A Jersey Girl in Portland

Izakaya; Boken in Bend, Oregon

Nam Jim Shrimp

I wrote about restaurants and food for many years. I went to culinary school to be a better writer -- to write about food with more authority.  

Really, I'm a cook because I wanted to be a better food writer.

But, as a food critic for some ten years, I'd eaten so many things-- so many good things-- that meals out rarely stand out.  Sure, I love damn near every thing I eat because I love food, but it rarely surprises me.

Bummer because I love surprises.

But Hell yes! I ate in Bend and.... surprised I was.

Mount Fuji roll, pork belly steamed bun.

I went to Central Oregon (high desert country) for a strategic planning meeting. Usually I travel with Belmont, and lately I do things with the Manfriend Spike. This time I traveled alone.

Usually I eat pub food or pizza. Nothing special.

Because Bend is not a dining hot spot. Or is it? 

Tonight I went to Boken, an Izakaya (Japanese pub) joint in 'the breezeway off Wall street in downtown Bend.

Really, it was one of the most delicious and flavorfully challenging meals I've eaten in ages. The flavors, textures, preparations were all intense and incredible.

So, what did I eat?

Baby squid (top), Dinomite mussels (bottom)

 I had skewers of squid, so tender and juicy the bits could be cut with a chopstick.

Mussels in a dynamite sauce (spicy aioli), again lovely and unctuous to boot.

I really liked the Mount Fuji roll; seared scallop, cucumber, avocado, cilantro, Thai chilies and an apple puree (like a silky apple sauce).

My absolute favorite was the steamed bun with a slab of pork belly, kimchi, and slices of cucumber. Amazing -- the way the slippery softness of the belly contrasted with the sour kimchi. Fabulous and so perfectly balanced.

I don't want to diminish or trivialize the cuisine by calling it "pan Asian" but ... well ... They also serve banh mi sandwiches and sushi.

So. Go to Bend. Eat at Boken. Please.

Romesco: dip, sauce or gravy?

(I should post topical  stories on the day they're written.... alas I've been busy)

4/10/12 

I have the day off. Huzzzah! You can't see it but I'm doing the "Day Off Happy Dance.*"

On my days off, I like to cook something different, something special. So I'll pull a cookbook off a shelf and flip through it. See what captures my fancy.

This morning, I pulled a Spanish tapas cook book and a Romesco sauce caught my eye.

I adapted the following Romesco recipe from Penelope Casas' excellent "Tapas" cookbook.

It's basically a tomato sauce. Or, if you're from Philly, gravy. But it makes a wonderful dip, hot or cold.

Is it a dip? sauce? gravy? Who knows. I can tell you that it originated in Catalan, Spain (it's the place with a lispy accent and a lot of X's pronounced thhhh). It's roasted garlic, onion, red pepper and garlic pureed with roasted almonds, olive oil and vinegar.

It's deep and nutty with a little heat from the dried chilies -- steeped in fig vinegar and white vinegar.

Romesco

3 or 4 Roma tomatoes

1 yellow onion, peeled and cut in half

1 small red bell pepper, seeds removed, cut in half

20 ea almonds

1 cup XVOO (divided use)

3 Tbsp red wine vinegar (I was out, so I used fig-infused vin mixed with white vinegar, 3:1)

3 small, hot, dried chilie peppers

4 cloves garlic

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Lightly oil tomatoes, peeled onion, and halved pepper. Put on baking sheet and roast for 20 minutes. After 20 minutes, add the garlic. Roast for an additional 10 minutes.

Heat the vinegar and dried chilies to a simmer in a small saucepan. Simmer peppers for 5 minutes. Set aside.

Heat 1/4 cup XVOO in a small saute pan. Add the almonds and roast until dark brown. Remove from heat.

Using a food processor, combine roasted veggies, peppers in vinegar and oil-poached almonds. Add 1/2 cup of olive oil as the mix processes. Completely process and season to taste.

That's it.

May your day's off be as fun and fulfilling as mine.

XOXO
Nancy

 

* The Day Off Happy Dance is a 'raise the roof' motion with my hands while I do a little skippy thing with my feet.

Wheat berries

If we ate like vegans for two meals of every day, the world might heal from the ravages of over grazing and the agra-businesses that poison the land and overproduce crappy food.

It's a philosophy I got from one of my idols. Mark Bittman. His book, The Food Matters Cookbook is a bible for responsible, omnivorous eaters. He says that two vegan meals a day and one with meat will do wonders for the health of the earth.
But he says it better than I.

So, I was thinking about Bittman as well as New!! and Exciting!! ways to get even more healthy food into the Manfriend and me. 

We're not hurting for quality food. He brings a bag of organic produce home from the market every week. But we eat a lot of meat. Bacon in the wilted greens and poached egg breakfasts. Flat iron steaks for dinner, shrimp and andouille-spiked jambalaya for a late night snack. We're all meat, all the time.

Not good for the planet, So...

I picked up a couple pounds of wheat berries at the Portland Farmers Market. Super cheap, $3 for two pounds of tasty, wheaty protein, that's neither animal based or tofu.

(But Nancy, what are wheat berries?) Wheat berries are whole, unprocessed wheat kernels. These came from Stalford Seed Farm.

I soaked them overnight and simmered them for 30 minutes. In retrospect, I'd simmer them 45 minutes and check them. Once cooled, they got harder than I expected.

But the flavor is delicious. Nutty, chewy, and savory.

I made a salad of roasted celeriac, diced shallot, chopped (blanched) rapini, and tomatoes. I also added some salt, a squeeze of lime, and a bunch of XVOO. Yum, yum, yum.

This is my new go-to non-meat protein for summer salads. Try 'em. They're delish.

Wheat berry, celery root, rapini and tomato salad

And they taste terrific with a Manhattan!

 

 

(Today I Will) Master Biscuits

I do many things well, and a few things quite well.

Like cook. I'm a good cook. I can make almost anything.

Anything but pancakes and biscuits. My pancakes usually fall flat and my biscuits fail to rise. But, I want to make good biscuits! So today I will make biscuits until I get it right.

As any savory cook will tell you, baking ain't cooking.

It's more precise.

The Winning Biscuits 

If something goes wrong in a saute pan, and it isn't burned, it's salvageable.

Broken sauces can be fixed. Salty soups can be diluted or cured with potatoes. But if you screw up bread, it stays screwed.  No way around it.

 

I also hate that I can't make biscuits because of my colossal ego. OK maybe not colossal -- but substantial ego. How can I possibly NOT excel at biscuits when I can cook damn near anything?

Enough navel gazing. Back to biscuits.

(literary aside: I wanted to title this post To Master Biscuits but I was afraid of copywrite infringement --or attracting the wrong kind of attention from any fetisist/kinkster named Master Biscuits. Anyhoo, I think I'm safe.)

So I made biscuits using a recipe from a kooky, old, Southern recipe cookbook/pamphlet. 

Success!

No more will the kids at the bake shop kick flour in my face because I can't make a tall, fluffy biscuit. I am no longer a pastry outcast, buying baguettes because I can't make biscuits.

Today I beat biscuits. It was Battle: Biscuits. And I won!

Oh. Here's how

Fine, Old, Southern Biscuits

2 cups sifted flour

2 tspns baking powder

1 tsp salt

1/3 cup butter (recipe calls for lard) at room temp or slightly lower

2/4 cup milk

additional milk to brush on top of the biscuits.

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees.

Mix flour, baking powder and salt. Cut in the butter or lard until the mix resembles cornmeal. Make an indentation in the center of the flour/butter mix. Add the milk all at once.

Stir with a fork until "the dough follows the fork". What that means is to mix it until the dough forms a large, sticky, clump.

Dump the dough onto a floured board and flour the top of the dough. Begin kneading. Now, here is where I've always had a problem. The amount of kneading determines the texture of the biscuit. Too much, and the biscuit is tough. Too little and the biscuit won't rise.

I kneaded it until it was just becoming smooth and beginning to 'fight' with me. That means gluten development had begun. I kneaded it a few more times and let it rest for a few minutes.

Roll the dough to 1/2 inch thickness and cut with a biscuit cutter. Don't use a glass and DON'T TWIST THE BISCUIT CUTTER. Just a straight up-and-down cut. Transfer the biscuits to an ungreased cookie sheet or sheet tray. Brush with milk and bake.

That's it.

Biscuits.

Ciao and happy biscuits to you!

I (heart) the Cosmic Love Tribe.