Author Archives: Eric

03.03.07
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Cookie Story

I work at the San Francisco Film Society on Tuesdays and Thursdays from nine to six. Those are long, eventful days.

In the same building as the film society offices at the Presidio, there is a restaurant called Dish. At about 10:30, it was my wont to get an oatmeal raisin cookie at Dish. I would eat half mid-morning and half mid-afternoon as a pick me up.

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The supply of my favorite cookie was only fairly reliable. Sometimes I’d have to settle for oatmeal chocolate chip; or in the worst case scenerio, a scone. I’m not a baker, but in thinking about my oatmeal raisin cookie, it occurred to me that I could make my own.

My recipe files did not include cookie recipes, so I looked in my cookbooks likely to have such a recipe. Perhaps it’s such a ubiquitous cookie that most cookbooks don’t include it, at least not my cookbooks. I found it only in the Silver Palate Cookbook. I went to my bookmarked food blogs that I respect and found no recipes for oatmeal raisin cookies, but I did find other kinds of oatmeal cookies; Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies at Orangette and the very interesting Pistachio Apricot Oatmeal Cookies from Gourmet via 101 Cookbooks, with the comment that they seemed too buttery. Continue reading →

03.02.07
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au natural

The last week in February, I found the first asparagus from the Sacramento River Delta, the best in the world, at the farmers market.

A few stalls down, there is Coho Salmon. It’s not wild salmon from just off our coast, that will come in a couple of months, but it is wild and will do for now.

So, what’s for dinner?

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Continue reading →

02.19.07
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Pot Roast

Recently, the New York Times ran a recipe for Basic Pot Roast that struck my fancy. It got me to thinking about my mom’s pot roast with the fall-apart meat, gravy, carrots and potatoes melting in my mouth. I have no idea where her recipe is—if she used one. Sunday I got around to cooking this Basic Pot Roast.

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This is really basic; meat, water, potatoes, carrots, onions, salt and pepper. That’s it. One doesn’t even brown the meat. That seemed odd, but I decided to go with the recipe. Continue reading →

02.17.07
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onna plate

Halibut, Salmon, even Steak onna plate

I read a food piece by Olivia Wu in the Chronicle where she thinly sliced halibut, arranged the slices on an oiled plate and cooked it in a 500-degree oven for two minutes.

I can do that!

She described it as an “utterly simple and almost instant dish” and then confounded it by pairing it with a baked tomato confit that is labor intensive and takes about two hours to prepare. I thought the tomato sauce was a bit heavy for the delicate fish.

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The halibut was so good and easy that I tried the same technique with a salmon fillet (mind the bones). That, too, turned out moist and tasty and good and easy.

What a find! Continue reading →

02.07.07
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Storage

I have found, the greatest refrigerator storage container of all time.

Here is my storage container cupboard.

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I’ve been to the kitchen store and hardware and Safeway and found dozens of styles of plastic containers with snap on plastic lids. I’ve recycled mayonnaise jars and pickle jars.

The plastic containers are not clear, are squat in shape, and the lids are flimsy and can tear with frequent use. Those are $3.99 for 3 of the 2 cup size, or a buck-thirty-three each, and they’re empty. Continue reading →

01.29.07
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EZ Chicken

…and a Bonus

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Isn’t that a beautiful dish?

Lovely to look at, easy to prepare and it tastes good. What more could one want?

I got it from The Wednesday Chef who got it from Bon Apitite’s 50th Anniversary Cookbook via the LA Times. The Wednesday Chef calls it Barbara Fairchild’s Spicy Roast Chicken.
I made it the day I read about it, couldn’t be easier.
Take cherry tomatoes, toss them with olive oil, crushed red pepper, garlic and rosemary. Put your bone-in chicken breasts in a shallow casserole dish, pour over the tomato mixture and bake.

That’s good. Yum.

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Soup for Lunch
But the unexpected bonus came days later, when I asked myself the musical question, “What’s for lunch?”

I could open a can of soup. I thought I wanted soup, San Francisco had been going through a weeks long chilly spell and I needed the warmth of soup.

I scanned the refrigerator for leftovers and found the end of that bone-in chicken breast that had been braised with cherry tomatoes, including 4 or 5 tomatoes. Also found a little container of tatsoi leaves left over from the last congee and half of a red onion. Looked like the makings for soup.

I chopped the onion and put that on to melt in some olive oil. Meanwhile I diced a potato into a small dice, threw that in with the onions and gave it a stir. I poured in a can of chicken broth and while that was coming up to a boil, picked the chicken, not much meat on them bones.

Once the soup got to boiling, I threw in the chicken bits, tatsoi leaves and cherry tomatoes, added salt and pepper and a little hot sauce and simmered for about 5 minutes.

That’s good. Yum again.

01.20.07
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Tatsoi

, and Congee

I saw these greens at the Mariquita Farm stand at the Farmers Market. They were beautiful. “What are these called,” I asked the clerk.

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“Tatsoi, you can cook them like beet greens or use them in a salad,” she replied. I bought three and at home checked the Mariquita Farm website recipes. The only recipe listed for Tatsoi was Oriental-Flavor Cabbage Slaw (with Tat soi) from the Greens Cookbook, a regular slaw with a Tatsoi garnish. Not appealing to me, for such a beautiful green.

Googleing “tatsoi” I found mainly salads and a bunch of uninteresting stir frys. Most references that came up on the first page were seed or gardening sites.

The Kitchen Dictionary website, had a pretty good description,

tatsoi, pronounced: that SOY

A dark green Asian salad green that has a spoon like shape, a pleasant and sweet aroma flavor like a mild mustard flavor, similar to bok choi. Tatsoi is generally eaten raw, but may be added to soups at the end of the cooking period. When tatsoi is mixed with other greens it enhances the flavor and nutritional value. Tatsoi may not be available in your regular grocery store. Specialty markets may carry it, or it can be grown from seeds, in warmer climates.

Google also found a few mentions of Rice Congee, where tatsoi is used as a garnish.
Continue reading →

01.10.07
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Hog Rotten

How a Croque Monsieur became part of a lovely cauliflower dish.

velveeta.pngAs a kid, I loved scalloped potatoes, but drew the line at potatoes—or anything—au gratin. My brother and I called them potatoes hog rotten. In Ohio at the time, scalloped potatoes were made with milk. To make potatoes au gratin, cheese was added, usually orange cheese, probably Velveeta.

I looked to Julia Child for a definitive answer on the issue of scalloped and au gratin. In Mastering the Art of French Cooking (1961) there is a recipe for Gratin Dauphinois [Scalloped Potatoes with Milk, Cheese and a Pinch of Garlic) Julia writes in the preface, “There are as many ‘authentic’ versions of gratin dauphinois as there are of bouillabaisse.” She goes on to say, “Although some authorities on le vrai gratin dauphinois would violently disagree, you may omit the cheese. If you do so, add 2 more tablespoons of butter.”

By 1999 the cheese had disappeared entirely. In Julia and Jacques Cooking at Home, the recipe for Julia’s Pommes de Terre Dauphinoise makes no mention of cheese, either in the recipe itself or in the Scalloped Potatoes introduction. Continue reading →

01.05.07
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Happy New Year

The Eve and the Day

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It all starts on New Year’s Eve and we had reservations for 9:45 at Tablespoon (A New Measure of Bistro), a 47 seat bistro on Polk Street, two blocks from our house. No driving.

Sarah, who was joining us, came over early, and I made an appetizer to start the evening properly.

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Broiled Radicchio
From Julia Wiley’s blog 12/05, there’s a comment on a comment dissing radicchio, looks like it might be from Great Britan. It has a great idea for mellowing the bitter radicchio. Continue reading →

12.26.06
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Anatomy of a Christmas Dinner

Rosemary-And-Pepper Standing Rib Roast With Two-Mushroom Pan Sauce, Roasted Root Vegetables and Harvard Beets

It was Christmas day.

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Three days earlier I bought a 3 rib, 8-pound Prime Rib of Beef at Golden Gate Meat Company. That big beauty was air drying in the refrigerator. The recipe I had selected to roast it called for 3 tablespoons chopped fresh thyme leaves and I had overlooked that small item. I didn’t have enough shallots, either. The only store open on Christmas day was Safeway (until 4 p.m.), so I went. No thyme, no shallots. I asked the produce guy and he said, “It’s Christmas, the warehouse is closed.” Hmmm, I bought a bunch of rosemary.

When I got home, I looked on epicurious.com for another recipe. I found Rosemary-And-Pepper Standing Rib Roast With Two-Mushroom Pan Sauce; rated 4-forks with three cooks raving about its goodness. Worth a try, and I had a package of dried Porcini mushrooms, but no fresh mushrooms. Back to Safeway. There were three empty risers in the place where the fresh mushrooms live. I looked for canned mushrooms, but not with any enthusiasm; I didn’t find them. I could live with that, it’s only the gravy. Continue reading →