He Cooks, She Cooks

I get a little dizzy thinking back to how good these simple little toasts were. I mean, they’re just cheese on cheese on sauce on toast, but they’re really much more. They’re heavenly. I first had these at the Chef’s Academy cooking demo .  They were so good, I had to recreate a quick version of my own.

Chefs Leo Goodloe and Suzanne Winn made a killer sauce from scratch, and I went with some from a jar, but it didn’t matter. The goat cheese and taleggio really make this.

They are a great appetizer for a party or a delicious snack for yourself.

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Have you ever had something disappear into the abyss of the internet? That’s what happened to this Moroccan bread recipe.

You’d think I’d be less likely to find a recipe on paper…especially since I’m known to scrawl information on magazine inserts or any scrap I can find…but there it was: the bare bones directions for Moroccan bread, unlabeled and in between notes from an interview I conducted and a page of rhymes (knead, read, seed, feed, proceed, decreed, agreed, ID’d, IV’d…vibe, bribe, subscribe, diatribe…).

So that’s a little insight into who I am.

This bread, to get back to the point, is meant to be served with tagines or other saucy dishes so you can use it for mopping up all that flavor. I wish I had some tonight. My mom has some Moroccan chicken simmering away right now.

Alas, bread takes a little more forethought. You can think about making it with Saffron Chicken Tagine with Prunes, Tunisian Lamb Stew or Spice-Rubbed Roast Chicken.

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Maybe you’ve had scallion pancakes at a good dim sum place, but if you have never tried them, you’re missing out. The last time I had them was nearly two years ago at a place in Sydney’s Haymarket area. I forgot how good they were until I made them at home the other day.

The pancakes are not really pancakes at all. They’re made from unlevened dough, more like Indian parathas than American pancakes or even French crepes.

I found a recipe from Food Network, then deciphered the directions by looking to Poor Man’s Feast. The process isn’t difficult at all, but the wording was confusing in the original recipe.

The result is doughy and layered. I served them for lunch with a ginger-soy dipping sauce and a leftover duck and noodle soup. My sister said they tasted like potstickers, which was good in her book.

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I admit I call many things ‘my favorite’ or ‘the best thing ever,’ but without any facetiousness or exaggeration, I can say that warm dough is my favorite and the best thing ever.

Baguettes, bagels, pizza dough, naan, rolls, loaves, English muffins, challah, sourdough, pita, pretzels, funnel cake, foccacia, ciabatta, empanadas, flour tortillas, arepas or good ol’ sandwich bread (Oroweat’s whole grain and oat is my sliced bread of choice)… I’m a glutton for gluten.

I have, on multiple occasions, organized my entire day around proofing and baking dough. Making bread from scratch is certainly rewarding, but it requires more time and planning than is often practical. Luckily, there are ways for more instant satisfaction. Pilsbury is a modern marvel — and delicious — but ancient cultures had quick ways to make bread, too.

All it takes is water and flour, people. A little fat and salt, a hot surface…we’ve got ourselves warm carbs from scratch in 15 minutes.

While I waited for my Goan-style roast chicken to cook last week, I watched the Mumbai episode of Anthony Bourdain’s No Reservations (the Rajasthan episode was better). Just before the show ended and the poultry reached an internal temperature of 165, I decided I needed some Indian flatbread, or chapati. Since it’s an unlevened bread, and I’m all about skipping steps, I had hot bread by the time the bird was done resting. I even made fresh batch for my leftover chicken the next afternoon.

And guess what? It was the best thing ever.

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I have finally had a banh mi! I first learned of the Vietnamese sandwich from the LA Times in November. Then it seemed everyone was talking about them. The NY Times, LAist and multiple foodbloggers. My sister said even my high school newspaper had an article about them. I loved the idea of so many flavors coming together, so I couldn’t wait to try it.

Since I hadn’t gotten a chance to seek one out when I was last in LA, I had to make my own. When the Mizzou Meat Market had fresh Braunschweiger on sale, I knew it was time. And what better time than National Picnic Day?

If my first banh mi wasn’t going to be from a Vietnamese expert, I wanted to do what I could to make mine as best as possible. The pork tenderloin and braunschweiger were from the university, which raises and butchers meat down the street from me. I bought an egg from the Root Cellar market, which sells products from local farms, and I made my own mayonnaise. I picked up a daikon from the Asian market downtown and pickled it with shredded carrots. I made the bread from scratch. I grew the cilantro in my front yard.

I wasn’t messing around with this sandwich.

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Just after the James Beard Award semifinalists were announced, I decided it was time to learn more about Beard himself. I made a special trip to the university library to check out one of his books. I’ll add that in seven semesters at Missouri I never needed a library book for class, but since starting this blog, I have checked out nine books and browsed many others on the second level of the West Stacks.

Anyway, back in February I picked up Beard on Food (an unpleasant title to anyone unfamiliar with the man who might have been the first celebrity chef). The book is a collection of his favorite columns and recipes, starting with the perfect hamburger and ending with Saltimbocca all’Emiliana, a delicious-sounding dish with spinach, veal scaloppini, prosciutto, sage and Marsala.

The essays were all written before 1974, which means they are filled with reminders of how much has changed over the years. We’ve come a long way since the time when wasabi needed to be called “green Japanese horseradish.” Today nearly anyone will answer “yes” to Beard’s query, “Have you encountered pita?” And let’s be thankful that avocados are no longer called “alligator pears” and are not “a very expensive delicacy.”

At times Beard is quite funny. My favorite line being: “Two of my best friends are a stripper and a zester. In case that raises some pretty wild visions, let me hasten to say that they are not girls but gadgets, and I couldn’t do without them in the kitchen.”

You can tell Beard was a man who had profound appreciation for food. Many of his columns are dedicated to a particular ingredient, and he kept his recipes simple enough for each to shine. One essay was called “The Sardine, a Small Miracle.” He talked about one of his favorite sandwiches, “homemade bread, well-buttered, spread with mashed sardines, a few drops of lemon juice, and a thin slice of onion, eaten with a glass of beer or wine.”

I thought about sardines. In my head I didn’t think I liked them, but then I wasn’t sure if I ever really had them. Did I actually dislike them? I decided to buy a tin and find out.

I followed Beard’s recipe for wined sardines on toast. If I was going to like sardines, it was going to be with butter, onion, garlic, wine and lemon, that’s for sure. Turns out all those things are delicious with the little fish, and my friend Marissa agreed. She didn’t think she liked sardines either until actually tasting them this way on homemade bread. So if you’re on the fence, as we were, I feel this could open your horizons. And it would probably make the late James Beard proud.

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