Weekend Evaluation: An Unfortunate Turn of Events for the Home Team

I wasn't planning on being home to cook that much this weekend.  we were supposed to be out of town at a family party on Saturday.  Well, thanks to some squealing, grinding brakes we were unexpectedly home on Saturday, so I did some cooking but no real projects - and we went out to eat a lot.  Luckily with a bike you can still get to a lot of food.

Maybe I'll include a couple restaurants in the Weekend Evaluation.


It was our wedding anniversary and with CSA starting up this week I figured it would be a good time to go out to take a break from cooking at home before the onslaught of vegetables that need to get taken care of every week.

- Steak, Eggs, Homefries, English Muffin - 

- Champagne Cocktail -

The steak was from a new farm and a different breed.  The beef we get from Louis Waite is Angus-Hereford but this sirloin tip steak came from a belted galloway.  I really like this cut generally.  It's a little tough, but it gives you a really good sense of the flavor of the meat and it's not super expensive.  Overall this meat had more of a 'mineral' flavor, and maybe less beef flavor, it was still pretty beefy.  Gretchen was turned off by the minerality; calling it 'raw tasting'.   It wasn't raw, but I can definitely see why she'd have that impression, the iron taste is something you generally associate with liver or blood.  If you've ever smelled some fresh raw liver you know what I'm talking about; it can stick on your palate.  Made a pork liver mousse once with very few other ingredients just to see what it tasted like and it was kind of like eating a battery.

Positive - The home fries were really good - and I didn't even resort to duck fat to do it.  Got some Keuka golds at the market.  Those nerds over at Cornell have come up with all sorts of super potatoes recently. These have a lot of available for browning, and made sure to fry them at a low temp for a while. 

Negative - I probably needed to cook the steak closer to medium.  Like a skirt steak it was almost too chewy at medium rare (a common knock on grass fed beef); but I wouldn't want to go much past medium or it would get tough.

Don't toast these english muffins, they either get tough or turn into crackers - they're good just un-toasted, maybe warmed up a bit.

- Skordalia -

We were looking for something to eat for lunch on Friday after getting back from Central Park and I had some left over boiled potatoes from breakfast.

Positive - This tasted pretty good; I just kind of threw it together, I didn't add almond (which I think is a normal ingredient); just garlic, potato, and extra virgin olive oil.

Negative - This was a pain without the food processor - and it probably could have been 'thinner' and more dip-like.

- Steak Salad - 
w/ Chickpeas, red onion, cotija, harissa vinegrette

Positive - Cooked the rest of the steak for this and cooked it closer to medium; wasn't chewy.

Negative - I thought this needed something else - but then I realized I forgot tomatoes.

- Fried Egg and Breakfast sausage over cheddar grits -

with spring garlic and tomato jam

Positive - I actually cooked the eggs right.

Negative - Should have browned the sausage a bit more and got a little more snap on the casing, lacked some texture.  The egg kind of melted into the grits and became one big bowl of porridge.

- Parpadalle w/ Italian Sausage, Asparagus, Red Pepper - 

- Side of Broccoli Rabe -

Positive - The sausage was good, and sauce stuck to the pasta; and the properly formed pasta was good.  It tasted pretty good over all

Negative - Despite all of the flour on the board the pasta kept sticking while I was rolling it out, and I tore a bunch of noodles.  This really pissed me off.  I had to re-roll and I wasn't so careful so I tossed the pasta in a bowl before cooking it, and it got kind of deformed.

These roasted red peppers came from a jar and tasted like it; they were on sale one day so I bought them.  I rinsed them really well, but still that crappy oil taste got into the dish.

- Beet Green and Garlic Scape Omelet - 

with Pea/Parsley Pesto and Parm.

Positive - This tasted good. Summer/CSA season means I eat a lot of omelets; looking forward to it after a long winter of oatmeal.  I've been having pan temperature problems lately with omelets, but I was nailing it this weekend.

Negative - As always I put too much filling in my omelet.

- Pernod Mushroom and Spring Garlic Pate (mousse?)  -

- Pernod/Cognac Gelee -

- Positive - The mushroom, spring garlic mixture that I cooked down with some Pernod and Cognac tasted awesome before I pureed it and put it in the ramekin for baking.  Used toasted fennel, coriander, fresh oregano.  The gelee setup, even though I didn't think it was going to.

Negative - I thought I had over cooked the pate.  I decided I was going to take a relaxed attitude toward baking it and when I went back to the oven it was totally set; but it was OK when we had it; but it didn't stop me from obsessing about it for the length of our ride to Forest Park.  I don't think I'd include flour if I made this again; it kind of diluted the flavor.  Needed more gelee to really cover the top of the pate.

- Mushroom Pate Sandwich -

- mustard/caraway beet slaw, radish, shredded carrot and lettuce on Kolsch Rolls -

Kind of a vegetarian Bahn-Mi idea, but with more European flavors - so vinegar/mustard-y beet slaw instead of pickled veg and typical radish/lettuce for crunch.

Positive - The flavor combination worked.

Negative - These rolls suck; they are so tough.  We finished them this week.

- Brocolli Rabe and Red Pepper Omelet -
w/ Leek/Spring Garlic Confit and Romano

Positive - Again - actually cooked this pretty well

Negative - Again - I put too much filling in my omelet.

- Pizza -

- Shaved asparagus, portobella, spring garlic on a pale ale crust -

Positive – Crust held its shape and was very puffy; it’s what I was looking for.  The toppings worked out pretty well; although there were some issues.  

Negative -  In the interest of insuring a rise I added honey – which caused too much browning so it got a little cracker-y not terrible; but not what I really wanted.  Other than that I was pretty happy.   

The sauce wasn’t great; I didn’t cook the tomato paste enough and the whole thing tasted a little bit like tomato soup; but it was fine on the pizza.  I probably had too many toppings on there, and I didn’t need to pre-cook the mushrooms as much as I did.  Over all not bad; not great, but not a failure.

- Radish top/Oregano/spring garlic pesto -

Positive - I have a condiment for my lunch this week.

Negative -This just didn't taste too good.

- Chickpea puree -
- Spring Garlic, fresh oregano, Sitia EV Olive Oil -

Positive - The food processor is back.  Wanted to make a non-hummus chickpea puree; so no tahini.  The consistency was good, but tasted too much like olive oil.


Negative - Tasted basically like olive oil - which isn't terrible, but could have used more chickpea flavor.

RESTAURANTS

- Corton - 

Postive - This was restaurant deserves all of the praise it gets.  If you think that seasonality/ingredient driven and fine dining/technique are mutually exclusive, try going here or Dovetail or Blue Hill.  It seems like a lot of restaurants like to use sourcing as a selling point - and say 'we like to have the ingredients speak for themselves'....wait a minute, isn't that just a salad; some might say that's barely cooking; or it's what you cook on your day off. 

If I'm going out I want the best ingredients prepared in a creative manner with great technique; this restaurant did it.

Negative - This just reminded me that I can't afford to eat at places like Corton, or Eleven Madison Park, or Ko everyday....or once a week...or even once a month....

- Miranda - 

Williamsburg Italian/Latin Fusion

Positive - All the food was solidly prepared, and was inexpensive thanks to restaurant.com.

Negative - Everything tasted real 'simple' and kind of unpolished.  Not bad really, but the risotto with my pork tenderloin tasted like almost like packaged 'spanish rice'; the zucchini/salsa verde didn't really have much flavor, needed more tomatillo acidity.  The pork wasn't great quality, and was slightly on the dry side; not horrible, just kind of passable I guess?  I wasn't annoyed to eat it; it just wasn't interesting, really good, or challenging in any sense.

- Collichio and Sons -

Ramp Pizza and Genziana

Positive - This place has a great tap beer menu.  The bar menu is decently interesting and reasonably priced.

Negative - The beer is CRAZY expensive.  Saison Dupont shouldn't be $11 a glass.  The pizza was pretty good.  We were spoiled by getting the J Street at Roberta's not too long ago which was superior.  I think if I went back again I'd get a sandwich, but we were just stopping in for a snack.

The beer wasn't great - it tasted like a syrupy lager to me.  A lot of these Italian craft beers have heavy spicing/additions.  We've had a Hazelnut beer, a beer with Ginger and Myrrh, and now this beer with Gentian.  I guess I just don't have the palate for them...this one was fine, but I didn't get the Gentian really. 

Motorino

- Celebrated Williamsburg Pizza -

Positive - I don't want to like these new pizza places, but Motorino and Roberta's are both good.  I think I prefer Roberta's to Motorino since there's some more creative/seasonal things on the menu; but I would go back to both (and we almost never go back to any restaurant).  I don't want to like Roberta's (see my Corton notes); but the more I think about it, it's a pretty great place (except for the service and wait).

Negative - We each ordered a pizza when we should have just split one; we were just too full afterwords, especially when Gretchen ordered the brunch pizza (topped with 3 eggs)

Sammy's Halal

-Award Winning Jackson Heights Street Meat -

Positive - The dude working the cart was really nice, and for three bucks you can't beat this.  Didn't blow me away, but again for 3 dollars out of a cart it's good.

Negative - Didn't need that much lamb at 11:30am after a 20 mile bike ride.

- Timmy O's/Lemon Ice King of Corona -
Frozen Custard/Italian Ice

Positive - It's the unofficial start of summer, so we rode out to our favorite Queens summer spots.  Lemon Ice King is badass.  I know what you're thinking, how good can italian ice be?  But it's really good at Lemon Ice King; I think they breakup the ice finer than the regular kind you get from a cart; so it has a creamier texture, but the flavors are more intense too.  Maybe they're just throwing a lot of corn syrup in there to get it creamy; I don't care, it tastes good.  We got Lemon and Cherry Vanilla, both were really refreshing.

Negative - We went out to Timmy O's a month after it opened a couple years back since I'm a fanatic about frozen custard.  Growing up in western New York you take Abbott's and Anderson's for granted.  In NYC you couldn't get custard until Shake Shack showed up, but who wants to get in that line.  We go once or twice a year, it's still really good, but I think it's less creamy and less vanilla than it was the first time.  Dude does come up with come up with good flavors - the mocha chip was real good.

- McDonalds -
Dollar Cone

Positive - I am an unabashed supporter of the the dollar cone.

Negative - This probably is loaded with chemicals, the cone tastes like corn, and the machine they come out of probably hasn't been cleaned in months.....but I don't care.