EATDRINK AND TEST KITCHENS

Martha Stewart Living (etc) test kitchen
Everyday Food test kitchen

As some folks may know--Thursdays at 4pm EST on Sirius 112 radio channel, Eatdrink is broadcast live. This little radio program was born several years ago for Martha Stewart Living radio channel. Once a week--a guest comes on with me and we basically chat, ramble, eat and drink for an hour. Every week I learn something new from folks I admire in this industry.

Used to be I'd trek up to 48th street from my office on west 26th to do the show at the Sirius studios which are a really cool place to be. But--it was tough to take such a chunk out of my busy day to do so. Recently, our company built a studio at the office just upstairs from our test kitchens.

I could literally test a recipe, put it on the oven--do the radio show and its finished when I'm done--just the way I work at home when I'm cooking--trying to multi-task where possible.

The other bonus of this new studio is that my wonderful guests (chefs, bakers, author, farmers, mixologists etc) can now come to the test kitchen after the show and meet our food editors.

Yesterday baker Dorie Greenspan was on the show http://www.doriegreenspan.com/. Dorie is truly one of the most lovely people I know in this business and a favorite radio guest of Eatdrink. Yesterday we toured the test kitchens after the show and she shared her utter amazement on twitter soon after--so I figured I share a few pics too:

From Dorie: After Lucinda Scala Quinn's Eat/Drink radio show, I got a tour of the @marthastewart test kitchens.I want to live in themforever.SoFabulous!

PERNIL

Bone-in pork shoulder (Pernil) is an awesome cut of meat. It's where value + flavor= feeds a large crowd. Marinating in a combo of or single citrus (grapefruit, orange, lime), oregano, garlic, hot pepper, olive oil, salt and back pepper. Best after 2 days of marinating but I'll be cooking this today and it'll still be great. It cooks low and slow--225 degrees for 3 or 4 hours in a roasting pan with some water in the bottom until the meat is falling off the bone and the crackling on top is crispy crisp. I'll serve it with rice, sliced avocados (with lots of black pepper and sliced white onions), boiled yucca with mojo AND shredded lettuce. Black beans would complete but didn't get to them together for this meal. Latin jazz cooking in the background too.

HANDMADE CAPPUCCINO

I've used many fancy espresso machines and battery powered milk foamers etc over the years but love making cappuccinos without a machine. Best coffee (personal choice) finely ground and made in a stove top mocha coffee pot http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moka_(coffee_pot). Then whole milk is heated in the microwave until hot but not scalded and I take a small whisk, handle held between both palms and vigorously twirl in the milk for 35 seconds which creates a great amount of foam. Pour in the coffee and voila.

MAD THIRSTY

I'm not sure what took me so long to get it but boy do I love my new soda stream http://www.sodastreamusa.com/?gclid=CLfOsKj--58CFWEO5QodyXJ2mQ.

While not the most beautiful looking thing--it is so good. Bottles of sparkling water are made in seconds. For years we've kept jugs of Brita filtered water http://www.brita.com/intl/around the house and except milk and the occasional juice carton (cocktail fixings too, of course for the adults) so as a result, the guys drink a ton of water. They got in the habit because they had to and now its the drink of choice. So, naturally--the instant soda is welcome. With lots of citrus fruit always on hand --fresh grapefruit, orange or lime for a "squash" drink is an awesome drink too.

JA SAUCES AND COCKTAILS

Up at Good Hope in Jamaica for the Kiln and Kitchen workshop we made three sauces

papaya chutney (recipe in Mad Hungry), pawpaw pepper sauce and jerk sauce. The chutney was served with a leg of lamb, the pepper sauce is just an all around hot sauce for the table and the jerk sauce is explained in prior post. Sharnette made her famous bananas flambe for dessert one night.

And, cocktail class was def one of my favorites--it's where "The Scotchie" was born--the one cocktail that made it into Mad Hungry. The students all made their own glasses--my idea was to have a rough inside bottom similar to a molcajete to assist in the muddling of the herbs for the drink. Potter David also made a few of his signature cocktails. One major delicious combo was basil, grapefruit (actually UGLI fruit) and white rum.

Am curing the northern Febuaryitis by feeling the tropical paradise.

JA JERK CHICKEN

Following up on yesterdays post about the Kiln and Kitchen workshop in Jamaica--

here are the chicken pics. You can see the Yabba pot for the rice and peas behind the kettle grill--both being prepared for cooking. I like to marinate the jerk chicken (or pork) in the jerk paste for at least 24 hours--sometimes even 48 (especially if I have a large shoulder of pork). My recipe is an extremely basic one which only includes the essential flavors of scallion, scotch bonnet pepper, pimento berry (allspice), garlic, thyme, black pepper and salt--all ground up together. But, this is a very personal choice. Formulas and styles of Jerk sauce abound in Jamaica and are coveted with great secrecy. Many years ago in the jerk pits of Boston Beach in Port Antonio--a guy shared a bottle that'd been in his family for 10 years (unrefrigerated) and added to yearly as if feeding a sourdough starter. The pepper and salt act to preserve the sauce which also contained cinnamon bark, ginger and even ground up fever bush.

The key is very slow smoking which I often do over indirect heat. And, after the meat has cooked and rested the whole lot gets hacked into pieces for serving, bones and all.

Extra sauces are served on the side with varying degrees of heat. Even the hard core Jamaican cooks who assisted me on this work shop agreed that this recipe is righteous and thankfully it earned me the ultimate cred with them too. Cold Red Stripe beer or the heavenly local grapefruit soda Ting washes down the whole spicy smokey meat like nothing else.

RICE AND PEAS

A couple of years ago before getting so busy making Mad Hungry, I spent a week teaching at a work shop called The Kiln and The Kitchen at Good Hope in Trelawny, Jamaica. My childhood friend David Pinto, a potter who works up there invited me to collaborate with him in teaching ceramists cooking. The focus was on functional ceramics. The idea was to really expore how ceramics functioned with every day cooking. Daily, the students worked in the pottery studio and in the kitchen where I taught recipes from

http://www.amazon.com/Lucindas-Authentic-Jamaican-Kitchen-Lucinda/dp/0471749354 and we used only local ingredients and cooking methods. Good Hope is a truly magical location which through the grace of my dear friends, The Harts--I've been visiting for years. See, http://www.facebook.com/pages/Mad-Hungry/105147526028?ref=ts for a look at the view from the kitchen. I dreamed of Good Hope last night and you can see why.

One day we had a barbecue and made Jerk Chicken old-school style (will post tomorrow) and one of my favorite JA dishes, Rice & Peas--a truly egalitarian dish found on every Jamaican table from the humblest to the most grand. Here we used a traditionally made (from local clay) Yabba pot, built our fire and cooked our Rice and Peas while the chicken slow smoked.

Here's the recipe for our northern kitchens:

1/2 pound dried red beans (1 cup)

6-8 cups coconut milk (dilute the canned milk 1:1 with water)

1 teaspoon black pepper

2 whole scallions

2 sprigs fresh thyme (1 1/2 dried)

2 cups long grain rice

2 teaspoons salt

Wash the beans and place in a pot with the coconut milk, black pepper, scallions and thyme. Bring to a boil, cover and simmer 1-2 hours until the beans are just tender (adding water if needed to keep the beans covered). Cooking time depends on the age of the beans. Remove the thyme stalks and scallion. Add the rice and salt. If necessary, add more water so liquid is 1 inch above rice. Bring to a boil, cover and reduce heat to simmer for 20 minutes.

During our workshop --we learned about cooking fish, river shrimp, pepper sauces, pumpkin soups and fish teas, drinks from local spirits, herbs and fruits, tropical desserts etc etc. And, on the other side, I learned about creating ceramics from David, Doug and all their amazing students from far and wide.

Am presently making rice and peas, pumpkin soup with spinners and more than likely, later on, will have to mix up a batch of rum punch too. Too much tropical on the brain and The Mighty Diamonds http://www.themightydiamonds.com kick off a day of reggae music pulsing through the house. One love!

BOY BANANA BREAKFAST

If I swirl mashed bananas into chocolate chip cookie dough, french toast batter, pancakes, muffins etc--boys like it better. Here the bananas are mashed into the Old Fashioned Pancakes recipe from MH AND served fresh along side for a double hit. Thanks to Kamran for the reminder on this which is a very yummy and sunny breakfast for this snowy morning.

Listening to some Townes Van Zandt via Steve Earle's new tribute recording TOWNES--some hauntingly beautiful songs written by TVZ.

MORE ON CABBAGE-KALE

Not to beat a dead cabbage but--this variety of cabbage which behaves like kale is kind of insane as pointed out on yesterdays MH FB page post by Kempe Minifie (former executive food editor Gourmet magazine) http://www.facebook.com/pages/Mad-Hungry/105147526028?ref=ts. Should you have a garden, I recommend getting these seeds. Unlike most other cabbages, there is so little water contained within that when it's cooked it has practically the same volume as raw which you can see from the pics here. Therefore, it feeds many more mouths than your average head of cabbage. It fed last nights dinner and this mornings breakfast too. Put fried eggs on just about any leftover for breakfast and they eat it.

In this family, we love cabbage--all of us. (Last night while fending off one stalking boy awaiting the roast chicken, a preview bowl of cabbage actually did the trick.) We make it at least once a week and they have been trained to love it. As I say in MH--this does not happen over night, rather I've been cooking it for the kids ever since they started eating solid food (vegetable eaters are made not born). And, because it is an absolute nutritional powerhouse (like sweet potatoes too) it packs a little something for everyone. It's loaded with phytochemicals called indoles which burns up excess estrogen (uhhmm, ladies?), has proven anti-cancer enzymes, and is loaded with Vitamin C and many B's too. And it's got to be one of the greatest $$ value veggies out there. To cook it here I got a large pan very hot, added olive oil, 4 clove sliced garlic, half teaspoon hot pepper flakes, saute 30 seconds (don't burn) added the cabbage and stir-sauteed for about 10 minutes till just tender but still a bit crunchy and slightly caramelized too.

If I haven't lost you yet, and have peaked your cabbage interest then check out more from this fantastic story (and breathtaking pics) in the January issue of Martha Stewart Living

http://www.marthastewart.com/article/cabbage-101.

A note re this blog. Here, I am a cook who photographs the best I can. While I adore beautiful food pics (and randomly make one now and then)--in this venue--I'm more interested in the moment, the meaning, and the process of the food. This explains why there is often a yucky yellow cast over some pics (and other probs too). It's often night, I'm cooking, the light sucks, the household is crazy--whatever. There are many gorgeous food blogs and maybe one day this will be too.

But, the so-beautiful-I have-t0-eat-it-right-now pics, I get to make on my day job at Martha Stewart--working with the best photographers and an incredible group of colleagues who style, art direct and edit. For the best food pics ever----go there too and support this beautiful magazine: https://martha.zt01.net/MSL/1/msl_july_google/landing/msl_google.php?utm_source=Google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_term=martha_stewart_living_magazine&utm_campaign=Martha_Stewart_Living&utm_content=Rollout_-_New_creative,_$15_+$4.95_w/reply_date&gclid=CI7lk6fA4J8CFag65QodcWU5GQ

Ok--think I'll take a break from eggs, cabbage and chicken for a while.

SATURDAY SPOILS

Dead of winter farmers market booty. Dinner thoughts are Chicken roast with cipolini onions and fingerling potatoes, sauted kale-cabbage, apple pie. But, first will pilfer a few dinner fingerlings for a breakfast dish inspired by the folks at Momofuko noodle bar. Crispy bacon, scallions and a slow poached egg.

MH CHILI FROM SERIOUSEATS.COM

Another great super bowl option from seriouseats.com Try to make the chili ahead by a day or two and it's even better

Cook the Book: Chili

Posted by Caroline Russock, February 3, 2010 at 1:00 PM

"All along I had been searching for a chili that tasted like chiles, and this one was it."

[Photograph: Caroline Russock]

Recently I have been craving nothing but spicy food—really spicy food. Not just hot sauce spicy but tingling, lip-burning, spicy food that you know is a bad idea even when you are eating it. I've been seeking out the hottest Sichuan, the most chile-laden Mexican, and snapping up everything pepper-related in the market. My theory is it's a subconscious reaction to the frigid February weather but that doesn't make all that much sense because as far as I know, spicy food doesn't keep you any warmer.

Regardless, my craving for all things that rank on the Scoville scale goes on and all of the chiles that go into this recipe for Chili from Lucinda Scala Quinn's Mad Hungrycaught my eye.

The recipe starts with toasting and grinding dried chiles into a deep red paste in lieu of the more common chili powder (a milder mix of dried chiles with many other aromatic but decidedly not very spicy spices). The other hot factors are pickled jalapeños, red chili flakes, and cayenne.

I've made countless batches of chili in my life. Many have been richly flavored, beefy, and smokey but none have been really hot. I was hoping that Quinn's version would be that chili.

To amp up the heat, I left most of the seeds of the dried peppers intact and added the jalapeños and red chili flakes with a heavy hand. I was a bit worried about killing the flavor with too much spice but the finished chili had a wonderful balance of dark, beefy chili flavor and a kick that was right where I wanted it.

aking a batch of chili without using chili powder was a real eye-opener.

Making a batch of chili without using chili powder was a real eye-opener. I've always found that jarred chili powder has a staleness to it, even a vaguely chalky character, but this powderless chili had none of that. The ground chile paste had an amazing depth and the pickled jalapeños provided an acidity that I've never encountered in chili before. All along I had been searching for a chili that tasted like chiles, and this one was it.

This chili was a big crowd-pleaser at my house, and easy enough to double or even triple for a game day crowd. If you have any hungry chili aficionados joining you for Sunday's game, Quinn's dried chile accented chili would make a wonderful centerpiece.

Win Mad Hungry

As always with our Cook the Book feature, we have five (5) copies of Mad Hungry to give away this week. Enter to win here »

Chili

- serves 6 -

Adapted from Mad Hungry by Lucinda Scala QuinnLucinda Scala Quinn.

Ingredients

5 dried red chilies (Mexican ancho, New Mexican Hatch, or Anaheim)
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 cup chopped onion
3 garlic cloves, minced (1 tablespoon)
2 pounds ground beef
1 tablespoon coarse salt
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes, or pinch cayenne pepper
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
1 bay leaf
1/4 cup pickled jalapeños, chopped (optional)
1 28-ounce can tomatoes, broken up, with juice
12 ounces beer
1 15-ounce can beans (pinto, kidney, black, or a combination), drained

Procedure

1. In a dry large skillet over high heat, lightly toast both sides of the chilies for a few minutes. After roasting, remove from pan to slice open, then remove and discard the stem and seeds. Cover the chilies in boiling water and let soften for 5 minutes. In a blender or food processor, puree the chiles with enough soaking liquid to form a thick paste.

2. Heat the skillet again over medium-high heat, then add the olive oil. Saute the onion and garlic until translucent, about 3 minutes. Increase the heat and add the beef, stirring occasionally to pick up browned bits on the bottom of the pan as the moisture evaporates, about 15 minutes. If the meat is excessively fatty (your judgement call), spoon off some of the fat, but leave some for flavor.

3. Stir in the cumin and cook for 30 seconds. Add the chile paste, red pepper flakes, oregano, bay leaf, jalapeños, and the remaining teaspoon of salt. Stir to combine well.

4. Add the tomatoes and beer and simmer for 30 minutes. Add the beans and cook for an additional 20 minutes. Add water if needed for consistency. Serve with preferred condiments.

FIFTEEN

We're down one soccer player and dog walker but up a french toast maker (first time, not bad).

He actually followed the sub recipe in the MH stuffed french toast recipe. It took two hours to make and his version of clean-up doesn't exactly match mine but---baby steps folks, baby steps (in more ways than one!).

BOYZ

they eat always and cook sometimes

A FEW THOUGHTS ON SUPER BOWL EATS

Confession: American football is not my favorite sport although I do love football (as in soccer). Both kinds of football dominate our house. And no fall weekend is devoid of either. Usually, I take the time to see a movie, shop, chill with a friend or just do about any other activity other than football. And I don't love the idea of cooking to feed the guys yelling at the guys on television. However I do get in the spirit some years and agree to the cooking like I have this year. Something about the New Orleans angle inspired me to agree to being the superbowl cook so here are my thoughts. First of all, I was happy to see one of my favorite food blogs Serious Eats highlight MH in Cook The Book and, duh--never thought of the Red Beans and Rice as SB fare and it's a dam good idea--cheap, tasty, make-ahead--all the hallmarks of good sports food. http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2010/02/new-orleans-style-red-beans-recipe.html. I am making MH chili on Thursday (meaning the flavor will be mad deep by Sunday) and heaps of these chicken wings here which was a request. One last thing I'm considering is the Seven Layer Bean Dip first published in the Easy Entertaining column in Martha Stewart last year (along with another yum wing recipe) http://www.marthastewart.com/recipe/seven-layer-bean-dip. Cold beer and root beer will be in full supply.

Recipe: Crunchy Sesame Chicken Wings from "Mad Hungry"

By Heather Hoch in Recipes

Courtesy of Mad Hungry

​When we asked Lucinda Scala Quinn what recipes she absolutely loves in her book, Mad Hungry, the crunchy sesame chicken wings were at the top of the list. She described the recipe as "super simple" and the results "dynamite."

According to Scala Quinn, the wing recipe came from the constant dinner table battle for the wings off the chicken. So forget the rest of the bird, and grab a big pile of spicy wings. That way everyone's happy.

The Bird: 20 chicken wings

Crack 3 eggs in a bowl and beat. Toss and coat each wing in the eggs.

The Sesame Coating:
½ cup of sesame seeds
½ cup of flour
2 teaspoons of coarse salt
¼ teaspoon of cayenne pepper
½ cup of fresh bread crumbs
2 to 3 garlic cloves, minced

Combine all ingredients together in a small bowl. Dip each egg-covered wing in the mixture until fully coated. Place wings on a baking sheet, either coated with oil or parchment paper, and bake for 30 minutes in the oven at 375 degrees. Raise the temperature to 400 degrees and cook until the wings are golden brown and sizzling, about 20 to 30 minutes. Immediately remove from baking sheet once the wings have finished cooking.

The Plate:
Pile the hot and spicy wings on a serving plate. Make sure there's plenty of hot sauce to go around on the table.