Or at least, that was my hunch. I searched for a long time and finally settled on this recipe from pizzamaking.com. Deep-dish dough is very different from its thin crust counterpart. The crust has a healthy dose of cornmeal, which gives it an interesting crunch and texture. All the elements seemed to be here. I tracked down some tomatoes, cheese, and even decided to add some spinach (a...
I think part of the reason I took a break from roast chicken was the rising absurdity of my preparations. A few years ago I had chased after juicy meat and crispy skin, by trying various combinations of slow roasting , extreme slow roasting , experiments with baking soda , and high, high heat . The results were often spectacular, if never quite practical. And somewhere alo...
If bread making scares you like it scares me, but the lure of authenticity is irresistible, then focaccia may be the place to begin.
The intoxicating smell of yeast; the wet stickiness between your fingers; the magical billowing quality of the dough when a warm spot trns it into a living thing. These are the pleasures of bread making. And these are the pleasures I am almost wholly unfam...
The other issue I had to face was how to cut the meat. As I remembered from my visit to Al's #1, the beef should be shaved as thinly as possible. Al's used an huge deli slicer, which I obviously didn't have. Saveur recommended just tossing the meat in the freezer for 2 hours before serving and then slicing it as thinly as possible with a chef's knife. Some recipes recommended taking th...
About a year ago, a phenomenon swept through the food blog world : with a little planning and an enameled cast iron Dutch oven, the novice baker could make a nice crusty loaf without kneading the bread. Without shaping the loaf. Without doing much of anything, really. It was a supposedly foolproof bread recipe for the laziest of amateur bakers, and countless food blog posts confirmed...
Lately I've been making this sandwich over and over again. I don't know why. It's nothing that unusual: ham, bread, sometimes cheese. I've made it with the shrink-wrapped lunchmeat from my corner bodega; I've made it with thinly sliced Bayonne ham from the charcuterie .
The secret is in this invention I've taken to calling pickle butter. I don't think I invented it; I think I r...
I’ve been gathering cook books by whatever method I can...and beggers usually can’t be choosers. I borrow nearly anything I can lay my hands on. I owe lots of money to the library. And whenever I get to head home I usually make it out with an armful books my mom hoarded over the years ( I promise I’ll return them!). One of those was The Louisville Courier-Journal Cookbook. By a...
I don’t think I can ever tire of the holy trinity comprised of tomatoes, basil, and carbohydrates. Whether it’s a straightforward pasta of raw tomatoes in olive oil with basil tossed with spaghetti, a bruschetta on grilled bread, or with fresh mozzarella and some balsamic or red wine vinegar—it always tastes fresh, simple, and surprisingly hearty.
Sometimes around the end of summer, or the...
Is there anything my cast iron skillet can't do? Whether it's steaks , peppers , or even pizza , the big hunk of metal is good for most of my high heat needs. But for bread? I'd never really done that before. Neither, for that matter, had I ever really wanted to make cornbread before.
I have no real love of this southern staple. I don't really have any fond memories o...
I have yet to muster up the courage to make pickles, though I guess that would be the wrong way to describe the process. It's more of a creation, something coddled and cared for that takes an inordinate amount of time and makes you wonder whether it's worth the problem to begin with. It doesn't help that Fairway sells fresh pickles that are crisp and lovely, and I know that my own would fa...