Content about European cuisine
October 25, 2011
Rules for success, including porchetta
Ed. note: This is the third post in a "Repertoire" series on the interplay of food and style, with our friends The Midwestyle. We're helping their readers learn a few recipes, and they're teaching us a few things about doing it in style.
To say you’re an accomplished person is putting it lightly. That time you summited Kilimanjaro during a snow storm. The month you took a vow of silence. The day all the...
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July 15, 2010
A blend of bread, nuts, olive oil, tomato, and peppers
My fridge lately has been so full of food I can hardly see what’s inside of it. Since joining a CSA, I am completely overwhelmed with the amount of food I have, and how to cook it all quickly enough. The other day I realized that I had, like, 2 or 3 pounds of green onions--and not wispy little ones, big, fat ones, the white roots thick and juicy, the green shoots long and vibrant. I’d been using them as quickly as I could,...
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May 27, 2010
Almonds, garlic, and bread are the magic ingredients in this alternative to tomato gazpacho
I heard a lot of complaining this month about Chicago weather, mostly about how cold and rainy it was, and I added my fair share to the chorus. "It's May, already, where's the warm weather?" was a common conversation starter, as weather always is. Apparently, somebody upstairs was listening. This week we have been thrust into what feels like the height of summer: it has climbed repeatedly above 90 degrees, and Chicago has...
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May 5, 2010
Smoked paprika transforms a Spanish garlic soup
In today's Dinner Tonight column (the post will be up later this afternoon) I walk through a very simple garlic soup recipe from Mario Batali's Spain: A Culinary Road Trip. It's the kind of a soup I adore, being nothing more than a few cloves of garlic, good chicken stock, and a few pieces of stale bread. The one wild card is hot pimentón, which is a Spanish smoked paprika.
I didn't have any on the shelf, and in my...
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April 14, 2010
The brief, wondrous history of a Chicago sandwich.
A few weeks ago, a mad group of seven men took part in the great Chicago Italian Sub Tour of 2010. We visited six places, ate way more than we should have, and came away with the pretty definite conclusion that J.P. Graziano served the best Italian sub of the day. They used the best bread, and paid the most attention to each individual element of the sandwich. Oddly though, mixed in with all the Italian subs was one oddball sandwich that we...
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January 21, 2010
Some sandwiches don't need a top.
Personally, I didn't need any convincing, but after seeing the above picture, I can see why you might. It's the same reason Alton Brown went to great lengths on a recent episode of Good Eats to hide a central ingredient in his recipe. Something small, something oily, something canned, something with a rather poor reputation. This particular foodstuff was apart of a puzzling, yet intriguing little sandwich that was the centerpiece of...
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August 21, 2009
How to create the perfect cucumber sandwich.
I feel like I finally understand the cucumber sandwich. After weeks of thinking about it, and trying to recreate the most authentic version I could muster, it finally sunk in. The taste isn't rich, indulgent, spicy, acidic, comforting, salty, or fatty. It's cool, calm, and collected. The strongest reaction I had towards one was a contented sigh, a sort of momentary delight.
So why was I breaking a sweat trying to make one? I had...
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August 18, 2009
Starting with the perfect loaf of bread.
(Check out Part Two of My Cucumber Sandwich Revenge for the sandwich recipe)
I went to see a man about a loaf pan. All the traditional outlets had failed (Crate and Barrel, Sur La Table, Williams-Sonoma and four restaurant supply stores) and I was starting to get desperate. See, I needed a very peculiar kind of loaf pan, one that would help me create the mysterious loaf, pain de mie, which would hopefully provide the base for the perfect...
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Visiting the Spanish coast.
Barcelona was a wonderful city to be in, but leaving it was just as fun. Installed in a tiny stick-shift Citroen, we headed north from the city for Costa Brava, opting for the cheaper no-toll road that snakes along the coast and could take twice as long. Driving in Europe was harrowing the first time I did it, but I've since learned to embrace the speeding, reckless flow--I figure it's safe to go with it than stand in its way....
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May 21, 2009
Blake finds hidden gems in France.
Our goal for eating in France, as our budget was limited, was to find simple and unpretentious food. And though we hit the ground running with a list of online recommendations culled from a number of sources--an article in Travel + Leisure, searches on Chowhound and eGullet, guidebooks galore--some of our best and most memorable meals came from eclectic little spots that nobody had written about. One was hidden on a side street...
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October 29, 2008
Blake visits the Eternal City for one night only.
Our white wine was, for this unexperienced wine drinker, an absolute knockout at 17 euros: just barely more dry than sweet, fruity, and crisp as anything. We asked for their help in choosing the Ribolla Gialla after their bible-sized wine list (below) scared us silly (it is a famous list, apparently full of great wines at bargain prices).
We began with a simple buffalo mozzarella salad.
And for the pasta course Elin opted for a...
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July 31, 2006
The PC guide to Estonian cuisine.
It’s fair that most Estonians wouldn’t claim their country is known for its food. My girlfriend won’t eat half of it, and I don’t blame her: blood sausage, a dish made from grains shoved into intestines and congealed with blood, is a Christmas specialty. The Irish call it Black Pudding and it’s a part of every traditional breakfast. It’s not half bad, but I can’t see it inspiring the masses any time...
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All content copyright Nick Kindelsperger and Blake Royer.
