Another Bright Idea!

As is often the case, it started with One Small Idea.

Well, this particular idea was large, in my mind: SUNSHINE, or specifically, the lack thereof, in February.

I grew up in Phoenix, AZ. For those of you who haven't visited, it is a city of sprawl, strip malls, good Mexican food, pretty mountains, an insane sheriff (who deserves to be stripped of his title and prosecuted for numerous abuses of the law on both local and federal levels) and...


...sunshine.


Lots and lots of sunshine. There is so much sunshine that I grew up thinking that my bikini tan lines were some sort of birth defect. I had no idea that the white color of my butt was my "real" skin color until I was in my twenties, married, and had been living in Washington, D.C. for a few years and my perma-tan had begun to fade. Even now, when I return to Phoenix I am amused/appalled at how I went through my entire childhood never using sunscreen.

Skin cancer notwithstanding, it's the sunshine that I miss. And every February, I start to Freak Out at the lack of sunshine here in NYC. When I first moved here, I laughed out loud at all of the travel ads for beaches that appear on the subways in January. I thought that vacations like that were reserved for old people, Wall Streeters, and pussies. I have since been shown the error of my ways.

And... what does that have to do with dinner for twenty? Well, my craving of sunshine extends to food, too.

The invite:

Cold and Hungry Kiddies!!!
Greetings from the depths of January! My friend Victoria (many of you know her as The Crazy Sicilian) is having a little Paella dinner tonight, and it got me thinking about the distinct lack of sunlight and warmth in my life and how desperately unhappy that makes me. Let's just say that I spend a LOT of time these days dreaming about blue green waters of the Caribbean and sand in my swimsuit. And I don't even LIKE sand in my swimsuit!! That made me think further about food that I think of as "sunny" food... Funny enough, my first mental stop was New Orleans, but since the Superbowl is right around the corner from this dinner, I suspect many of you will be feasting on Gumbo, Jambalaya, and Po Boys during the nail-biter of a game on Sunday, so I ruled NOLA out. Soon, but not this time.
Then I moved on to Portugal and Spain and think I found things that would make you slather and foam at the mouth the way I did. (ok, foaming at the mouth is a bit strong, but you get the picture). Food that is rooted in warmth and certainly in season now, but not "winter" heavy.

Menu is below:

Sweet Maine Shrimp on the Griddle (IN SEASON RIGHT NOW!!)

Potato Croquettes with Saffron Aioli
Turnips Braised in Malaga Wine
Mussels Valencia
Sardines Escabeche with Sweet Red Onion
Fennel Salad with Preserved Lemon
White Beans with Spinach
Pork and Clams with Crusty Bread

Some little orange flower water cake or fried Pate a Choux dessert-y thing

And one last thing. Do you have a favorite family recipe that you would like to see me cook for SND in the near future? I am looking for a little home cooking inspiration... preferably a "special" dish (or entire meal) that has been in your family for a long time (generations?) Something that someone brought with them from the country they emigrated from? Something that only Granny or Grandpa still knows how to really make? Feel free to put me in touch with older relatives... I welcome the conversation. If you don't have exact measurements, that is fine. I am good at figuring it out. I would really like to find some special dishes that are meaningful to you to work into the repertoire here, if you are game to provide them.

Spain feels sunny to me. Portugal too. Pretty convenient that the majority of the food is easily obtained and made in the dead of winter, bypassing any seasonal issues.

We were going to start with those little, shell-on Sweet Maine Shrimp, but I missed the season by two days. DAMN. Instead we had these beautiful little rock shrimp that I flash sauteed in garlic, olive oil, and white wine, and finished with lemon and aleppo pepper. There are no pics of this; they were so good they disappeared in mere minutes.


Potato Croquettes with Saffron Aioli were a severe pain in the ass to make, I won't lie. But of course, like any high-maintenance girlfriend, they were ultimately DELICIOUS. Cooking down potatoes, mixing them with herbs, garlic and scallions, then rolling them into little balls, dipping those in flour, then egg, then bread crumbs mixed with panko, and THEN deep frying... well, how do YOU think they turned out?

Om nom nom nom...

Naturally, I ran out of time/energy to make a real aioli, so instead I made a lazy woman's version:

1/2 cup Hellman's Mayo
1/4 cup Sour Cream
A spoon of greek yogurt
Juice of 1 Lemon
Several cloves Crushed Garlic
Salt to taste
Smoked Paprika to taste

Stir it all up and taste for balance. Pretty damn good, and the presence of sour cream is especially great with the hot, fried potato magic.

Turnips in Malaga were the big surprise of the evening. They turned out so sweet-- (turnips, apples, raisins, nutmeg and cinnamon, cooked low and slow in a mixture of sweet moscato wine and port) they could have easily been served for dessert.


As I was cooking, I started to worry that the flavor profile of many of these dishes was the same, and that dinner would end up being a big smoked paprika, lemon and garlic fest. But thanks to those turnips, and the subtle bit of saffron in the Mussels Valencia, the combination of flavors wound up being deeper and much more sophisticated, and not at all one-note, as I had feared.

White Beans with Spinach was so simple to make but the flavors were pretty bold-- perhaps the garlic?

I sauteed that garlic with onion, threw in some dried sweet peppers from Victor the Sicilian's garden that I had stashed in the freezer, dusted that lightly with cumin, sweet paprika and aleppo pepper, then dumped in some canned cannellini beans and just wilted the spinach through, then removed from the heat. This dish is a keeper, because it is just as delicious hours later, at room temp. Room temp dishes are KEY, people!

And then there were the Sardines. Escabeche.

When I used to think of sardines, it was always of my father opening a can and consuming them on top of saltine crackers with little fanfare. Now, I think of sardines wrapped in grape leaves and grilled over an open flame... We enjoyed them that way a few years ago in Lesvos, when Peter and his family graciously invited us to join their annual summer vacation. Trust me, I will NEVER eat sardines that good again.

But if you can't run off to Greece, making escabeche is a pretty good second choice. You get the sardines from your fish guy, (cleaned, with or without heads) rinse with fresh water and pat them dry, dredge them in flour, then FRY in olive oil. Remove the sardines and add lots of chopped onions, carrots, celery, shallots and herbs to the oiled pan, and sautée your little heart out. Finish with lemon and sherry vinegar, which doesn't make the dish as bitey as you'd think, because of the intense sugar from the vegetables, but is necessary to "preserve" the sardines.

Acid=YES.

You pour that vinegar/oil/vegetable mess over the fish, and let it sit for hours, or days. Voila! We were still eating them three days later, and they rocked.

The reason there were enough of them to eat, three days later, is that when I went to take out the recycling and to get a breath of fresh air, I remembered that I had left the pan with twenty five servings of Escabeche to cool on the balcony, and now dinner was over, and they hadn't been served.

Uhhhh...

Perhaps I need to go back to making a list of dishes and posting it over the stove where it can be seen, instead of letting it rattle around in my addled, cluttered mind and hoping for the best?

Fortunately, there was a fennel salad with citrus and onion.

The Pork with Clams dish was so rich, it was crazy. I slow-braised the pork shoulder (rubbed down with salt, pepper, cumin, oregano, and thyme) then braised it in white wine, onions, garlic, poblano peppers, and some bittersweet smoked paprika until the pork was completely falling apart. At the very last minute I added about five pounds of cockles (baby clams), and another splash of white wine.

The brine of the clams cutting through the fatty richness of the pork, combined with the smokiness of the long-braised cumin and paprika turned out SO Delicious. Best part? Maybe fifteen minutes of active cooking. Well, yes, four hours of braising, but who cares? You can leave the house during that part, since the pork's is in the oven on 300 degrees. I served it with hunks of warm, crusty bread and there was hardly any left. People scarfed it up.

Finally, there was Olive Oil Cake, courtesy of Olives and Oranges, by Sara Jenkins and Mindy Fox. I know I have repeatedly extolled the many, many virtues of this book before, but in case you missed it, it is FUCKING GREAT and you should BUY IT. NOW.


The olive oil cake recipe is just one of the reasons to grab this book. I made mine with meyer lemon juice and zest, then topped it with barely whipped cream scented with orange flower water, dark rum, and blood orange juice.


Do you need a minute alone now? I thought you might. Not too sweet, a perfect dessert, really.

Certainly the right way to end a night with a lot of rich food from sunny Spain and Sardines Escabeche on the balcony.

Oy.

Too Big To Fail...

Let me just start by saying that, try as I might (and I do try) I am not much of a baker.

I love the IDEA of baking... The thought of spending an afternoon or a late night listening to music, sipping wine and baking a cake sounds so romantic.

Productive.
Creative.
Deeply nurturing.
It sounds like the person I want to be.

Smash cut to reality, like an episode of 30 Rock!

Flour-covered measuring cups strewn all over flour-covered kitchen...

A five pound bag of sugar upended because, naturally, I forgot to roll it closed...

Recipe book open, pages glued together with drying egg...

The wall beside the Kitchenaid mixer Jackson Pollocked with cake batter from when I thought I was turning off the motor as I lifted out the arm, but instead was turning it to high...

It is a sad state of affairs when your face, hair, shirt, and even your bra are covered in olive oil cake batter and there is no one to help, let alone lick it off. Gaah!


The worst part of my romantic delusion, is that, in my head, I am a bad-ass, Iron Chef challenge baker. Recipe looks really difficult? Sign me up! A cake always seems like a better idea when the recipe is too complex to fail...

Right before Christmas there was this great article in the New York Times about women in Alabama who make these crazy layer cakes. For the three of you readers who have been along since the beginning, you know that I am particularly obsessed with layer cakes. I love that someone cares enough to make three, four or even fifteen layers of cake! And then Filling. And then frosting. And, layer cake being a southern phenomenon, many of them also include a significant amount of booze, which just makes me love them more.


So, back to that article. Naturally, I just HAD to make the caramel cake, because Nancy McDermott, the author of "Southern Cakes" described the boiled icing as "just a demon to make." Who wouldn't want to immediately abandon all other projects to make a demon cake?

Particularly a demon cake that involves Hot Caramel: The Other Napalm! (I am a scarred veteran of the Hot Caramel Wars, people: See Croquembouche, one of the original "Too Big To Fail" baking projects... Scroll down for the step by step...)
You may be impressed, or more likely, troubled by the fact that I built an entire dinner for twenty around a cake that I didn't know how to make.

The really hilarious thing is that because I was feeding so many people (okay... It ended up being twenty-five) I had to make TWO layer cakes. Thinking back to numerous other baking disasters, I had a moment of clarity and figured I ought to make one caramel cake and another cake that I (gasp!) knew how to make, so, worst-case scenario, IF the caramel cake is totally fucked up, at least I will have an INSURANCE layer cake to feed the crowd á la loaves and fishes.
But what other cake? Something boozy. Something buttery. Something tall...

Egads!



I remembered that I WROTE the recipe for the perfect cake! I made the Lane Cake recipe from Forking Fantastic, but instead of dried fruits and nuts and the, um, bacon in the frosting, I just made it with butter, egg yolks, sugar, and vanilla. Oh, and BOURBON.


As you probably predicted when you began reading this post (because, let's face it, I'm no Agatha Christie,) The Caramel Cake... fine, but the icing? Kind of fucked up. The instructions about caramelizing half of the sugar and then adding the rest was a little bit strange. Also, so sweet it made my teeth hurt even to look at it, but the Lane Cake adapted?

RiDONKulous. Ri-fucking-diculously delicious.


Were both cakes listing slightly because the layers weren't even? Definitely.

Did I try to level it with more icing between the layers, making it more uneven? Oh, hells yeah.

Was there flour all over the kitchen and a horrible sugar spill that rivaled the Exxon Valdez? Ummm... what do you think?
Did it take me three hours to make two cakes? Nine to Noon, baby.



Oh.... right. Then there was the REST of the meal...



I had another lovely Middle Of The Night visit to the Hunts Point Fish Market to purchase oysters from my boyfriend John at Blue Ribbon Fish (Karl insists that all my boyfriends be purveyors). John suggested Wellfleets and Hemlocks, so that's what I bought...


When I got the oysters home at 3 AM (thanks to Mackenzie's sweet VW) I had planned to put them on the balcony (what I call "the walk-in") and quickly realized that the outside temperature was going down to 19 degrees, lethal to the little fellers. Fortunately, my friends at the corner restaurant, being awesome neighbors, kept the bags of oysters in their fridge overnight. The original plan for the oysters had been to grill them, but the frigid forecast killed that idea. Matt and Ted Lee's book gave me the idea to grill them about five years ago, and their fallback plan was to do them in boiling water in the oven. If it's good enough for The Lee Brothers, it is certainly good enough for ME!




So I put the oysters in hotel pans, poured in a little boiling water, and let them ride it out in a 475 degree oven for ten minutes or thereabouts. The first batch, only a few opened so I decided to throw them back in for two more minutes.

They all opened, and were partially cooked, warm and briny. PERFECT for the classic mignonette of shallots, black pepper, and red wine vinegar.


Since this was the first SND of 2010, I thought Hoppin' John would be a great addition. I combined 2 recipes-- Edna Lewis' from In Pursuit of Flavor, which calls for Ham Hock, onion, garlic, chili flake, black eyed peas and rice, and a Lee Brothers recipe which also adds tomatoes.

I added some slab bacon lardons for good measure. The result? Smoky, Spicy, rich bean and rice goodness. A GREAT way to start the new year!

I creamed some scallions (trimmed them, wilted in a little boiling water then reduced heavy cream and butter a bit and combined them)

Hoppin' John and Creamed Scallions!

Turnips got peeled, diced and were poached in pork stock with their tops, some radish tops and watercress, then finished with Bittersweet smoked paprika.

Karl made FABULOUS slaw from red and savoy cabbages, fennel, green apple and daikon radishes, apple cider vinegar, olive oil and fried pickling spices. It rocked.

Oh... and to start? Crusty bread slathered with butter, canned tomatoes and fresh garlic. I know... it sounds ghetto, but it is soooooo good! Think of it as the winter version of Pan Con Tomate.

Look at this beautiful crowd!

Look at this sexy-ass cake perched on this stunningly beautiful cake stand! (Thanks, Maria!)

Every Sunday Night Dinner crowd is different. There is never a 'bad' crowd, here. Sure, there is the occasional guest who doesn't "get it," treats us like The Help, and is subsequently disappointed with the quality of "service" and never returns.

This Crowd? Hall Of Fame.


The most fun, partying-est (not really a word, I know,) eat it all up (in a good way) crowd that I can recall. Truly excellent. Half old peeps, half new. Of the new guests, the Most Inspiring Award goes to Dave and Emma from Brighton, ENGLAND, who came after seeing us on Jamie Oliver's American Road Trip. They were so delightful, and had such a good time, and, most importantly, they willingly came to a house full of strangers to have dinner. They said it was the highlight of their trip, which made Karl cry.

And what did we learn?

1)According to a very nice police officer, if you are driving home from the fish market at 3 A.M., and there is a car accident BEHIND you you do NOT need to exit your car to be verbally abused by an old Greek man until the Po Po arrive. You are, in fact, free to drive away once you determine that no one was injured and you can tell the aforementioned old Greek man to Go Fuck Himself (in the nicest tone possible, of course.)

2) As safe as New York City is, you are wise to feel a teeny bit hinky when you are shopping for shellfish at the Hunts Point Market by your little lonesome at 2 A.M.

3) Oysters take about twelve minutes to open up in the oven, and they won't be overcooked so don't worry about that.

4) Oyster knives are DANGEROUS. (I'm looking at you, Annemarie...)


5) If you live in another state and come to Sunday Night Dinner it is right, good and proper to hit it off with two nice Astoria boys and crash on their sofa. Especially when you have teenagers at home. (I LOVE this woman. She is my HERO.)

6) I wrote a Fucking Delicious layer cake recipe.

7) Using my favorite enamel top table as a barrier/buffer/surface in the kitchen is seriously good for my mental health.

8) The Sunday Night Dinners In Astoria are going to be FABULOUS this year. Stay tuned.