Content about Person Career
March 28, 2011
Or how to restore punch to its former glory
Until recently, my first thought upon hearing the word "punch" was a frat party, something electric red, and indiscriminate drinking--a concoction spiked with a slew of spirits that might be laying around and then covered in Koolaid. That seems to be the reputation punch has gotten—but if cocktail writer Dave Wondrich has anything to say about it, we are all missing the point. Punch is not the currency of undistinguishing...
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March 12, 2011
British food writer Niki Segnit's reference book for home cooks lists 99 flavors and 900 common flavor pairings, like tomato and anchovy. Looks like an awesome resource to inspire kitchen creativity.
Good Books: Niki Segnit's Flavour Thesaurus
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February 17, 2011
And: Should Risotto Spread?
If you’re a Top Chef junkie like me then you probably remember that Tre got kicked off episode 8 this season after serving a risotto that didn’t “spread.” At least, that’s what judge Tom Colicchio said. It’s always hard to know exactly why contestants are booted off the show when you can't taste the food, but this was one of those cases where you could visibly see that his risotto sat up in a bowl...
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August 27, 2010
Our solution for what to do with too many tomatoes
There isn't much argument that summertime is the peak season for cooking. It never gets easier than in August: the produce is top-notch, everywhere, and cheap. Locavores are finally settling down and enjoying themselves instead of passing judgement on the rest of us for buying zucchini out of season. You can make dinner by cutting up tomatoes and fresh mozzarella and calling it a masterpiece. My CSA vegetable delivery is overflowing...
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July 30, 2010
I’ll only have 36 hours in the capital to eat as much as I possibly can
jamidwyer/Flickr
Next Friday my wife and I will hop on the Blue Line, head north to O’Hare, and then take a plane halfway across North America to Mexico City for one of the most intense eating experiences of my life. As you may have noticed over the four years or so that I’ve been writing, I adore Mexican cuisine all out of proportion. It’s my favorite cuisine--from complex and elegant moles to simple fish tacos and...
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July 29, 2010
An afternoon learning about "Grahampagne"
Through a heavy, metal door with "Brewery Employees Only" slapped on the front, I was led into a warm, steamy room where Goose Island beer is made. I side-stepped hoses and puddles of water and found a capacious space filled with slanted light; up above, at the top of a skinny ladder, great tanks of beer were lined up at various stages of aging and fermentation on a platform, were Goose Island's brewmaster Jared was talking to...
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May 25, 2010
Gin, lemon juice, and egg white make for a drink designed to cool you down
I'm not sure if the Silver Fizz was developed in Chicago, or if it was just popular for a time around 1883. But I have to believe that there is a correlation between cocktails and the cities that embrace them. Wine has a tie to the land, and cuisines are based around what's local and fresh. So it's my humble opinion that the Silver Fizz was built to cool the heads and stomachs of men without air conditioning, and I imagine there...
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May 13, 2010
Forget hollandaise: this will blow your mind
I recently stumbled on an essay called The Power of the Hot Vinaigrette in Michael Symon's new cookbook. "Cold vinaigrettes are excellent," he writes, "but add one to the hot pan you've sauteed some shrimp in, and the blended acid and oil will pick up all the flavor of the bits of protein and sugars that have stuck to the pan." He advocates for pan sauces to be vinaigrette-based, rather than stock-based. "I...
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March 30, 2010
How to make better bangers
As I was digging into making my own British bangers for my Full English Breakfast challenge, I kept stumbling onto the same sad story which may or may not be complete bullshit: During the early 20th century thanks to two World Wars, meat was scarce in England and pork sausages were padded with some grains and extra liquid to help stretch the meat reserves. When cooked, these padded sausages had the tendency to burst out of their...
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March 10, 2010
Which Italian deli in Chicago makes the best subs?
We assembled at 11 a.m., seven hungry men, at J. P. Graziano's. This unadorned storefront in the restaurant supply district of Chicago's West Loop seemed like an odd place to begin a journey to find the best Italian sub in Chicago. The shop's exterior had no tell-tale signals that it made sandwiches--just a sign stating their business as wholesale importers. The interior contained no vine covered trellises or...
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February 16, 2010
Cereal isn't the option in the morning.
For the past few weeks I've been eating salads for breakfast. I eat huge bowls of mixed greens sprinkled with dried fruits, toasted nuts, and whatever else happens to be on hand. If there is half an avocado in the fridge I'll cut it up and toss it in, same with roasted vegetables, chickpeas, goat cheese, carrots...you get the idea. I eat until I am no longer hungry. It has nothing to do with a diet, nor is it some devious plan my...
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February 4, 2010
Focaccia becomes the base of this pizza.
Good pizza means good bread. For me, there's just no other way around it. Good bread is the soul of good pizza.
But baking has never been a subject I'm comfortable with. Give me a skillet, some pasta, and a well-stocked pantry and I can improvise countless meals. But if I'm supposed to bake something, I freeze. I immediately picture failure, a leaden cracker or a gummy mess. I hate the confusion of baking, the way it never...
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January 14, 2010
Can steamed duck legs tasted better than ones poached in duck fat?
The question about whether a steamed duck leg tastes as good duck confit has been boggling my mind for months ever since I read this article in the New York Times. Finally, last night, after spending the previous three days hacking up two ducks, rendering loads of fat, and figuring out what to do with the heads (Jonathan Gold actually sent me some interesting options on Twitter), I finally sat down to a blind taste test.
A...
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December 15, 2009
Our favorite drinks of 2009.
Obviously, this site is mostly devoted to cooking, and always has been. But watchful readers may have noticed over the years the occasional post slipped in about drinking. We've thankfully improved our recipes since the very first drinking post on this site, which involved mixing dark beer from New York's oldest pub, McSorley's, and some cheap vanilla ice cream. The result was the beer shake, which turned out bitter...
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November 18, 2009
Perhaps the best way to cook chicken.
In my opinion, the best chicken is chicken sous-vide. Each bite is tender and succulent in a way I never thought chicken could possibly be. It's kind of changed everything for me. Even the appearance of the meat is different, instead of stringy and tough, a fork can simply cut through the meat. It's enough to make anyone convert.
So for the past few weeks I've been proselytizing about the powers of sous-vide, a...
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November 13, 2009
Perhaps the most perfect cocktail.
"A proper Negroni is as perfectly and tripodically balanced as, say, a water molecule. "
- Jonathan Miles
The Negroni is an incorruptible drink. While the martini can be perverted by nefarious substances like apple pucker and vodka and many places make Margaritas by simply drizzling a little tequila in a cup of sugary mix, a Negroni is a Negroni. It has three ingredients (gin, sweet vermouth, and Campari) and their...
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October 22, 2009
Why every American should drink more cider.
Currently Blake and I have four gallons of apple cider fermenting in the back of his bedroom closet. The hope is that in a few days, thanks to some hungry yeast, we'll have something that might resemble hard apple cider. We're honestly nervous. We've undertaken ridiculous experiments before, but nothing that could potentially get us hammered. If it works, then we'll have made an alcoholic drink for less than it costs to buy...
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October 2, 2009
Whisky and sugar combine to make an unforgettable cocktail.
Recently Nick and I were in the gritty West Loop neighborhood of Chicago, after a long, pork-ridden meal at The Publican, where we fed on cracklins, rillettes, belly, shoulder, and all manner of sausages. We slipped out of the restaurant happy and stuffed into the long fluorescent shadows, in search of a good bar to aid all the oncoming digesting to be done.
We ended up at Matchbox, a slender little bar no more than 10 feet wide, but well...
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August 31, 2009
This Mexican classic deserves a little love.
Around hour five, I became terribly exhausted from what felt like continuous marathon of chopping, sautéing, blending, grinding, broiling, stuffing, whisking, dipping, and frying. It was the most complex and curious chile relleno I'd ever laid eyes on and the flavor nearly bawled me over. Every bite revealed layers of flavor, from the salsa, pork stuffing, to the batter. Nothing was an afterthought. Though it doesn't exactly...
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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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June 9, 2009
How to make great beans in less time.
It seems that in the past few years there have been a few monumental revelations of the "everything you thought you knew about cooking was wrong" variety.
- Steven A. Shaw aka "Fat Guy", Executive Director, eGullet Society
When the timer sounded, I was caught off guard. I reached for a kitchen towel, carefully folded it around the hot handles of my dutch oven, and transfered the hulking pot to the top of the...
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April 13, 2009
Does it have anything to do with hunting?
On Thursday the New York Times published an op-ed piece written by a Texas historian named James E. McWilliams called "Free-Range Trichinosis," which argues that the public's perception of free-range pork has been misguided. On the contrary to our idyllic view of healthy, happy animals, the "free-range option can pose a heightened health threat to consumers." Citing a study which claimed free-range pork...
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December 11, 2008
How to make the best burger at home.
You know the burger obsession is going off the deep end when semi-serious discussion takes place over the burger making skills of a cartoon. Please stick with me. This cartoon happened feature J. Wellington Wimpy, the burger-loving sidekick of Popeye. Hamburger America author George Motz found this clip and was there to comment on Wimpy's burger making skills: "Notice how even in cartoons back then they got it...
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November 20, 2008
Because fresh pasta deserves a sauce this good.
Once I figured out how to make fresh pasta, I waited all of 12 hours before I set out to create my own Ragù alla Bolognese. It was a goal of mine ever since watching an episode of Heston Blumenthal's TV series In Search of Perfection. The premise of the show is for the acclaimed chef to reexamine some stodgy British classics by going back to the roots of the original dish. His final recipe usually involves...
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May 21, 2008
Moving beyond pico de gallo into real authentic territory
I thought I knew everything there was to know about salsa. Tomatoes, garlic, onions, jalapenos, lime juice, salt. Chop, mix, serve. It’s an enormous pain, but the alternative (jarred salsa) just doesn’t compare. Taking the time to chop is a noble pursuit.
That was until Blake visited last weekend. What he threw together in a matter of minutes turned blood red and clung to every chip like it...
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The other Italian bacon.
It took me almost a month and calls to half the butchers in New York before I could get my hands on a pair of pig jowls. Here’s the problem: they want you to order the whole head. And while I had a wonderful time watching pot-roasted pig heads go ferrying by my table at the Spotted Pig, when it was under the tutelage of British chef Fergus Henderson, the thought of lugging a 40 pound hunk of decapitation around the city...
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February 22, 2008
How to make a better burger at home.
The first question was what cuts were best to grind. Which led me to another question: what exactly are we looking for in a hamburger? Jeffrey Steingarten wrote a piece in Vogue (thank goodness Ed Levine recorded the results on A Hamburger Today, or we'd all be in the darkness that is food life without a subscription to Vogue, a magazine that refuses to share Steingarten on the Internet) asking just that question, and settled...
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November 29, 2006
There is "no doubt early man cooked his meats using dry heat," claims Madeleine Kamman, author of the esteemed Making of a Cook and a very friendly-looking lady who I sometimes wish was my grandmother. She speculates that he might have discovered this gastronomic feat in the instance of two different accidents, producing two enduring ways of cooking meat. The first, a discovery of whole animals while foraging for food...
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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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July 13, 2006
Searching for the perfect Voisilmäpulla, I encountered beautiful design and large tufts of dill
When I arrived into Helsinki Airport, the Finnish sun had been out for close to five hours: it was 8:02 in the morning. My bag came out of flappy rubber slats onto the belt and I sailed through customs, exiting the terminal onto a pristine pavement platform, a group of bus lanes. Everything was strangely silent. There were four other people waiting for buses, each squinting gently at the white sun. A cool breeze brushed by...
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Yes, you read right: beer shakes
We asked Schnack what the beer shake recipe was, and they said they use 3 oz. of ice cream mixed with 3 oz. of dark beer. We went with the cheapest vanilla we could find and a six pack of McSorley's ale, which is pretty cheap and basically tasty. On second thought, a dark stout might have been the better choice--Guiness is practically a milkshake anyway. The carbonation in our version made it hard to blend, and the flat...
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February 8, 2006
A bag of potatoes and a quest for the cheapest dinner possible
With minds planted firmly in the dirt, we probed the...
With minds planted firmly in the dirt, we probed the starchy tuber for secrets buried within, all in search of the perfect cooked potato. Armed with a bag of $2.99 Idahos, we set aflame preconcieved notions, sexed things up, and tried to find the courage (and stomachs) to eat nothing but potatoes like our poor brethren of the 19th century tenement living.
Generally, we...
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All content copyright Nick Kindelsperger and Blake Royer.
