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Content about Quick Dinner

Homemade Sliders January 28, 2010 The PC guide to little burgers. What is a slider? A slider is a particular thing. It's particularly American. It's a small subset of our great culinary tradition, the hamburger. But as I explained last week, it's not just a mini-hamburger. To be a slider, it cannot be perverted with expensive ingredients like foie gras or tuna tartar, a cutesy version of a burger for a chef to play with. A slider consists of a thin layer of beef, American cheese, a soft bun,... Read the Full Article	My Chicago: Caputo Cheese Market, and a Search for Bottarga January 26, 2010 This fishy roe is a meal in itself. My Chicago is about life as a cooks and eaters in our home city. Markets, restaurants, secret finds, really tasty bites--or just a great story. We're lucky to live here. Bottarga would handily win the award for "foodstuff with least correlation between attractiveness and deliciousness," if such a thing existed. It is a brown, firm lobe, and, poor thing, really quite ugly. A cured, pressed, and dried fish egg sack. How... Read the Full Article	In Praise of Open-Faced Sandwiches 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... Read the Full Article	My Chicago: Spicy Yeul Ramyon from the Joong Boo Market January 8, 2010 How to dress up cheap ramen. Every Friday, we publish a story about life as a cooks and eaters in Chicago. Markets, restaurants, secret finds, really tasty bites--or just a great story. We're lucky to live here. Close your eyes and think about instant ramen...I know it's probably been a while. You probably have in mind some MSG-laden bastion of cheap college eating, because that's where I used to be, too. But now it's different... Read the Full Article
Do You Microwave? May 17, 2009 How to use a foodie's most scorned appliance. Do most people use their microwaves often? Or am I just now coming round to what most people know? I bought my microwave at a sidewalk sale for 10 bucks. I simply asked the sellers if it still worked, and they assured me that it did. That was good enough for me. My previous model had just stopped working a few weeks before and Abby and I had nowhere to make popcorn. Though I used it only rarely, a microwave... Read the Full Article	The Smash Technique and Skinny Burger Perfection 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... Read the Full Article	The Quick-Flipped Fat Burger August 26, 2008 Keep that spatula at hand. At first everything was fine. Taking a cue from Adam Kuban, we decided to make our own onion rings instead of the normal burger pairing of fries. The recipe was taken from Simply Recipes, which soaked the onions in buttermilk and coated them in flour and cornmeal. We fried them in canola oil set to 350 degrees for a few minutes, until nice and golden brown. We stashed them in preheated oven and got to the beef... Read the Full Article	Linguine with Clams from the Babbo Kitchen, via Bill Buford January 24, 2008 From his memoir Heat My favorite passages from Bill Buford's Heat are set in the Babbo kitchen, when he describes with fear and awe the wonder that is a busy restaurant kitchen at dinnertime-- tickets flying, steam vaporizing, oil popping. Orders arrive faster than they can be made; you are perpetually behind. The heat, of course, is unbearable-- like a shimmering wall when you enter the kitchen. Sweat pours down. Timing is everything. A mistakes can... Read the Full Article
The Proper Way to Cook a Hot Dog? October 26, 2007 A nice technique for cooking hot dogs at home. By Blake Royer I hardly ever cook hot dogs at... I hardly ever cook hot dogs at home--it's the kind of food that I buy on a street corner in a rush. On the way to a concert. When I don’t have more than 5 minutes for lunch. When it’s three days before my paycheck and rent's due. Two bucks on a street corner, less than that if I'm lucky to be near a Papaya King (or Gray's Papaya), where they’re... Read the Full Article	Pasta with Parmesan and Nutmeg January 19, 2006 This is the easiest recipe this side of Dominoes, it’s pretty gourmet, and if you can boil water, you’re 83 percent there. One thing I’ve found difficult about cooking is that it’s really hard to start when you’re hungry--you have to plan ahead. Once you get started you get your momentum going, and there’s always ingredients to snack on, but it’s the getting started that proves difficult. The inertia works against you at first. Since I get lazy when I get hungry, I end up heating canned soup. This evening, with... Read the Full Article	Pasta Carbonara January 15, 2006 This recipe loses the cream altogether, replacing it with white wine. Pasta Carbonara 1/4 cup Extra Virgin Olive Oil 1 small onion, diced 3 thin slices bacon 1/2 cup dry white wine 1 pound farfalle pasta 4 egg yolks small handful chopped Italian parsley 1 cup grated Parmesan cheese freshly ground black pepper 1/4 cup of pasta cooking water Serves 4. Recipe adapted from Cucina Rustica Get a huge pot of salted water boiling right away--you can always turn it off... Read the Full Article