Last week, I got the range of my dreams. I’ve been pining away for a commercialesque gas range now for about as long as I can remember. Some people dream about their wedding dress or owning a fancy car. I dream about cooking with gas. I have pretty much always made do with a simple electric range… there was that one span in college when the apartment came with a old, white enamel gas stove from the 50s which put out about as much heat as a few votive candles huddled together for warmth. I’ve managed to cook up some pretty amazing stuff with the electrics too. But always there was a longing for something industrial and packed with BTUs. In April, we had natural gas run to the house. We were just doing the furnace (which like many older Seattle homes was still running on oil). The stove would have to wait. Then, work picked up, and suddenly Cam and I decided, hey… let’s just bite the bullet and get the stove. At long last, my stove was coming home.

Of course, nothing is all that simple. To begin with, I had to figure out what stove I wanted. It became pretty clear to me pretty quickly that the Viking I had been envisioning was not a great choice. Although fit and finishwise, they are gorgeous machines, even a little bit of digging and you’ll soon see that they tend to be ultra prone with problems. That research lead me to Wolf and DCS, which subsequently lead me to a company called Bluestar. Although not available (at least at the moment) in the dual-fuel version I was hoping for, everyone who had a Bluestar was in love. To start with, they are one of the least expensive high-end ranges you can get, and have the most powerful cooktop, with a blazing 22,000 BTUs. I was pretty sold, until I went and looked at one that is. Cool and industrial, definitely… but the fit and finish started to scare me. The oven didn’t feel like it closed quite tightly enough and had some sharp edges. The open burners intimidated me as I thought of my panache for boiling over. While in the store, we stumbled across the American Ranges. These ranges have a similar price point to the Bluestars, but have closed burners with an easy to clean stainless top, and the oven is the largest in its class… easily able to fit full sized commercial baking pans. The edges were smooth all around, and while the burners weren’t quite the same as the Bluestars’, 17,000 BTU seemed like plenty for me (and about the same as the Wolf, DCS and Vikings). We went home to do more research, happily finding that American Range owners are nearly as religious about their stoves as the Bluestar owners. We were sold.

To get the stove in with the necessary duct work required some semi-serious kitchen demolition that included very large holes in the ceiling, cabinets, and eventually brick work. Amazingly, thanks mostly to Cam, it all came together, and after just over a week with chaotic kitchen construction, I ended up with one kick-ass stove and some killer ventilation to boot. Of course, before I got a chance to use it, we left town.

But, finally, I’ve fired up the gas and started searing away. While my first meal on it wasn’t so much a great test (pasta and sauce on top with a zucchini gratin baking in the oven), tonight’s dinner was made for this stove. At the Pike Place market, I picked up four enormous sea scallops to sear. Just a little smoked sea salt, aleppo pepper and olive oil, one really hot frying pan and enough patience to let each side sear before touching them (this is always the hardest part). Topped with a little mango and green garlic salsa… yum.

My poor dog-earred food magazines. All those little folded over corners which continue to suffer from neglect. This month, I must have marked at least 40 some recipes. Including one in the May 2008 Gourmet for Chile Peanuts. I don’t even like peanuts. But, I fell in lust with the photo, and I love the combination of chile and lime. Enter the bag of pistachios that have been sitting on the counter, getting slowly nibbled away.

Do you like pistachios as much as I do? The addictive process of popping them out of their shells. I’ll just shell 10 more, I think, only to find myself a few minutes later repeating the same thing, just 10 more. I give the thin brownish purple skins a little pinch to expose the green nut meat. It’s good that I enjoy the shelling process because I seem to eat almost as many as I’m going to need. For this recipe, I ended up with a healthy cup full… but who knows how many ended up in my belly along the way.

I think that this chile lime mixture would work well with almost any nuts… but I love the bright green color with the red spices from the paprika and chile. And the lime tang really wakes up the sweetness in the pistachios. These are the perfect little addictive snack to munch on if you are enjoying a little Cinco de Mayo cocktail as well.

A few weeks ago, I picked up a little book that I have come to adore, A Handful Of Herbs. It’s tiny and really only has a handful of recipes and gardening tips… but the recipes are good, the tips are fun, and the photos, of course, are gorgeous. I have come to love to leaf through its mere 120 some-odd pages. The first recipe that caught my eye was one for something called zhatar. It is a Persian spice mixture that I had never heard of that mixes thyme with sesame seeds and salt to make a dry rub that is often sprinkled on hard boiled eggs. It sounded intriguing, and I made a little note to myself to come back an try it. Imagine my surprise when a project that I am working on for a client (the thing that has kept me so busy, I haven’t had a chance to blog) included a recipe that included zhatar!

The recipe for zhatar (sometimes zaatar, sometimes za’atar) seems to vary by region, but usually includes the combination of thyme and sesame with ground sumac. The dish that I was preparing for my client also introduced ground pistachios into the mix. Yum! It may not be traditional, but I highly recommend it. I also like throwing some red chile flakes into the mix for a little kick.

You can use the zhatar on eggs, like I did with these poached eggs over hashed fingerling potatoes. But, it’s also fantastic on yogurt with a little lemon and olive oil mixed in, or sprinkled on top of hummus.

By the way, I received a fantastic treat in the mail today! The first issue of Edible Seattle. This is a magazine that I’d be excited about regardless, but it is all the more fun because it is packed with my photos (including the cover shot!) and an article I wrote last fall on Maria Hines of Tilth. The magazine should start showing up on shelves soon!

One of the best parts of my job is that I tend to get a lot of free food. Even food that I winds up on the set is still edible when I’m done. Oh, I wouldn’t go feeding it to guests or anything… afterall, it is usually cold and always has been poked and prodded by my fingers. But, it’s also made from the highest quality of ingredients I can find, and is (almost) always, delicious.

Most of the time, this free food is simply left over from a shoot that I’m doing. Sometimes, it’s sent to me by companies that are looking for feedback, really excited about sharing their product with someone who thinks a lot about food, or someone who is simply looking for extra press. I certainly understand that there are some bloggers out there who prefer not to accept free stuff… but I’m not one of them. When I get free stuff, I never promise to write about it on this blog. It takes something pretty special, in fact, to make it on here. And, sometimes, I still don’t even get around to it. But, sometimes, like today, I do.

Today, I want to share with you a fish that I am really excited about. When I got mail from Hannah asking if I’d be interested in trying some Kona Kampachi from Kona Blue, I was intrigued. I’m a huge fan of sushi, and will always have a hard time turning away from sashimi-grade yellowtail. But, what really struck me is that Kona Blue is a company trying new methods of fish farming that attempt to solve some of the problems of related to traditional “aquaculture.” In-shore fish farm can create serious pollution problems, releasing waste and excess nutrients into water at rates that can’t be cleaned up by natural processes. Those farmed fish also tend to suffer from mercury poisoning. Kona Blue is fishing in large sea-cages sunk into deep water far off shore, so the fish can basically school as they would in the wild and the pollution problems can be avoided. And, at the same time, the natural fish population is not being depleted. The fish also boast a 30 percent fat content, high levels of omega-3 fatty acids, and no detectable mercury.

I think it’s really early to tell whether these new fish farming practices are a good thing or if they introduce problems of their own. But, I applaud companies for trying to solve some of these problems in a responsible way. Plus, I can tell you this, the fish is beautiful.

My package arrived well packed in ice, but not frozen, so the two, large fillets were immediately ready to use. The fillets are thick and fatty… perfect for a nice lunch of sashimi, with a ton still left over.

In fact I’ve been playing with a variety of preparations… the fish is so fresh, it’s almost a crime to cook it… but in addition to a sashimi miso salad, some simple nigiri sushi, I also lightly seared a good chunk and served it with a butternut squash mash and a fresh lemon dressing. Yum. I still have a whole fillet left that will have to be put to use quite soon. In the meantime, I thought I’d share a few shots and recipes with you.

If you want to try to find some of this fish on your own, you can order it from their website… but shipping is quite expensive. If you are in Seattle, Uwajimaya sometimes has it in stock and several area restaurants, like Canlis and Oceanaire have it on their menu. Or you can check out Kona Blue’s extensive “where to find” list.

PS: Thanks to Matt for correcting my initial mis-statement that Yellowtail is Tuna. In fact, it is its very own fish. All these years of ordering hamachi, and I always thought I was eating tuna!!!

I don’t know about where you are, but everywhere I turn, someone is getting sick. I, knock on wood, have managed to avoid it so far but my poor not-so-little one has gotten some kind of fever inspiring crud twice now in the last month. I’m still not sure how I’ve avoided it… it must be all that lard.

Anyway, if you or someone you love is caught up with the aches and pains, you might try making this simple Salmon Noodle Soup for them. Or, even if everyone is feeling just fine, it’s a lovely spring kind of soup. Unlike most salmon soups which can be heavy with cream or Asian inspired, this soup is a simpler, lighter broth. Like chicken noodle soup, except a bit fishier. It’s super quick to make from scratch, even if you are making starting from the stock.

For the stock, see if you can find frozen fish scraps at your local fish shop. If you are in Seattle, head up to Central Market for a great selection of left over fish parts (or chicken, beef or pork for that matter) that are great for soups and will only set you back about a buck fifty. For my stock, I used onion, celery, thyme, garlic, peppercorns and a teensy bit of fresh ginger. I also threw in dried bonito flakes, as you would for dashi, although my fish stock remained very European tasting. You can of course, use any veggie and seasonings you like. Parsnips, fennel, parsley, carrots all make lovely additions. You don’t even need to chop them. Just throw them in the pot.

To make the stock, add your defrosted and rinsed fish parts, herbs and veggies to a large stockpot and add a good glug of olive oil and about 1/2 cup white wine. Heat on low for about 5 or 10 minutes until it gets nice and fragrant. Then, cover it all with water and simmer for 30 minutes. I like to strain the resulting broth through a couple of layers of cheese cloth to remove any left over bits, but any fine strainer will do. For this recipe, you’ll need about 4 cups of stock. The rest can be refrigerated or frozen for later use.

 

A few years ago, if you had asked me what my favorite restaurant in Seattle was, I could have answered without hesitation. This is pretty unusual for me… I’m not one that easily compares things. I don’t have top 5 favorite albums or foods or movies. There are things I like, and things I don’t like, but putting them in order just seems beyond me. There are too many factors to weigh in… my mood, what I’ve been doing lately, who I’m with. So, it was odd that Osteria La Spiga always seemed to strike me as my favorite.

La Spiga was a tiny little, rustic in a kitschy sort of way, place tucked into the corner of shops along the south end of Broadway just before the “pill hill” where almost all of the hospitals in Seattle are situated. Service was always a little hit or miss, but the food, traditional Emilia-Romagna fare, was stunning. Handmade pastas with the perfect tenderness to make me swoon, slow-cooked meats which were fall off the bone tender, an affatatti misti plate with whisper thin proscuitto and other delights. But the one thing that drew me back over and over was the flat bread. Piadina is like a thick, tender flour tortilla, but with more flavor and bite. The little cut triangles of the warm bread are a perfect match for the prosciutto or cheese, or, even better, stuffed with goodies like fresh mozzarella, basil, wild mushrooms and truffle oil, and called a Crescione which in my mind translates to “food of the gods.” I could eat the flat bread, just plain and simple, piece after piece after piece if no one were around to stop me.

A couple of years ago, La Spiga moved from its funky and charming location to a new space that is about as different as is possible. Where the old location was always quite cramped, the new restaurant soars with double height ceilings and huge wooden beams, and at least 5 times the seating. The old place had a faux old world feel, while the new is warmly modern. The old location usually had one waitress or waiter for the whole room, where the new location seems to have staff winding their way around tables everywhere you look. It’s just as crowded as ever, but now there are pleasant places to wait instead of having to loom over the other diners. It’s truly a beautiful work of architecture.

The one thing, luckily, that hasn’t changed is the food. The menu may have grown along with the space, but my taglietelle ragu is as good as ever and I’d be hard pressed to find anyone that didn’t coo over the Filetto al Tartufo, butter knife tender filet drizzled with truffle oil. And then, there is the piadina. Yes, it’s still there and as good as ever.

These days though, when asked what my favorite restaurant in Seattle is, I hesitate. I still love La Spiga. I love the new space, the prompter service and the gorgeous food. But, still, I miss the old spot. I loved how its funky space and slowish service made you step back, slow down and stop worrying about what you were going to do next. You were going to sit there and eat your meal whenever it happened to arrive. And, with food like that, that was always enough. Especially when you could always ask for “a little more piadina please”.

All of that is a very long way of saying that after years and years, I finally got around to making piadina at home. Traditionally, piadina is made with lard, and as you know, I just happen to have a whole lot of lard right now. I’m sure you could substitute vegetable shortening, but I think you’d miss out on some of the flavor and tenderness of the flat bread. I’ve also seen recipes that substitute olive oil, although this would likely make a bigger change in the texture of the dough.

I ended up using a recipe from Food & Wine which was exceedingly simple to make. So simple, in fact, that I have been kicking myself for not making it sooner. The F&W recipe called for baking soda, although many of the recipes I’ve seen don’t add any type of levening. Next time around, I plan on either leaving it out, substituting baking powder or just using less, because I thought that the flatbread had a tiny bit of a bitter after-taste from the soda.

Regardless, the dough, after sitting, takes on this wonderfully smooth texture that is soft and easy to roll out to a nice thin round. Piadina should really be cooked on something like a pizza stone, but I don’t have one. A stove top griddle, however, works too, although getting the temperature right can be a little tricky. Near the end, my griddle was a little too hot in spots and I quickly scorched a few breads. Luckily, I still had plenty already cooked up for a nice lunch and nibble throughout the day.

It’s not like you really need another dip recipe. Not only are there old standbys, but there are some really gorgeous looking alternatives out there this week. So these two recipes, variations on a couple of heavenly looking dips in Marie Claire Seasonal Kitchen, are really overkill. But, they are so good, I hope you try them anyway.

First off, I give you carrot dip. Now, I was lucky enough to make mine from carrots that were pulled from the ground yesterday. Can you imagine? In January, you can still harvest carrots. And these were true beauties. Big, thick brilliantly orange sticks that smelled like earth and sunshine. Just washing off the caked mud was enough to make me swoon. And, when I saw the beet dip recipe, with its deep scarlet color, I knew that I could get gorgeous results with carrots instead. A bit of reduced blood orange juice (you can use any oranges or even meyer lemons if you want) makes the dip all the more vibrant, both in flavor and color.

I smeared my dip on little polenta-garbanzo bean flour blinis, which I adapted from a recipe that I shot for this Epicurious article last fall (the panna cotta recipe is lovely by the way). But, this dip would work equally well with pita, crackers, celery or a nice crusty french loaf.

I hadn’t actually meant to make two dips, but sitting right next to Seasonal Kitchen’s beet dip recipe was an Italian white bean dip that I couldn’t resist. My version replaces the white beans with black eyed peas, adds a bit of meyer lemon and leaves out the tuna for a veg friendly dip. A drizzle of truffle oil or a good salad-quality oil and a sprinkle of basil easily pushes this dip into the favorite category and a nice change from the usual. Again, crackers or crusty Italian bread would be lovely, but I just made some little toast triangles from bread I had at home.

I’m not sure what this says about us, but we received large packages of bacon this year from not one, but two different people. I mean big packages of bacon. Our freezer is brimming with bacon. Thick cut, apple wood smoked; peppered; Canadian-style. Come on over, and have some bacon… we have plenty to share!

Not that I’m complaining. I mean, what doesn’t go better with a bit of bacon in it? We quickly nibbled up two packages crisply grilled. Yum.

Yesterday, I pulled out the Macrina Bakery sweet scone recipe and made a couple of changes to make a savory version of cheesy bacon scones. These scones, with their generous heaping of whipped cream, bake up extremely light. But don’t let their innocent looks fool you… they are energy (ie, calorie) power houses. Bacon, cream and cheese all in one. They are little triangles of indulgence and a perfect way to work on that beer gut or heart attack you’ve been looking for. Or maybe a good reason to go shopping for some new, less constrictive clothing. Oh, the joys of eternal optimism.

Before the holidays, I was browsing in the bookstore that is attached to Uwajamiya, one of Seattle’s large Asian food grocery stores. I was there to find some manga as a present for my daughter, but of course, immediately got sucked into the cookbook section, completely tempted by book after book that I had never seen before. Never mind that they were written in kanji, so I had no hope of reading any of them…. the photos were enough to keep me mesmerized until realizing the time, I had to rush on over to get the books I was supposed to be buying.

Afterward, one set of books stuck with me… those by Harumi Kurihara. The Japanese versions of these books are graphically gorgeous, light, airy and elegant. I knew I’d have to find the English version. Luckily, there are two… not quite in the same light style, but still beautifully published. Last week, I picked up Harumi’s Japanese Home Cooking and flipping through I knew I had a winner of a book. Many of my favorite Japanese dishes… tonkatsu, gyoza, tomago are beautifully illustrated. Finding the recipe for homemade udon noodles, however, was the real kicker.

Even better, these noodles are about the most fun thing to make (not to mention incredibly simple). I thought I’d be able to use my new toy… the pasta attachment for my Kitchen Aid…but as it turns out, these slippery, thick noodles really don’t require anything other than a bit of arm strength and some time. In fact, I highly recommend against using the dough hook attachment on the Kitchen Aid for the initial kneading… I gave it a try, and found that it couldn’t get the dough to form into a ball well enough when my hands could. Once the dough was in a ball, it was far too heavy and stiff for the mixer to knead it properly. That said, it’s also too hard to knead it with your hands at that point… so Harumi has a wonderful solution. Use your whole body… by wrapping the dough in a plastic and then a towel, you walk all over it to help work the gluten in the dough. Brilliant! It’s so much fun. If you have kids, you must give this a try. Or, even if you don’t.

I found the noodles this recipe makes to be more on the rustic side… more like handshaven noodles than packaged udon. That’s part of what makes them good… but if you prefer a more even, refined noodle, and you have a pasta maker, try using the roller to press out the dough before hand cutting the noodles.

How can you not love a recipe that starts with this dough is magical? And, in fact it is. This rugelach dough that I found in Kate Zukerman’s The Sweet Life will fool you into thinking that you spent hours bookfolding dough to achieve it’s tender puffy layers… only you will know differently. It’s almost ridiculously easy. The toughest part is having to wait several hours for the dough to chill. But, then it’s just a quick roll and a bake to little pinwheels of soft, tangy goodness.

The first time I tried this dough, I stuck with just a slight variation to Zukerman’s original Walnut and Cinnamon Rugelach recipe, only substituting orange zest in place of the currents in the sweet filling. I’d make these again in a heart beat… but what I also found was that the dough was so light and mild, it would work equally well with savory fillings. So, I reworked a batch, with 1/2 the sugar, and rolled up one log with salmon and cream cheese and another with a simple pesto. It worked brilliantly, perfect for little party appetizers. You can play endlessly with combinations to use with this “magical” dough.

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