June 6, 2012 | 11:49 am

Duck liver and the sixth taste

Posted by Rob Eshman

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First, there were four basic tastes — sweet, salty, bitter and sour. Then we learned of a fifth, umami, whose elusive savory-ness underlies everything from Parmesan to well-aged beef to soy sauce.

But what fascinates me these days is an even more elusive taste, a sixth sense. Call it moral.

The “moral taste” is actually a phrase New Yorker writer Adam Gopnik coined in his book “The Table Comes First: Family, France and the Meaning of Food.” Think of an Orthodox Jew relishing a piece of brisket not just because it tastes salty and umami, but because he knows it is also glatt kosher. A locavore foodie enjoys the sweetness of a plum even more because she knows it came from a family farm down the street. Moral tastes can, and do, change across cultures and time, but they are as intrinsic to flavor as are salty or sour.

That realization, that food has a moral flavor, has bubbled up from the fringes of the food world to the tables of the finest restaurants to corporate boardrooms and capitol rotundas. Immoral food has become as distasteful as food that is too salty or too sweet. It sticks in our craw.

Take foie gras. The fattened liver of a goose or duck is, of course, very umami, with a touch of saltiness. But because it is produced through force-feeding a fowl by placing a tube down its gullet, an international movement has successfully fought for the abolition of foie gras in numerous countries, and in this state. As of July 1, Californians will no longer be able to produce or sell foie gras.

Most chefs love “fwah,” as they call it. And even if they don’t serve it, they resent being told by non-chefs what they can and can’t serve, and they don’t appreciate being seen as morally deficient for putting foie on their menus. They worry that if the food Taliban start with a foie ban, where will they end? A veal fatwa? A blood sausage herem?

These were some of the concerns I heard recently at a private, after-hours dinner at Mezze restaurant on La Cienega, hosted by Mezze’s chef and manager (and co-owners) Micah Wexler and Mike Kassar. Local chefs and food purveyors sat together at a long table. At the center sat Gary Wexler, the nonprofit marketing guru, who is also Micah’s dad. Between plates of Mezze’s Middle Eastern-inflected food, Gary led a discussion on the moral responsibilities of chefs. It was like a seder — minus the boring parts and with much better food.

Talk quickly focused on the foie ban, with the chefs saying how ludicrous it is that of all the huge issues in the food world — from the crashing of fish stocks to the obesity epidemic — this is what legislators focus on. Several chefs made the argument that foie is a natural phenomenon of birds gluttonously storing up fat reserves for a long migration — the ducks like to be engorged. The problem, Micah said, is chefs are so damn busy, they don’t have time to educate the public, leaving fear-mongers and agenda-drivers in charge.

Midway through the meal, I realized that the tall, rangy, gray-haired guy sitting across from me was not just any guy sitting across from me, but Bill Niman. Niman is a food god. He’s a former hippie who translated his love of land and animals into the $65 million, pasture-raised beef company called Niman Ranch. When corporate overseers pushed him aside, Niman retreated to his Marin coastal ranch to raise goats and heritage turkeys for meat, which he sells under the BN Ranch label. 

He is soft-spoken, and — it turns out — Jewish, and, like most people I admire, completely at home in the world of moral ambiguity. Don’t kid yourself, he said; animals do feel pain.

“My goats have friends,” he told me. “They form bonds.”

I told Niman that while I occasionally eat meat, I can’t imagine killing a goat. The two little goats I own have everything Niman described: friends, personality, a love of life. How, I asked, does he wrap his head around goat meat?

“I give them a great life,” he said, “and one bad day.”

I sensed Niman wasn’t as gung ho about fighting the foie ban as the younger chefs at the table. One thing about the moral taste is that it evolves, in society and the individual. But while we may simply lose our taste for sweets, we have to choose what moral flavors to consume or abandon.

The moral taste requires we not be passive, gullet-stuffed swallowers of food. The moral taste requires we wrestle with what we eat. The moral taste asks that you make up your own mind about foie gras, but chew it over first.

Micah and Mike want to make dinner discussions like the one they hosted become regular. No one is closer to the reality of their business than chefs; in a world with six tastes, their menus are moral documents.

Perhaps not so coincidentally, one of the better expressions of the link between what we eat and who we are can be found in the Israeli Supreme Court 2003 decision banning the production and sale of foie gras in Israel.

In calling for a ban on force-feeding, Justice Eliezer Rivlin wrote: “As to myself, I have no doubt in my heart that wild creatures as well as pets have emotions. They are endorsed with soul that experiences the emotions of joy and sorrow, happiness and grief, love and fear. Some of them nurture special feelings toward their friend-enemy: man.

“Not everyone thinks so, but no one denies that even these creatures feel the pain caused to them by physical harm or by violent intrusion into their innards. The justifiers might say that human welfare should fly upwards, even at the cost of trouble to the birds. But this has a price — and the price is diminishing human dignity.”

Follow Rob Eshman on Twitter @Foodaism

May 31, 2012 | 12:41 pm

Foodaism’s Berlin Restaurant Guide

Posted by Rob Eshman

I was at a banquet for the USC Shoah Visual History Foundation a few weeks ago.  Phil Rosenthal, the creator of Everybody Loves Raymond, was the MC.  He killed—mostly by contrasting the sumptuous surroundings—the Four Seasons—and the lavish food, with the fact that we were all there because of…the Shoah.

“Every Jewish meal comes with a healthy side of guilt,” he said.

And that’s how I felt in Berlin.

As I wrote in my editorial this week, the banging nightlife, the rejuvenated neighborhoods and hip bars and ideal restaurants can be disorienting.  Wait, I’m enjoying myself… in Berlin.  I’m gorging myself… in Berlin. 

That said, the visitBerlin people took a small group of journalists to some places that in any city I’d want to revisit, even with the guilt.

Two things in Berlin’s favor: it’s far less expensive than other European capitals.  We stayed at the Hotel Regent, a four star, former Four Seasons pamper-palace in a 19th century building about a mile from the Brandenberg Gate.  Marble floors, Meissen baubles, fluffy bathrobes and a staff that seemed to be put on earth to assent to your whims.

And between my forays into Berlin Jewish history, the visitBerlin people treated me to a series of fine meals.  And I discovered: nothing helps you reconcile the dark past to the promising future like a good bottle of Riesling and real food..

With one happy exception, the food we ate reflected the trend toward local and sustainably-sourced food.  Funny that going local is actually a global craze.  All the restaurants touted their farm fresh local produce and meats—Berlin as Berkeley. Ditto the more casual, gastropub vibe and predilection for small plates and regional specialties.  (The exception was that most places served a fresh fish or two, and last I checked Berlin is about 200 miles from the ocean).

It was fresh white asparagus season in Germany. The variety they all but pray to is called Beelitzer.  Such adoration reminded me of a line from Jeffrey Lewis’ novel Berlin Cantata: “The Germans either believe in nothing, or too much.”

Every place, from two star gastro-temples to the local brew houses, paid homage to the white, densely flavored and frankly somewhat phallic .  In three days I ate chilled asparagus salad, a creamed white asparagus soup, sautéed Beelitzers, or, the most common preparation, steamed white asparagus with boiled new potatoes and melted butter.  I ate that last dish three times, and never got tired of it. 

Of the places we visited, my recommendations are below.  Keep in mind prices are generally lower what you’d pay in other European capitals, more in line with Los Angeles prices for moderate to high-end restaurants. 

Fischers Fritz

A two-star Michelin restaurant in the Hotel Regent. You pass one of the world’s five lobster presses in the foyer.  For 280 Euros (but that’s for two people…), you can order Maine lobster in a sauce of pressed shell and coral jus slurried with cream.  That wasn’t on offer (though check out the photo of the lobster press, below). Highlights were Tartar of Smoked Eel with Horseradish and Granny Smith Apple, Roasted Filet of Iceland Codfish with White Asparagus and a Morel-flecked Béarnaise Sauce, and a dessert of Stewed pineapple in Butter Caramel with vanilla ice cream and a dried pineapple chip.  Okay, not local, but wonderful.  Dinner here will cost $100 per person, triple if you go for the lobster.

Dachgarten Restaurant

In the top floor of the Reichstag Building.  Once the symbol of German delusion, now an architectural landmark remade by Norman Foster, and featuring a Spago-like eatery with terrific views of the city.

Pauley Saal
Auguststrasse 11-13

In a converted former Jewish girl’s school—again, strange feeling that—this new, hip spot served one of my favorite dishes of the year:  halibut with kohlrabi and stinging nettle risotto.  The vegetables were so earthy and intense it tasted like the halibut was part forest animal. The food is sourced from local farmers, and often whole roasted animals are brought out to a central carving board to be parted out.  My companions had wienerschnitzels the size of dinner plates, light and crisp over—poached asparagus—and a puff pastry shell holding wild mushrooms and more asparagus.  One non-asparagus dish: a fish soup made from local crayfish stock with poached pieces of salmon and sea bass.

Mogg & Melzer
Auguststrasse 11-13
+49 (0)30 330 060 770

Berlin’s first Eastern European Jewish deli, though East Eurpean by way of Brooklyn.  Home cured pastrami, made by New York Italian chef Joey Pesarreli, who also cooks a dense, tomatoey shakshuka.  This is in the Jewish Girls School Building as well, and it’s authentic pastrami smell made me think of the Old Country, by which I mean Langers.

Café Einstein Stammhaus
Kurfurstenstrasse 58
www.cafeeinstein.com

In West Berlin, this local landmark is filled with real live Berliners, and you can see why. Housed in the converted villa of a former screen star, it delivers on atmosphere, on great coffee, and on Austrian style pastries.  Take the strudel.  A huge slice comes to the table from the oven, with buttery homemade strudel dough and tart apple filling.  Only after I visited did I learn that the creepy scene in Inglourious Basterds, in which the Nazi hunter orders a strudel and milk for the Jewish heroine, was filmed here.

3 Minutes Sur Mer

That’s Minutes as in French minutes.  A mostly French café in a quickly gentrifying artsy neighborhood, featuring bistro-style dishes and a French wine list.  Crowded, fun, and a good break from German style food.

Fassbender & Rausch

Berlin’s legendary chocolate store.  You’ll go here to see the four foot all chocolate bear, the Berlin landmarks like the Brandenberg Gate recreated in chocolate,  and a huge offering of very decent chocolate products.

Katz Orange
Bergstrasse 22
+49 (0) 983 208 431

In an old brewery, this is a brand new place with a young owner Ludwig Cramer-Klett committed to slow food—possessed by food-as-mission.  This translates into very thoughtful takes on local ingredients, with the biggest crowd pleaser by far the French fries fired in organic duck fat.  Oh. God.

Volt
Paul-Lincke-Ufer 21
030 610 74 033

Along the Landwehr Canal, in a converted electric generating plant— it turns out “volt” is German for “volt.” Hence the copper light fixtures and steel grating.  Filled with an Abbot Kinney-esque crowd, and Gjelina-esque food.

Fritz 101
Freidrichstrasse 101
www.fritz101.de

Walk in and you enter your fantasies of German food.  Hanging sausages, platters of pork haunch and beef shank, the scent of fresh-cured sauerkraut mixing with fresh-brewed beer—all in a beer hall atmosphere. And asparagus.

I can’t end this list with saluting the German bread.  Everywhere you go, every table you sit at: brown bread, black bread, whole grain bread, sourdough bread, and tubs of sweet butter.  I want to go back.  Now.

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May 17, 2012 | 12:24 pm

The goat herd: A story of chevre, Shavuot and backyard goats [RECIPE]

Posted by Rob Eshman

The most common question people ask when they visit our home is: “Why the goats?”

We live in the city. A few houses west of us, four lanes of Lincoln Boulevard traffic roar past day and night. Planes from cursed Santa Monica Airport buzz overhead. And on any given night, sometime between 1 a.m. and 4 a.m., an LAPD helicopter will make sure to flood our bedroom with its searchlight. It’s Venice, man.

Two years ago, into this urban landscape, I brought our first goat.

Yes, I said goat. Yes, I said first.

My daughter and I were at John’s Feed, buying chickens. John’s, I assume, is a holdover from the days when Huntington Park was surrounded by farmland; there is no other reason for a ramshackle feed store in the midst of a treeless landscape of warehouses and strip malls.

John’s Feed stockpiles the chickens that end up next door at a live butcher shop called La Princesa. I usually buy chickens there for egg-laying. They are already full-grown, and I get the added pleasure of taking a creature off death row. On this day, when my daughter and I showed up, we noticed that, in the same crowded, feces-filled pen with the chickens, stood one miserable goat.

She was standing on her hind legs, straining to look out the window to the street.

We took her.

But why have goats? I often wonder if it’s in my blood. Eskimos have 30 words for snow. Jews have more than a dozen words for goat. You and I are generations removed from our agrarian ancestors, but their relationship with the world’s first domesticated animal lives on in our language. Azmaveth and tsaphir are he-goats. Gaddiel, a holy goat. Gedi, a young goat. Jaala and seirah are young she-goats. Ez, a she goat. Tayish, a butting he goat. Uzzah, a strong goat. Zibiah and aqqo, zemer, dishon and yael — mountain and desert goats. Ancient Jews depended on goat meat and milk for food; they slept in goat-hair tents. Their closeness created empathy: Jews were revolted by the thought of boiling a kid in its mother’s milk, and so, today, we can’t eat cheeseburgers. There is a Hebrew word for hell, familiar to us from Yom Kippur: azazel.  It translates literally as “lost goat.” Hell, for Hebrew, was when you lost your goat.

The Christians saw goats as the devil. They were repelled by the very qualities in goats that seem most, well, Jewish.

Sheep huddle together and look to the shepherd for direction. Goats are stubborn and willful. The word capricious, meaning picky and discerning, comes from the Latin capro, for goat. Goats break fences and, thus, rules. Sheep are grazers, content to munch the grass at their feet. Goats are browsers — they refuse the grass and strive to eat the trees and bushes just beyond their reach.

Goats are deeply communal, bonded to one another. Sheep run, goats stand their ground. (Thoroughbred trainers used to calm their skittish horses by placing a fearless goat in their stall. To throw a race, you would sneak into the stall at night and get someone’s goat. A cliché was born.)

Rob Eshman’s goats: Ollie, left, and Goldie Horn

So, the apostles saw themselves as obedient sheep,  Jesus as their shepherd and the Jews as unruly goats. In Matthew 25:33, the Parable of the Sheep and Goats, Jesus tells how he will judge nations when he returns: “And [Jesus] will set the sheep on His right hand, but the goats on his left.” Sheep go to heaven, goats to hell. The horns Christians imagined on Jewish heads did not make them look like the devil: They made them look like goats.

Is it any wonder that goat beside the butcher shop called out to me? It’s not just that I couldn’t see her ending up as birria — Mexican goat stew — or chavito — split, grilled goat. It’s that we shared cultural DNA.

I had driven my wife’s Prius to John’s Feed Store that day. The goat, a black-and-white Nigerian pygmy about the size of a small spaniel, went into a cardboard box and into the trunk. Somewhere on the 110 Freeway North, I heard a crash. Her two devilish horns had busted the packing tape, and I drove home with a goat in the rear view mirror.

We named her Goldie Horn. When my wife arrived home from a work trip, she found her car had been completely waxed outside and detailed inside. She said I was the nicest husband in the world.

Then she saw the goat.

We moved Goldie into a spacious side yard. But goats, every goat book informed me, care about two things: food and companionship. See, I explained to my wife, they are Jewish. Soon my daughter and I visited a goat rescue, and returned with a dun-colored mutt goat we named Ollie.

But why goats, people still ask.

To which I often answer: Why not? Nobody walks into your house and asks, “Why dogs?” even if your pet is not fit to protect, or hunt, or even play. No one asks, “Why fish?” though you can’t eat them, or, “Why canaries?” though they don’t lay eggs. And no one asks, “Why cats?”— except me.

Goats don’t bark or scratch. In our urban ecosystem, their odorless pellets work like plant steroids, replacing the need to buy fertilizer. They come when I call them, will stand on two legs for treats and enjoy a good scratch. As I write this, Goldie is rubbing her head against the card table I’ve set up in my backyard. In a moment, I’ll let her butt the palm of my hand.  It’s a game we play.

It is weird, I know, but it really isn’t.

On Sunday mornings, I use a broom and dustbin to scoop up the layer of goat pellets, crushed dry hay and soil that carpets the animal pen. The dust plumes up and coats my face and fills my nostrils. It’s a fantastic smell — exactly like a fine unlit cigar passed under your nose. Next time someone is reaching for words to describe their $200 Cohiba, just say, “Hay, dust and goat s—-.”

I don’t even mind when I forget to feed them first thing in the morning. I have to go out after I’ve showered and dressed in my suit, carrying a slice of timothy hay, their pebbly poops squishing under my black polished shoes. I can see my wife, Naomi, at the window, watching — just like she did at the window of the Mendocino B&B one morning of our honeymoon when she saw me down by the shore tasting the seaweed. It’s a look that says, “Who, exactly, did I marry?”

I don’t tell her that when they break out of their pen and tiptoe into my study, Goldie always tries to nip a page from the same book — one of Naomi’s ancient Hebrew treatises on Jewish mysticism.

These goats, I swear to her, have made me a better Jew. Abraham, Itzhak, Yaakov, Moses and David were not scholars or preachers. They were the original men who stare at goats. Not surprisingly, the cycles of our holidays play out according to the cycles of these animals. That’s especially true now, during the holiday of Shavuot.

Shavuot celebrates the giving of the Torah on Mount Sinai. It’s traditional to eat dairy foods like cheesecake and blintzes during the festival. The rabbis will tell you that’s because Torah is like mother’s milk to us. But my goats teach me something different.

Goldie and Ollie have been fixed. But when spring arrives, Ollie still yearns after Goldie, and a long-dead urge reawakens, and he tries. If they weren’t city goats, rescued from other people’s appetites, Goldie would be kidding now, her milk flowing. There would be more than we could drink, and we would be making cheese, and out of the cheese, blintzes.

The first milk the Hebrews drank, the first simple cheese they made, came from goats.

“Why goats?” people ask, and then they answer their own question with another: “Do you milk them?”

No, but a few months ago, my goats inspired me to take a cheese-making class from Steve Rudicel, owner of Mariposa Creamery in Altadena, the only goat dairy in Los Angeles. Rudicel, a young, sturdy farmer type, started the class with a brief explanation.

“Milk needs to be small,” he said. “Milk needs to be local. Seek out quality dairy ingredients. It makes a big difference in the lives of the animals. The hardest-working part of the dairy farm is the animals. We’ve lost respect for the animals.”

Rudicel paused.

“Goats are some of the sweetest creatures I’ve ever met,” he went on. “I’m often moved by the milk we make.”

In front of about 75 people, Rudicel had to stop to compose himself.

“Why goats?” That’s the answer. These animals start out in your blood, but they quickly make their way to your heart.

Follow Rob (and his goats) on Twitter @foodaism.

STEVE RUDICEL’S CHEVRE CHEESE

Fresh goat cheese is one of the easiest foods you can make. It takes five minutes of active cooking time, over two days. And its taste is far superior to the standard logs of chevre cheese product available in gourmet stores.

All specialty items are available by mail-order at dairyconnection.com.

Tools:

Good liquid thermometer
Large spoon
Large, clean pot
Cheese maker’s muslin or molds

Ingredients:

1 gallon pasteurized goat milk (I use Summerhill Dairy, which is readily available at Trader Joe’s. It costs $3 quart, or $12 a gallon, which yields just over 1 pound of goat cheese.)
1/8 teaspoon MM100 or MM101 starter cultures
3 drops vegetable rennet
1/4 cup spring or distilled (not tap) water

Heat milk gently to 74 degrees F.

Add a scant 1/8 teaspoon starter culture and stir for two minutes.

Dissolve rennet in spring water. Add to milk and stir for 2 minutes.

Drape a towel over pot and leave at room temperature for 12 to 20 hours. The curds are ready when they appear solidified and liquid whey floats on top.

Ladle curds into cheese maker’s muslin, tie around a wooden spoon or dowel and suspend over a pot. Allow to drip at room temperature overnight. Or, you can ladle into cheese molds and allow to drain overnight.

Unwrap cheese, sprinkle with sea salt, drizzle with great olive oil, and it’s ready to eat. You can also stir in seasonings (salt, chives, etc.), then cover and refrigerate.

Makes slightly more than 1 pound of cheese, enough to fill about 6 chevre molds.

Find more photos like this on EveryJew.com

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April 25, 2012 | 12:14 pm

Lemon Verbena

Posted by Rob Eshman

When I was in my mid-20s, I fought a long, messy and entirely internal struggle over whether to move to Israel.

Many young Jews living in the Diaspora — more than you think — face this choice. We spend some time there, either as part of an organized program, or, as I did, on our own. Then we have to choose. 

Israel, small as it is, exerts a strong pull. 

I was 25 in 1985. I had lived in Israel for a year; worked hard to learn Hebrew, find a job and an apartment; built the beginnings of a life. I had a girlfriend, Miki, and a group of Israeli friends — Jews, Arabs, South Africans, French, Australians, Angelenos — whose company inspired me. We worked or went to school, then spent the evenings visiting, drinking really bad Carmel Hock wine or powdered Turkish coffee, arguing, laughing, dreaming.

None of us had money, and the country itself was simple and poor compared to the States: no cell phones, two brands of beer, two TV channels.

Maybe it’s the same with all 25-year-olds. At that age, you enter a kind of second childhood, you sponge up whatever culture you happen to find yourself in. I have friends from Encino who spent those post-college years in London and returned with full-on English accents, never quite able to lose them.

In any case, Israel felt like my new home, and I wrestled with whether I could separate myself from my family and make a career there. 

Because I tend to relate to the world through food, my memories of those years are tied to foods I discovered for the first time there. One day, Miki and I befriended an elderly man named S.E. Yardeni, who lived in a simple home on a relatively large plot of land in Jerusalem. Yardeni was a pioneer who had come to settle the land. His agile mind invented the locks that still bear his name. He founded his company in 1947, a year before statehood, and by the time we met him, he was retired and devoting himself to his garden. He had the money to live anywhere in the world, in style, but he was rooted, like his fig, olive and pomegranate trees, to the land.

One hot summer day, he showed us how he made pomegranate wine. It was served cold and was mildly alcoholic, the color of rubies. To this day, I’ve never tasted anything quite so perfect. He made us a salad of the lettuce and tomatoes he grew, and he poured tea for us that was unlike any I’d ever tasted: sweet, lemony, minty.

“What is it?” I asked him to show me.

In his yard, he ran his hand over a bush with elegant, soft green spiked leaves. “Louisa,” he called it. As his rough hands stroked the leaves, that fragrance filled the warm air. How could I ever leave Israel?

In winter, we visited Yardeni again, and he made another tea, this time from sage leaves.

“The Arabs drink louisa in summer, sage in winter,” he explained. “It warms you up.” It did.

By spring, I was back in Los Angeles. I can’t say I ever really definitively decided whether to stay or to leave. Miki and I were breaking up, and I thought it would be a good thing to get a bit of distance between us for a bit, like 10,000 miles. Not that we were married, but in the separation, she got the country.

And me, I ended up like a helluva lot of other middle-aged men and women I know. We look back on the years we spent in Israel and can’t help wondering: What if? How close did we really come to taking a leap that, in the end, so few successfully take? Instead, we raise our kids speaking a bit of Hebrew, stay involved in the life and politics of the country from a distance, make a point to befriend Israelis here (and let’s face it, a lot more of them follow their hearts to us than vice versa).

It’s not a chapter that ever seems to close. And as the years tick by, as our kids grow up and move on, and a part of us — of me — can’t help but think: If the right opportunity were to arise … if the right job offer came through. But of course, a real leap doesn’t require a great opportunity; it starts with the courage to sacrifice for possibility, for a dream, for what if.

In my garden in Venice, I planted two pomegranate trees. The large one yielded more than 100 pounds of fruit last year. I never learned to make Yardeni’s wine, but I do make a pretty good vodka after I pick, seed and crush the fruit.

I looked for a year for louisa in the local nurseries, until I learned that it has a common English name, lemon verbena. I planted five plants in the back garden, one in the front.

Louisa goes dormant in the winter. Three months of the year, it looks dead. At the peak of spring, light lime-colored leaves sprout along the branches, and the plant begins a new cycle of spindly growth.

On a beautiful spring morning last week, I decided to drink my coffee by the garden. I sat and took in the peaceful morning, the beauty of where I live, the good fortune of my life. Unknowingly, I brushed my hand along the newly formed louisa leaves, and their fragrance released and enveloped me.

And I began to cry.

---

Lemon Verbena Sorbet

This is adapted from The Herbfarm Cookbook, by Jerry Traunfeld.

Nothing but vibrant and refreshing it’s lemon heaven.

Makes 1 quart, 8 servings

1 1/2 cups (gently packed) fresh lemon verbena leaves
1 cup superfine sugar
1/4 cup freshly squeezed Meyer or Eureka lemon juice
3 cups cold water

Grind the lemon verbena leaves and sugar together in a food processor until the mixture turns into a bright green paste, about 30 seconds; stop to scrape down the sides as necessary. Add the lemon juice and process for 15 seconds longer, then add the water. Strain the resulting liquid through a fine sieve to remove any bits of leaf. Freeze in an ice cream maker according to the manufacturer’s directions.

Lemon Verbena Tea

I serve this at the end of just about every meal beginning in early summer, when our verbena plants… leaf out.

12 fresh large lemon verbena leaves

1 T. sugar

4 cups boiling water

Steep leaves in boiling water.  Add sugar to taste.

Rob’s Pomegranate Cordial

Wash ripe pomegranates.  Submerge in a large bowl or tub of water.  Cut open and with your fingers pry out the seeds.  They will fall to the bottom of the bucket while the pith will rise to the top.

Scoop off and discard pith, drain all the water, then re-rinse seeds, drain well..

Using your hands, squeeze the seeds to extract the juice.  Strain through damp cheesecloth, squeezing well.

Make a simple syrup by boiling water and sugar 1:1.  Let cool.

Fill a clean bottle half way with juice. Add 1/8-1/4 syrup and the rest vodka.  Shake and taste.  Add more juice, syrup or vodka to balance flavor.  It should be sweet, tart and juicy with a slight alcohol kick.

Seal and refrigerate a few days to mellow the flavors.  Serve in cordial glasses, well chilled, or mix with Prosecco, champagne or white wine.

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April 12, 2012 | 3:23 pm

The Rest of Passover - Sixth Night [RECIPE]

Posted by Rob Eshman

What, you’re thinking, STILL no bread?  No pasta?  No BEER!!!  Yes, Passover continues until Saturday evening.  Because the rule of thumb on Jewish holidays is to take something fun and exciting and do it over and over and over until you say, “Dayenu!”  Which is Hebrew for “Uncle!” 

But if you’ve been following this series on Foodaism, you’ll find that the eight days of Passover offer a chance to cook really good food long after the seder is gone.

Tonight’s menu comes from two small, locals-only restaurants we discovered last year in Europe.

The salad is from Great Queen Street in the Covent Garden district of London.  It’s a packed gastropub, whose menu reads as if they’ve raided every farmhouse within 100 kilometers of The City. Local cheeses, local ciders, local offal—you get the idea.  The “Ticklemore” in the recipe is a farmhouse goat cheese produced on the southern English coast.  There’s just a small sign out front of Queen High Street, and inside a room full of high-spirited English yuppies.  The food is simple and easy to do quickly at home, or at least this dish is….

On a side street in Barcelona, Arcana offered us slightly fussy cooking in a kind of 80s vibe, but the staff and customers seemed to be all locals, and very friendly.  Maybe not popular enough though: I can’t seem to find the restaurant listing on Yelp anymore.  Happy almost-the-end-Passover:

RECIPES

Cauliflower, Courgette, Mint and Ticklemore

1 large cauliflower, divided into florets
3 small zucchini, cubed or sliced in 1/4 inch slices
1 small bunch mint, chopped
1 T. chives, chopped
8 ounces Ticklemore, firm goat cheese or feta, cubed
1 T. wine vinegar or very dry white wine
3 T. olive oil
salt and pepper

Heat olive oil in a skillet.  Add cauliflower and cook til just tender.  Add zucchini and continue to cook until just tender, then add cheese until it just begins to warm.  Remove from heat and let cool. Add vinegar, olive oil, mint, salt and pepper and toss well.  Refrigerate until ready to serve.

Branzino with celery puree and roasted cherry tomatoes “Arcana” Barcelona

4 fresh branzino, boned (or 4 sole filets)
1 large celery root
1 lemon
1 pint cherry tomatoes
3 T. olive oil
salt and pepper

Take a saucepan big enough to hold your celery root.  Add water to come up halfway, add salt and pepper, and cook, covered, until very tender.  Remove root to a blender, and puree with olive oil and cooking liquid to make a smooth, slightly runny and very white puree.  Set aside.

Heat a heavy skillet.  When very hot add a little olive oil, then cherry tomatoes.  Cook until blistered, about 5 minutes.  Add some salt and pepper.  Stir, then remove onto a plate and set aside.

Season branzino or filets with salt, pepper, olive oil and lemon juice.  Wipe pan clean, reheat, add olive oil, add fish and cook over high heat on each side until cooked through, about 8-10 minutes total. You will need to do this in shifts.

To serve, dish a little puree on each plate.  Lay a fish beside it, and nest some cherry tomatos by that.  Serve with more lemon.

 

 

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April 11, 2012 | 4:46 pm

The Rest of Passover—Fifth Night [RECIPE]

Posted by Rob Eshman

When you’re searching for how to create dinners during Passover that avoid all the no’s, you can’t go wrong sticking to vegetables, fruit, fish and meat—and that leaves a lot of possibilities.

Today’s menu is as simple as a trip through the Farmer’s Market.  Spring means fresh parsnips, fresh artichokes (our front yard is full of them) and fresh greens.  You can go vegetarian, even vegan, by omitting the grilled chicken.

Roasted Parsnips
Italian Dandelions
Lemon and Olive Oil-Roasted Artichokes
Grilled Chicken Breast

[RECIPES]

Roasted Parsnips

3 pounds super-fresh parsnips, peeled and cut in 1-inch slices
olive oil
salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 500 degrees.  Toss parsnips with other ingredients.  Roast until very crisp, turning occasionally.

Italian Dandelion

1 pound Italian dandelion (or other green), very well washed
4 cloves garlic, chopped or sliced
olive oil
salt and pepper

Bring a large pot of water to boil.  Boil dandelions until tender.
Drain and squeeze dry in a dish towel.  Chop dandelions.

Heat a skillet.  Add olive oil and garlic, and saute until garlic is golden.  Add chopped dandelion, salt and pepper, and saute until heated through, about 5 minutes.

Lemon and Olive Oil-Roasted Artichokes

▪ 4 medium or large artichokes
▪ Juice from 1 medium-large lemon (about 1/2 cup)
▪ 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
▪ Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
▪ Fresh thyme
▪ 3 cloves garlic, peeled and quartered

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.  Remove tough outer leaves from artichokes. Cut top of remaining leaves at the point where the green and yellow come together. Dip cut end in the lemon juice. Cut off bottom tip of stem, and peel away green layer of stem until white inner layer is exposed. Cut the artichokes in half and remove the inner fuzzy choke and any small prickly leaves. Slice in half again and toss with the lemon juice.
Pour the artichokes and lemon juice in a casserole dish, drizzle with the extra virgin olive oil, season with the salt, pepper and thyme and add the garlic. Stir and place in the preheated oven and bake for 30 to 35 minutes, stirring once during cooking.

Grilled Chicken Breasts

4 chicken breasts
1/4 cup white wine
3 cloves garlic
juice from 1/2 lemon
1 T fresh chopped thyme
1/4 c. olive oil
salt and pepper

In a bowl or Ziploc bag, combine all ingredients.  Let marinade 15 minutes to an hour.  Drain.
Preheat grill.  When hot, spray with olive oil, add chicken and grill until cooked through, about 4 minutes per side.

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April 10, 2012 | 3:26 pm

The Rest of Passover Cooking- Fourth Night

Posted by Rob Eshman

It’s coming up on Dinner #4 in the “What to Eat the Rest of Passover” series. Are we even at the hump yet?  There are still a few days of Passover left to go.  This is no time to fall back on hackey “cheese ‘n matzo pizza” recipes that pop up every time you Google “Passover cooking.”  Stick to great, fresh food—plenty of it around this time of year. So, for tonight:

Asparagus Milanese “Biffi” 
Avocado Salad “Garga”
Bubbie’s Passover Rolls

Tonight’s menu (minus the Passover rolls) comes from a trip we took to Italy in 2008.  Biffi is a classic Milanese restaurant in the Galleria Vittoria Emanuelle II in Milan.  Great for people- and Duomo-watching, it caters to tourists but mostky of the Italian variety.  Asparagus Milanese is, to break it down, asparagus with a fried egg and parmesan cheese. Works for breakfast, lunch, dinner, whenever. 

Garga is the Florence Italy version of de Struisvogel: family-run, instantly warm and welcoming.  Whereas de Struisvogel reflects a more sedate Dutch propriety, Garga can be wild, a place of spontaneous partying and joyful noise.  This is their classic salad, which uses exotic—for Italy—avocado.

[RECIPE]

Garga Salad
 
INGREDIENTS

6 Tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
2 Tbsp fresh lemon juice
8 cups baby arugula
1 pound tomatoes, diced
4 stalks canned hearts of palm, sliced into rounds
2 medium avocados, peeled, diced
1 2 oz. wedge Parmesan cheese
1/4 cup pine nuts, toasted

Whisk oil and lemon juice in small bowl to blend. Season dressing to taste with salt and pepper.
Combine arugula, tomatoes, hearts of palm and avocados in large bowl. Add dressing and toss to blend.
Using vegetable peeler, shave Parmesan cheese into strips over salad. Sprinkle with pine nuts.
Serves 4.

Asparagus Milanese

4 extra large eggs
1 pound asparagus
salt and pepper
1/2 pound (approx.) Parmegiano-Reggiano
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil

Preheat oven broiler.  Heat a skillet and add some olive oil.  Add asparagus, some salt and pepper, and cook over high heat until cooked through and still bright green, about 5 minutes.  Remove from pan and divide among four ovenproof plates or place in a shallow casserole.  In the same skillet, add some more olive oil and fry eggs until just set.  Place on top of the asparagus.  Grate parmesan on top, then place under broiler for JUST A FEW SECONDS until cheese is melted.

Serves 4.

with, of course, Bubbie’s Passover Popovers

Bubbie’s Passover Popovers

(adapted from Ruth Levy and Joan Nathan)

1/2 cup vegetable oil, plus more for baking sheet
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup matzo meal
(or half matzo meal, half matzo cake meal) 
1/2 tablespoon sugar (or, to taste)
4 eggs
 
Directions:

1 Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
2 Brush a baking sheet with oil; set aside.
3 In a medium saucepan, bring oil, 1 cup water, and salt to a boil over medium-high heat.
4 Stir in matzah meal (or matzo meal/cake flour) until sticky, remove from heat and let cool completely.
5 Add sugar and eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.
6 Fill a large bowl with water.
7 Dip your hands in the water and then form dough into a ball about the size of a tennis ball.
8 Place on prepared baking sheet.
9 Repeat process until all dough has been used.
10 Transfer to oven and bake until popovers are puffy, about 15 to 20 minutes.
11 Reduce heat to 350 degrees and continue baking until golden brown, about 40 minutes.
12 Serve immediately.

For what to expect tomorrow, click here.

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April 9, 2012 | 2:31 pm

The Rest of Passover—Third Night

Posted by Rob Eshman

This week I vowed to supply you with a Passover’s worth of dinner ideas beyond the seder.

Today’s Passover recipe comes from a rainy July night in Amsterdam.

It was pouring, and we were hungry.  There was a café near our bed and breakfast, Inn Old Amsterdam,  in the Nieumarkt district, but we wanted something warm and filling and, you know, Dutch.

The owners of Inn Old Amsterdam sent us to de Struisvogel, a cab ride away.  From the moment we walked down a quick flight of stairs into the small, subterranean space, I knew it was going to be a good night.  The small place was packed.  The signs, the menus, the clientele were all Dutch, Dutch, Dutch.  Bottles of jenever and beer and wine studded the tables.  It was Bruegel with Polo, and without the threatening undertones. 

It had, instantly, all the attributes I want in a restaurant: just like eating at home, but much better.

de Struisvogel means “the ostrich,” and there is ostrich on the menu.  I don’t know why.  The men and women sitting next to us, a loud and friendly table of World War II vets and their wives who gather every year for a reunion (“until there are none of us left”) directed us to the fish.. and the jenever.

The menu is small, and prix fixe.  But you can choose from a fish, beef or, of course, ostrich.  There are Dutch dishes, like lamb stew, roasted potatoes, local blue cheeses, but plenty of Italian influence: risotto, carpaccio, etc.

The family that runs the place is just welcoming.  Everybody is drinking, every body is speaking over everybody else, the temperature inside stays warm as rain pounds away outside.  When it’s time to go, after a superior apple crumble, you’ll feel like you’re leaving home. 

Here’s a Passover-friendly dish from de Struisvogel:

[RECIPE]

Grilled fillet of Sea Bass with Sauce Antiboise

You make sauce vierge (virgin sauce) with virgin olive oil, basil, garlic,  tomatoes and perhaps some anchovies.  Antiboise sauce, ostensibly from the Antibes,  uses cilantro instead of basil.

4 sea bass filets (or halibut, snapper, cod)
1/2 lemon, grated zest only
      1/2 orange, grated zest only
½ cup extra virgin olive oil, plus extra for drizzling
2 shallots, very finely diced
      2 clovew garlic, crushed
1 cup coriander leaves, chopped
2 large plum tomatoes,chopped
          2 T capers, chopped (optional)
black pepper
lemon juice, to taste
Arugula and watercress leaves

1. Place the sea bass fillets in a large, shallow dish with the lemon and orange zest ¼ cup olive oil for 1 hour in the refrigerator.

2. Place the remaining olive oil in a heavy-based frying pan.

3. Add in the shallot and garlic and fry very gently until translucent. 

4. Add the coriander leaves and cook gently a minute or two.

5. Add the tomatoes and warm gently, then add the capers. Season with salt and freshly ground pepper and the lemon juice.

6. Preheat a grill until very hot.

7. Remove the sea bass from the marinade and cook on the hot griddle, skin-side down, for 3 minutes, then turn and cook for 3 minutes on the remaining side.

8. Spoon the tomato mixture onto four serving plates. Top each serving with a griddled sea bass fillet, then top with a few cress and arugula leaves. Drizzle with a little olive oil and serve at once.

I like to serve with Passover Popovers—more roll-like than plain matzo.  Of course, these they didn’t have at deStruisvogel.  The recipe is below:

Bubbie’s Passover Popovers

(adapted from Ruth Levy and Joan Nathan)

1/2 cup vegetable oil, plus more for baking sheet
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup matzo meal
(or half matzo meal, half matzo cake meal) 
1/2 tablespoon sugar (or, to taste)
4 eggs
 
Directions:

1 Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
2 Brush a baking sheet with oil; set aside.
3 In a medium saucepan, bring oil, 1 cup water, and salt to a boil over medium-high heat.
4 Stir in matzah meal (or matzo meal/cake flour) until sticky, remove from heat and let cool completely.
5 Add sugar and eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.
6 Fill a large bowl with water.
7 Dip your hands in the water and then form dough into a ball about the size of a tennis ball.
8 Place on prepared baking sheet.
9 Repeat process until all dough has been used.
10 Transfer to oven and bake until popovers are puffy, about 15 to 20 minutes.
11 Reduce heat to 350 degrees and continue baking until golden brown, about 40 minutes.
12 Serve immediately.

For what to expect tomorrow, click here.

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