiving. If it is re-capped quickly after each opening and stored refrigerated, sake can be enjoyed for a couple of weeks after opening without too much change in flavor.

The best way to make yourself more comfortable around this exotic brew is to taste, taste, and taste some more. If you have sake questions, feel free to leave them in the comments. I'll have lots of answers for you in the coming weeks!

View the original article here

Cambridge, Massachusetts: Cambridge, 1

Posted by Andrew Janjigian, January 18, 2011 at 11:00 AM

[Photographs: Andrew Janjigian]

27 Church Street, Cambridge MA (map); 617-576-1111; cambridge1.us
1381 Boylston St., Boston, MA (map); 617-437-1111
Pizza style: Grilled
Oven type: Charcoal grill
Notes: Full bar
Price: Full pizzas, $13 to $30; half pizzas, $7 to $16

Cambridge, 1 is located in the heart of Harvard Square, in what used to be the the city's original firehouse, with a newer, much larger second location near Boston's Fenway park. Appropriately enough for a former fire station, this hip, minimalist bar, as popular with the locals as it is with Harvard glitterati, serves pizzas grilled over a charcoal fire. With its bustling, noisy atmosphere, capacious booths, and pizzas served on family-style oval plates, it's the kind of restaurant you can go to with a large crowd. Last week I headed over there to put Cambridge, 1's pizzas through their paces.

Because grilled pizza is cooked not in an enclosed oven, but over an open fire, with all of the heat coming from below, the sauce and toppings tend not to meld into a unified whole. At Cambridge, 1, the naked dough is cooked briefly on one side to set it and give it a touch of char, then flipped over before toppings are applied. Some toppings, such as the oil-and-vinegar dressed arugula, are placed on the pie right at the end of the bake, to prevent over-wilting. And the cheeses, which never see direct heat, are only minimally melted. As a result, the pizza at Cambridge, 1 is something of a hybrid between a pizza, an open-faced flatbread sandwich, and a salad.

Such caveats aside, these pizzas are very tasty. The crust gets a nice, smoke-flavored char on its underside, and despite its cracker-thin depth and crisp skin, it retains a soft, pliable, slightly dough interior. And the pies are, thankfully, never overcooked, an all too common occurrence with grilled pizza.

The most basic pie at Cambridge, 1 is the 'tomato, fontina, romano, garlic, basil'. Since the wafer-like crust cannot sustain a typical wet pizza sauce, the sauce here is simply drained, crushed canned plum tomatoes, with other seasonings applied separately. For the same reason, toppings too are applied minimally. The overall result is a light but intensely flavored pie, with slices that can be consumed in a few quick bites. Nearly every pie is garnished with a few piquant curls of sliced scallion.

The quality of the ingredients used at Cambridge, 1 is high. The lobster on the 'lobster, roasted shallots, mascarpone' pie (a surprisingly successful combination) was fresh-tasting, moist, and perfectly cooked. And, even in the dead of winter, the tomatoes on the 'spinach, artichoke hearts, chevre, slow-roasted tomato' pie were tangy and sweet.

The 'potato, fontina, rosemary' pie boasted thin slices of waxy new potatoes, a generous amount of rosemary, and a touch of fontina to bind it all together. For the 'arugula, fontina, parmigiano' pizza, the most salad-like offering on the menu, the lightly melted cheeses are placed under the lightly-dressed greens, the crust serving as crouton and plate at once.

My one minor complaint about Cambridge, 1's pizzas is that, because they draw upon a short list of toppings, used in a variety of permutations, one pizza can seem to blend into the next. That minor quibble aside, the grilled pizza at Cambridge, 1 makes for a very satisfying meal, and is well worth a visit.

View the original article here

Reality Check: Burger King's Jalapeño and Cheddar BK Stuffed Steakhouse

Posted by John M. Edwards, January 18, 2011 at 11:15 AM

[Photograph: Business Wire]

Burger King's recently released "Stuffed Steakhouse Burger" looks like pimento loaf. The posters might be some of the worst I've seen; who would want to eat a hamburger that looks like fruitcake? I've eaten some delicious onion-packed burgers, but something about the green and yellow chunks in a Burger King burger didn't seem appealing.

The BK Stuffed Steakhouse is the King's "Steakhouse" patty with jalapeno bits and cheese bits inside it. It's topped with "crisp" iceberg lettuce, "ripe" tomatoes, and a spicy poblano sauce, on a corn-dusted, toasted bun. Here's how the real thing stacks up to the advertised version.

Though I'd expected the burger itself to be the worst part of the creation, I was surprised. When I bit into it, I realized the burger wasn't that bad—but parts of the creation were. The lettuce was not crisp, as advertised; the pink, mealy tomatoes didn't taste like anything, and I stripped them from the burger. (Why do fast food joints offer toppings that don't add flavor?) Finally, the spicy poblano sauce wasn't very spicy; it tasted more like ranch mixed with ketchup.

The burger itself, though, wasn't bad. It has a lot of heat, more than the Whiplash Whopper and more than the Wendy's Spicy Chicken. You don't really notice the jalapenos texturally; they blend in with the rest of the burger. The benefit of having the cheese inside the burger means you actually get hot, melted cheese, as opposed to a refrigerator-cold slice of American, which happens all too often in fast food.

Some burger lovers might have trouble getting around BK's ever-present artificial smoke flavor, and if you don't like Burger King, this isn't going to convert you. But if you do like the King, it's worth a taste. I think it opens a lot of doors in fast food; I could see it leading to other stuffed burgers. I'd consider getting another Stuffed Steakhouse, but I'd order it plain.

Has anyone else tried it? What did you think?

View the original article here

Dinner Tonight: Vinegar-Glossed Chicken

The word "vinegar" doesn't have the best of reputations in every circle, and adding copious amounts of it to your dinner may not sound very appealing. It makes me think of harsh flavors, of wine gone off, or something under the sink used to sanitize my cutting board.

Why would I want to serve a chicken dish "glossed" with the stuff? Because not all vinegar is made the same, and because when you cook with vinegar, its hard tones tend to disappear. It becomes pungently sweet and balanced. Such is the case with this staple from Mad Hungry, which author Lucinda Scala Quinn reports has been in her weeknight rotation "for at least 20 years."

It adds glorious depth and acidity to what would otherwise be a ho-hum sauteed chicken dinner. Reduced to a glaze all over the chicken (along with the pan juices, garlic, rosemary, and chicken stock) it becomes sticky, sweet, salty, and delicious. A bed of polenta is perfect for catching all the extra juices so they don't go anywhere but in your mouth.

1/2 cup best-quality red-wine vinegar2 to 3 garlic cloves, minced3 sprigs of fresh rosemary leaves3 1/2 pounds bone-in chicken piecesCoarse salt and freshly ground black pepper3 tablespoons olive oil3/4 cup chicken broth, plus more as needed3 cups cooked polenta

View the original article here

Gluten-Free Tuesday: Sweet Tart Dough

[Photographs: Elizabeth Barbone]

I think of tarts the same way I think of sandwiches: you can fill them with almost anything and they taste great. And just as a good sandwich requires good bread, a tart needs a good crust.

This recipe makes a simple sweet* tart crust. How simple? Just cream together the butter (or shortening if you are dairy-free) and sugar and then add the dry ingredients. As soon as the dough comes together, press it into a tart pan. No rolling required! Since gluten-free dough lacks the structure gluten provides, it's delicate. If you press the dough into the pan, you don't have to deal with transferring the tender dough from the counter to the pan. After pressing the dough into the pan, chill it. Not chilling the dough can cause it to shrink during baking. So don't skip this easy step.

Full or Partial Bake? The tart filling determines the best way to bake the crust. If the filling does not require baking (like the chocolate ganache recipe I've included below) fully bake the crust, allow it to cool and then pour the filling into the fully baked crust. If your filing requires baking, such as a cheesecake-style filling, partially bake the crust until it is just barely begins to brown, fill it, and finish baking.

Whether you are fully or partially baking your crust, I don't recommend using pie weights to keep the dough from rising. Pie weights, by design, are heavy and do almost too good of a job keeping gluten-free crust from puffing. They tend to leave you with a dense crust instead of a delicate one. Before baking, simply pierce the crust all over with a fork. This prevents the crust from puffing up while not affecting its texture. If your crust does puff up slightly, gently press it down, using the back of a spoon, as soon as you remove the pan from the oven.

Filling Suggestions. I shared my recipe for a quick chocolate ganache filling below. In addition, here are some other filling suggestions:

Pastry CreamChocolate PuddingLemon CurdJamCheesecakeAssorted Fruits: Apples, Pears, Plums

Ingredient Note. In addition to being gluten-free, this recipe is also egg-free, soy-free, corn-free, and nut-free. If you're dairy-free, replace the butter in the recipe with an equal amount of solid non-dairy substitute, like shortening or coconut oil.

*If you love savory tarts, don't fret! I'll share a savory tart dough in an upcoming column.

About the author: Elizabeth Barbone of GlutenFreeBaking.com joins us every Tuesday with a new gluten-free recipe. Elizabeth is an alumna of the Culinary Institute of America and Mount Mary College. With her solid professional baking background, Elizabeth is known for creating gluten-free recipes that taste just like their wheat counterparts. She is the author of Easy Gluten-Free Baking.

For the Tart Dough4 ounces (1 cup) white rice flour1 1/4 ounces (1/4 cup) sweet rice flour1/2 teaspoon salt4 ounces (1 stick) butter, softened2 1/2 ounces (1/3 cup) granulated sugar2 teaspoons vanilla extractFor the Chocolate Ganache Filling16 ounces dark chocolate, chopped 16 ounces heavy creamOptional1/2 cup chopped nuts

View the original article here

A Sandwich a Day: Koagie at Myung Ga in Cherry Hill, NJ

Posted by Caroline Russock, January 18, 2011 at 12:30 PM

In this great country of ours, one could eat a different sandwich every day of the year—so that's what we'll do. Here's A Sandwich a Day, our daily look at sandwiches around the country. Got a sandwich we should check out? Let us know. —The Mgmt.

[Photograph: Caroline Russock]

Venturing out to Myung Ga in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, I was looking forward to a steaming bowl of sundubu jjigae and barbecued galbi but what I found instead was a pretty spectacular sandwich: the Koagie ($7.95).

Starting with a long, seeded roll (a Philadelphia-area sandwich staple), this Korean hybrid is stuffed with a sweet cabbage slaw, grilled scallions and onions, your choice of meat (bulgogi, chicken, or spicy pork), and kimchi, and served with spicy cucumbers on the side. I chose the bulgogi. The thinly sliced marinated beef gave the sandwich a cheesesteak-like feel—all those beefy, sweet, and spicy flavors. For now Myung Ga has the market corned on these fantastic koagies, but I believe the trend could spread, Korean taco style.

404 Marlton Pike East, Cherry Hill NJ 08034 (map)
856-216-0090 iliketofu.com

View the original article here

The Nasty Bits: Using Smoked Meats in Soups

Posted by Chichi Wang, January 18, 2011 at 1:45 PM

[Photographs: Robyn Lee]

Last week I punched a man in midtown Manhattan with the shank end of a ham bone.

I was walking on the street with a 20-pound thing of bone-in ham tucked underneath my left armpit when a man passing by slammed right into the end of the leg, right where a butcher detaches the trotter of the pig. The ham bone was left over from a ham tasting we did in December. The bone sat in Kenji's fridge for weeks until I mentioned that I was looking for smoked animal parts to use in my winter stews.

During the winter months my diet consists mostly of soups and stews, which offer everything I need dietary-wise. A hearty stew provides protein, fiber, and the added bonus of warmth. A big bonus if, like me, you have to constantly nurse hot beverages and soups in the winter months to stay sane and healthy.

I used to toss some fresh neck bones and pig's feet into the soup pot, but lately I've been thinking that stews benefit the most from smoked, bony meat. This is not to say that soups don't taste good with fresh meat. But in my opinion, adding smoked meat is the best thing you could be doing for your soup.

If you want depth of flavor, smoked meat has much more savory depth and cured complexity than fresh flesh. If you want convenience, a smoked meat product will keep for a long time with no need to defrost or plan ahead—simply start your soup and toss in the hunks when you're ready. Finally, the smoked meat product has the advantage of tasting smoked, which is obvious but pretty key considering how much better your broths will taste with a hint of something smokey.

To use your smoked meat parts in stew, simply add the parts into the soup pot at the beginning of cooking, after you've sweated your aromatics and added water or stock. Smoked meat parts in soup. Think about it: easy to use, flavorful, and delicious.

Which is why I felt it was worth my time and considerable walk around midtown Manhattan lugging a smoked ham leg. If not for the deafening sounds of traffic, then I'm sure I would have heard the slight thump of the ham bone as it went into the man's gut. I saw his eyes widen, then narrow quickly in pain.

"Oh my goodness!" I cried. "I am so, so, extremely sorry, sir."

I put down my ham bone and touched his forearm in concern.

"Are you alright?" I asked.

He was crouched over gripping his gut. Then he stood up straight and squinted down into the bag.

"Is, is that ham?" he asked incredulously.

"Yes, it's a bone-in Christmas ham."

"But it's not Christmas!" he exclaimed. He seemed more perturbed at the oddity of having run into a Christmas ham in Midtown than the actual impact of injury, which I took as a good sign. That was when I noticed the slight smear of fat on his expensive-looking wool coat.

"Oh dear, you have fat on your coat," I told him. "Could I help out with the dry-cleaning?"

He looked down. "No, that's alright. It should come off," he said. "But I've probably missed my train."

I reached into my bag and found a few chocolates and figs. "Here, have some chocolates and figs." I said.

"Thanks," he replied. "I was hungry."

We stood still for another few seconds or so, each wondering how to end our awkward, strange interaction.

"Well, I'm going to try to catch the next train," he said, walking away.

"Right. OK. Again, so sorry," I mumbled.

I picked up my ham bone and made sure this time that the bone was not pointing outwards. I felt badly about the whole incident. The man would not have run into my ham bone if he hadn't been brushing past people on the street. But then again, I think that reasonable people can expect to do some amount of rushing in Manhattan without the fear of running into a injurious pig part.

So here's my suggestion for this week: If you like stews and soups (and you're not a vegetarian), then get yourself to a grocery store and stock up on a variety of smoked animal parts and dried beans. If you've got those two key ingredients, then you'll be as happy as a beaver in a cozy den during the wintry weather.

Your grocery store will have a variety of smoked meat products for your eating pleasure and I'm willing to bet that almost all of them will be those humble, underappreciated animal parts that we so love to discuss on Nasty Bits.

Neck bones, one of my favorite ingredients in general, are utterly tasty when smoked. (Turkey, pork, and beef neck bones are usually available at butcher shops and ethnic grocery stores.)

Smoked ham hock, if you can get it, is extremely good as well because like neck bones, you get all the gelatin and bone you need for a full-bodied soup, plus a lot of smoked flesh.

Smoked turkey wings are also good additions. I bought this one from a guy selling smoked meat parts from a truck in Harlem. I do love Harlem.

Pig's tails, one of my favorite nasty bits parts, are wonderful smoked. Since the tail is especially fatty, you can brown the tail to render some of its fat and use the fat to saute the rest of the ingredients fro your stew.

Finally, since we're coming off the holidays, perhaps you too have a ham bone in your fridge and aren't sure of what to do with it. Bring the bone to your friendly butcher, flash him a winsome smile, and have him (or her!) cut the leg bone into manageable parts for you with a mechanical bandsaw. (Or maybe buy something first from the butcher counter and then flash that winsome smile.)

Whatever you do, just be sure not to use your ham as a lance when you're walking down the street.

View the original article here

Eat For Eight Bucks: Black Bean and Sweet Potato Chili

[Photograph: Phoebe Lapine of Big Girls, Small Kitchen]

Around this time two years ago, my best friend Keith and I hosted a chili cook-off. It was a memorable night of friendly competition. But perhaps the most notable part of the evening was that I made a vegetarian chili. And it won.

Meat chili is always delicious, and Keith's was no exception (a riff on this one). But we were cooking for 20 people, and part of my silent post-victory gloating had to do with the fact that his 10 pounds of losing brisket chili cost so much more than my winning humble cans of beans.

This recipe is not the same as that winning chili—I've been experimenting ever since with different veggie variations that put the old bowls of ground beef to shame. In this version, black beans get beefed up with chunks of sweet potatoes. The result is rich, sweet, and spicy, and should you be cooking for a group of your friends for the Super Bowl, it could be the perfect cheap option to impress your guests, even the guys.

Shopping List: 2 bell peppers, $0.50; 3 cans black beans, $2.50; 1 chipotle chile, $0.15 (prorated), $0.25; cilantro, $0.25 (prorated); 1 bottle of beer, $2.00; 1 can tomatoes, $2.00; 1 pound sweet potatoes, $1.00
Pantry Items: Olive Oil, Onion, Garlic, Salt, Cumin, Chili Powder
Total Cost (for 2 portions): $7.65

About the authors: Phoebe and Cara are the co-founders of Big Girls, Small Kitchen, a food and cooking website for twenty-something cooks looking for user-friendly, affordable ways to navigate their kitchens. They have a heated, decade-long rivalry about whose Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookie is the best. Their book, In The Small Kitchen, will be published in the spring of 2011 by William Morrow. Visit their blog here.

1 tablespoon olive oil1 medium yellow onion, diced1 orange pepper, diced1 red pepper, diced2 cloves garlic, minced1 teaspoon cumin2 teaspoons chili powder One 15-ounce can diced tomatoesThree 15-ounce cans black beans, rinsed and drained1 small chipotle chile pepper in adobo sauce, minced? cup chopped cilantro stemsKosher salt1 bottle dark beer1 pound sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into 1-inch cubes? cup chopped cilantro leaves1/2 lime (optional)sour cream (optional)

View the original article here

Cook the Book: Kashmiri Pilaf

I generally opt for steamed basmati rice to accompany my homemade curries but after trying out this Kashmiri Pilaf from Anjum's New Indian, I'm wondering, why settle for that when you can have an aromatic nut and fruit studded pilaf?

This pilaf begins with whole spices—cloves, cinnamon stick, bay, cardamom, and cumin—toasted in vegetable oil. Sliced onions are added to the pan and caramelized, followed by almonds and raisins. The rice is sauteed briefly to add toastiness and then cooked in a mix of water and saffron-scented milk. Fluffed with a fork and scattered with pistachios and lots of freshly ground black pepper, the pilaf is ready to go.

For a dish that contains barely any extra added fat at all, the flavors are incredibly rich thanks to the oily nuts, subtle saffron, and the heady, exotic mix of spices.

As always with our Cook the Book feature, we have five (5) copies of Anjum's New Inidan to give away this week.

Adapted from Anjum's New Indian. Copyright c 2010. Published by WIley. Available wherever books are sold. All Rights Reserved.

1/4 cup vegetable oil3/4 teaspoon cumin seeds3 inch piece of cinnamon stick3 cloves3 green cardamom pods 1 bay leaf1 small–medium onion, peeled and sliced2 tablespoons blanched almonds, roughly chopped2 tablespoons raisins1 cup basmati rice, rinsed until the water runs clear and soaked in water while cooking the onionsA good pinch of saffron strands, soaked in 2 tbsp hot milk 2 dried figs, choppedSalt and lots of freshly ground black pepper, to taste2 tablespoons walnuts or pistachios?

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This Week in America's Test Kitchen: Classic Pot Roast

This Week in America's Test Kitchen: Classic Pot Roast | Serious Eats Serious Eats Slice A Hamburger Today New York Photograzing Talk Recipes Follow us on Twitter!

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Pot roast can be boring and bland, full of dry, stringy meat, stubborn bits of fat, and wan gravy. The folks at America's Test Kitchen wanted a meltingly tender roast sauced in savory, full-bodied gravy.

To start, they separated the roast into two lobes, allowing them to remove the knobs of fat that refused to render, which also shortened the cooking time. Salting the roast prior to cooking improved its flavor, as did sauteing the onion, celery, carrot, and garlic before adding them to the pot.

Some recipes use water as a pot roast cooking liquid but when they tried it, the gravy turned out as you'd expect — watery. They had better luck with beef broth. Other flavor-boosting ingredients went into the pot as well: garlic, tomato paste, red wine, thyme, and bay leaves. The resulting gravy boasted a rich, complex character, but its flavor didn't stray from the dish's simple roots. Finally, sealing the pot with aluminum foil before securing the lid concentrated the steam for an even simmer and fork-tender meat.

Watch the video above and then visit America's Test Kitchen for the recipe. (Free registration required.)

2 Comments Favorite this! ?(1)

Tags: America's Test Kitchen, pot roast, This Week in America's Test Kitchen, videos

2 Comments:

Next time I make pot roast I'm going to use Frank's Wing Sauce as the cooking liquid, last time I made it with cream of mushroom soup and the roast came out bland.

redfish at 12:54PM on 01/18/11

LOL.

CoachF at 1:50PM on 01/18/11

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Game Day Recipe Roundup: Guacamole

Posted by Erin Zimmer, January 18, 2011 at 3:00 PM

[Photograph: Robyn Lee]

Ah, guacamole. The piece de resistance of the dips while you're glued to the game. One of my favorite press releases to receive all year is the one from the Hass Avocado Board (HAB) telling us how many pounds of 'cados we'll be consuming during Super Bowl festivities. This year: an estimated 69.6 million pounds. That's enough avocados to cover the Dallas Cowboys stadium field (where the Bowl will be held on February 6) from end zone to end zone, 26.9 feet deep!

Now that your mind's been blown, here are some traditional and more experimental guacamole recipes. Adding bacon: blasphemy?

But first: make sure you know how to cut an avocado, and then crank up the Guacamole Song.

View the original article here

Meet & Eat: Delilah Snell, Certified Master Food Preserver in Southern California

Posted by Tina Vasquez, January 18, 2011 at 5:45 PM

Delilah Snell, master food preserver, holding her giant, Ball-brand canning jar. [Photograph: Project Small]

The 1970s may have seen the growth of the organic food industry and environmental policy, but Delilah Snell did not grow up in the kind of home that placed any importance on eating organic or caring for the environment. Her parents worked at one of the biggest oil companies in the country and even at the age of 34, Snell is still the black sheep of her family.

She's the cool hippie aunt who started an indie arts and crafts festival with her niece and owns The Road Less Traveled, a combination green homewares store and quasi-community center, offering workshops and classes on cheese-making, fermentation, preserving, and canning, all taught by Snell, a certified master food preserver and owner of a fledgling small-batch preserve business called Backyard in a Jar.

Snell works non-stop, sometimes spending 18-hour days on food-related ventures, many of which she chronicles on her blog Project Small, which also features schedules of her upcoming classes, tips on how to make delicious things like honeyed kumquats, and seasonal recipes featuring items she found in her CSA basket.

Honeyed kumquats from Backyard in a Jar, based on a recipe from Linda Ziedrich's The Joy of Jam, Jellies, and Other Sweet Preserves. [Photograph: Project Small]

From her home base in Santa Ana, California, Snell is teaching everyone—from hipster food enthusiasts to wealthy, Orange County stay-at-home moms—how to make the most of each season, while introducing them to new, unfamiliar flavors like kimchi and her famous basil jelly.

Snell recently took a break to speak to me about her background in community activism, the unnecessary politicizing of organic food, and her new Jam Van. Here's what she had to say:

How did you get involved with this? After being a community activist in my 20s, I helped start a few community gardens and farmers' markets. Most of life's most important moments for me have been centered around food; what was made, what was eaten...The community helps with my business. People bring me fruits and vegetables to make preserves with or they call me and let me know what fruits I can pick from their trees. In turn, I'll give them a batch of whatever I make.

How exactly did you get your master food preserver certification? And what does it entail? About two years ago. I found out about a master food preservation course being offered in San Bernardino, so I took the three-month course and from there, I just started experimenting with my own recipes. To remain a master food preserver you have to volunteer between 40 and 60 hours a year, so once a month I set up a booth at the Hollywood Farmers' Market and give lectures, answer questions, do demonstrations, and sell preserves.

Learning about food preservation has helped me branch out. Now I'm working on infused liquors, cheese, olives, different kinds of salt. All kinds of stuff.

Snell answering questions at the Hollywood farmers' market. [Photograph: Project Small]

Why do you think so many young people are becoming interested in food preservation right now? For a lot of reasons. The economy, as a form of entertainment, and as a creative outlet for people who aren't artistically-inclined. The local/DIY movement has really been growing in the past five years. We're seeing people in their 20s screen printing, woodworking, and crafting. The local food movement has become a part of that whole DIY scene.

I also think it's because Americans have become very distrustful of big business. Big business is dishonest, takes advantage of people, pollutes the water, and the products they produce are killing us. The local food movement is really about people taking their food into their own hands and fighting back.

How do you feel about the local/organic movement turning political? I feel like it's been turned into a "liberal" cause, but it shouldn't be. Making your own food used to be a part of mainstream culture and because of the economic turndown, people are going back to that. I think it's for the better.

I'm the weirdo in my family, but I've managed to win their support by giving them canning classes and serving them my preserves. When you want to show someone that this isn't about politics or agendas, cook for them.

I cooked for my whole family over the holidays; I served my infused vodka, I made food using stuff from my CSA basket and they all loved it. You have to come at people with what they like and what they're familiar with. For example, my mom loves shopping, so I took her shopping at the Hollywood farmers' market. The day stopped being about our differing opinions and beliefs and it started being about food.

No arguing, just, "Oh my god, did you taste that peach? That peach was amazing. Let's buy those peaches and make something out of them."

Many people argue that the average American family doesn't have the time or money to cook from scratch, buy local, shop at farmers' markets, etc. What's your opinion on that? It's true and it isn't. Look, you don't have to make everything from scratch and do it every single day, but why not try to do it once a week or once a month? Why not?

Why not bake your own bread or make your own jam? Why not take your kids to the farmers' market? Sure, a carton of blueberries may cost $3.75, but the stuff you're getting at the grocery store comes from who-knows-where and it's filled with pesticides. You have to try. Saying you don't have the money or don't have the time doesn't cut it anymore.

Let's talk about your products. Where do you make your preserves and what else are you working on lately? My boyfriend and I recently moved into an old farmhouse in Santa Ana, so I spend every Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday canning and packaging out of my new home kitchen. I'm branching out, so this March I'll be teaching a cocktail class with Evan Kleiman at the Urban Crafts Center in Santa Monica.

What are your most popular preserves and where can people find your Backyard in a Jar line? People seem to love my basil jelly and peach habanero preserves. Right now you can buy my preserves from the Hollywood farmers' market and at Patchwork, the arts and crafts festival I started with my niece.

This year I'm really going to get this business off the ground. There are quite a few Los Angeles restaurants who've expressed interest in serving my preserves as part of cheese platters, so I'll be doing that and getting the word out on the Jam Van.

Backyard in a Jar's most popular preserve: Peach habanero. [Photograph: Project Small]

What is the Jam Van? My boyfriend and I recently restored a 1968 VW bus, so I'm going to use that as a mobile jam and pickle shop. I'm really excited about it. It's sort of a pop-up-shop and food truck all in one. There's an awning and a tasting area and people are really responding to it, so hopefully this year you'll be able to buy everything Backyard in a Jar offers from the Jam Van, including new flavors I'm working on, like lavender.

A lot of people are afraid to preserve food at home because of everything that could go wrong. What do you recommend for them? Taking a class is the best way to start. You'll learn about all of the safety precautions you should take, the science behind it all, and you'll usually walk away with a few recipes. I charge $75 for a class that usually lasts around three and a half hours, covering everything extensively and answering all of your questions.

I often teach classes out of my home. It's better than learning in an industrial kitchen because once you're on your own, you'll be canning in your home and not using professional equipment. At the end of the class, you take a crate of your own preserves home.

What people really need to know is that their preserves will taste a thousand times better than anything they're buying at the supermarket. Honestly, that stuff is crap. They're filled with chemicals and dyes to help them look normal and hide the fact that they were made with ingredients that weren't fresh.

Just stop being afraid and try it. I promise, you'll never go back.

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Marietta, GA: Suburban Tap's Diablo Burger Proves the Devil's in the Details

Posted by Todd Brock, January 18, 2011 at 2:30 PM

[Photographs: Todd Brock]

1318 Johnson Ferry Road, Marietta, GA 30068 (map); 770-977-4467; suburbantap.com
Cooking Method: Grilled
Short Order: The devil went down to Georgia, but the Diablo Burger is one hell of a disaster
Want Fries with That? Not if you insist on proper spelling, but you can order "fires" or "tatter tots."
Price: Diablo Burger, $7.95; specialty burgers up to $8.95; Double Burger specials up to $5.95 (weekdays, 11 p.m to 4 p.m.)

Five inches doesn't seem like much...unless you're talking about snow in Atlanta. A mere dusting in many places, less than a half-foot here on a Sunday night paralyzed the entire metro area for a week. Almost five million people in the city...but just ten snowplows. Ah, details. The first day of Snowpocalypse 2011 was fun: sledding with the kids, hot cocoa, Wii tournaments. By Day Four, I needed things to warm up. I needed to get out of my house. I needed a damn cheeseburger.

Suburban Tap is a little tavern a few miles from my house, on a main road that was barely passable 88 hours after the flakes had started flying. I settled on their hottest burger, hoping my lunch order would trigger a massive thaw-out in the city that Star Wars geeks had started calling "Hoth-lanta."

According to the menu, their Diablo Burger is topped with "lettuce, tomato, onion, jalapenos, 'our special wing sauce', pepper jack cheese on a habenero bun." That's word for word. My grammar alarm went ballistic. I can look past the missing "and" that would denote cheese as the final item of the list of things that are on the bun. And I see enough commas wrongly placed outside quotation marks that I assume we as a society will simply never get that one down. But wait a minute—why are those quotation marks even there? "Our special wing sauce?" I don't want tongue-in-cheek, sarcastically-named, fake "special wing sauce." And if you go to the trouble of offering a habanero bun, can't you bother to spell it correctly? A check of the sides was even more troubling.

No way am I ordering "fires," even if I know what you mean. I opted instead for the "tatter tots" and considered leaving a dictionary as my tip. Further perusal of the menu uncovered rare delicacies like "aeoli" and "fried tabacco onions."

But I'm a word nerd. That stuff bothers me, and few other people, it seems. Besides, I was here for a spicy cheeseburger fix, not a proofreading session. And my Diablo looked tasty. The cross-section revealed that it was cooked nicely, proving that the kitchen staff can more or less hit "medium," even if they can't punctuate.

It was a well-proportioned burger, although my server couldn't tell me how much it weighed. "It's big," she had said when I ordered. "Like a half-pound?" "I don't know. It'll fill you up." How can you possibly know what will fill me up, but don't have the faintest idea how much your burgers weigh? She did claim that the burgers are grilled, a fact I can corroborate only because when I picked up the burger, I could plainly see grill marks...where the other half of the bottom bun should have been. I guess "habenero" means "flecked with chunks of pepper and cheese, and prone to falling apart if you look at it wrong."

The Diablo brought the heat, but not really in a satisfying way. The dominant taste was that of nacho-style jalapeno slices, or, more accurately, the vinegary pickling juice they're jarred in. It permeated everything. As a result, I got no sensation at all from the pepper jack cheese or the "special wing sauce" that had been lazily dribbled over the topped burger. And the onions were AWOL, never even making it out of the kitchen. The beef was decent, I think, but after a while, every bite tasted like a shot of straight jalapeno juice; I went through more than my share of iced tea trying to dilute it.

Oddly enough, the "tatter tots" were a nice surprise. Super-crisp on the outside, crazy-fluffy on the inside, and, for whatever reason, a free upgrade despite the menu's stated $1 add-on. (You're kidding, another typo?!?) They made me wonder if Suburban Tap's "fires" are just as good, but I'm not sure I'll ever find out. One run-in with El Diablo was enough for me. There are plenty of better burgers to try out there at places that pay attention to detail—assuming I can saddle up my Tauntaun and get to them.

Note: In the interest of being thorough, I went back. I couldn't shake the idea that my bad experience was just a case of trying too hard to create a flamethrower. For a baseline beef reading, I sampled a straight-up cheeseburger with lettuce, onions, and mayo. Meh. Again, decently cooked, although I wasn't even asked for my doneness preference this time around. Overall, thoroughly unremarkable. Not juicy. No detectable seasoning. Too much bun. The (ugh) "fires" were crinkle-cut and nothing special. Bonus point for Boylan Bottleworks sugar cane root beer served in the bottle, but not even that nice detail can salvage a mediocre-at-best burger.

About the Author: Todd Brock lives the glamorous life of a stay-at-home freelance writer in the suburbs of Atlanta. Besides being paid to eat cheeseburgers, he's written and produced over 1,000 hours of television and recently penned Building Chicken Coops for Dummies. When he grows up, he wants to be either the starting quarterback for the Dallas Cowboys or the drummer for Hootie & the Blowfish. Or both.

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