Mr. Joel

I love visiting my cousins in Scotland. I love seeing my family, I love the countryside, and I love the food. Now, if you know anything about Scottish food, the last part of that statement may stick out a bit. Scottish food does not have a reputation for being good. British food does not have a reputation for being good. But it is. At my cousin’s farm it’s fantastic; because the majority of what they eat is homemade, local, and seasonal. The foodie trifecta.

Now, Yorkshire Pudding is not the best nom-able that I’ve had at my cousins; but it has the best simplicity to deliciousness ratio. Also it is the one that is most often paired with gravy. Yorkshire pudding was invented in Yorkshire, England; it’s not really pudding in the American sense. It’s pudding in the ‘food made of a batter that rises when it is cooked and is yummy’ sense. The pudding is typically made as part of a big dinner with a roast and potatoes and carrots and such. The batter at it’s simplest is one part eggs, one part, milk and one part flour. It is baked on hot oil in the oven. The oil is usually the drippings from the roast, which makes the pudding extra yummy. It used to be that you would make one big pudding and cut it up into wedges when it was served; but now it’s the style to make mini puddings in muffin pans and eat them like dinner rolls. Which is what I did.

The Recipe:
(this made 22 mini puddings in my muffin pan)

four eggs
1 cup milk
1 cup flour
1/2 tsp. baking powder
pinch salt
roast drippings, lard, or vegetable oil

Heat the oven to 450 F. Whisk the eggs and the milk together in a bowl. A large one is good but it doesn’t have to be super large, just large enough to hold all the ingredients listed above. Let the mixture stand for 10 minutes. Then sift in the flour, baking soda and salt. You want this to be a smooth mixture, so take your time and stir a lot. When your done let this mixture sit for 30 min. While it’s sitting get out your muffin pan and put about a half tsp of roast drippings, lard, or vegetable oil in the bottom of each cup. Pop that in the oven and let the oil heat until it is almost smoking. Or let it heat until it is smoking, it’s easier that way, your smoke alarm will let you know when they’re done. You’ll notice this is a great recipe to make while you’re preparing other things. It was invented that way. It assumes that you’ve got your roast going and that your mashing potatoes and boiling carrots and preparing other good things too. That’s part of why I like it. I often have a lot going on in the kitchen while I’m cooking. I’ disorganized like that. When the oil is hot fill each cup 1/3 to 1/2 way full. Put it in the oven and let it cook until they’re golden brown. That’s about 20 min. When they’re done let them cool for a minute, pop them out of the pan, heat up more oil and make puddings until there is no more batter. Serve fresh with gravy or stuff them with some other edible.

P.S. These do not reheat well, so if you want them hot, eat ‘em fast. However, they are also very good cold with jam for breakfast the next day.

Mmmm… dinner.

So this is what I made to eat this week:

Braised Kale It’s more or less the same as the spinach, remove the harder bits, blanch until soft as you like and then braise in butter. I didn’t measure this one, when it came to the butter part I started with enough to coat the bottom of the pan and then added more as I went until it was the right taste.

Yummy mushrooms I fried about a a quarter of a pound of bacon until it was crispy and put it aside to crisp up. Then I caramelized some onions, it was about a half a raw onion, in vegetable oil. I discarded the bacon fat because if I used it the mushrooms would be far too bacon-y. Then I added the mushrooms. It was one regular sized package. I have no idea what this is in real measurement. The mushrooms cooked, I added the bacon bits back in as well as salt and pepper to taste.

Roast Potatoes/They’re actually home fries Red potatoes and parsley in the oven. I didn’t think they were crispy enough so I fried some when they were done cooking.

And an egg because I was protein deficient today. I just threw this in the hot oil left over from the potatoes.

And it was all delicious.

But, it does highlight something I have been noticing more and more. Butter. Grease. Oil. Fat. Now, normally I don’t worry about this at all. Firstly because I don’t sweat the calories and secondly because I live in a six floor walk up, so even if I did I’m more than making up for it. However, after eating this for dinner I felt…heavy. This happens after I eat a greasy meal. I just don’t feel good. I feel slow and dehydrated. So. There is something else to watch. Less lipids. Usually I don’t have lots o’ fat in my starches, ie rice, so I should keep up with that. Also I’ve noticed that I don’t actually need oil to ‘fry’ an egg, my pans are non-stick enough that the egg just doesn’t stick. So there’s that too. 2/4 seems like a good ratio so far. Yummy.

Spinach. I already know that I like it raw, but cooked it turns into slime. Heavy, nasty, metallic tasting slime. However, I was reading Mastering the Art of French Cooking (“Cross references are always a problem. If there are not enough, you may miss an important point, and if there are too many you will become enraged.” oh Julia.) and there was this great looking recipe that was for spinach braised in butter. oOOh. So, apparently the secret to making lovely, tender, melt in you mouth cooked spinach is blanching it and then allowing it to soak up as much butter as possible. In hind sight this seems like an absurdly obvious point, the blanching makes the spinach soft and the butter makes it yummy, but it is wickedly delightful.

The recipe called for far more spinach than I had, so I just kind of went with it. The blanching was super simple, boil salted water and throw in spinach stop when soft. Braising was ever so slightly less simple. The recipe called for three cups of cooked spinach to four tablespoons of butter. I had about a third of a cup of blanched spinach, so I decided to use as much butter as I felt like. Also I decided to add a little crushed garlic. Because garlic is delicious.

You can see the tiny bit of spinach there along with all the butter and the excess garlic that I didn’t want to mix in with the spinach because then it would be too much.

And there is all the spinach on top of the red lentil curry I mentioned last time. Oh so good. It made me wish I had more spinach. It was that good.

I’ve started an experiment. Two weeks ago I realized that I could count all the vegetables I had eaten the past week on one hand. That’s right. One hand. I’m lucky I don’t have scurvy. So I made a big decision. I’ve decided to become a half vegetarian. I’m trying to cut the amount of meat I consume in half. Don’t get me wrong I love meat. If you are in any doubt about just how tasty animals are allow me to refer you to this diagram:

Because meat is like that. Just like that. But veggies are good too. Also, eating less meat is good for the environment. That’s what tinabeans told me and I believe her, so should you! So far it’s been a week and I’m doing great. I made this fantastic curry from all recipes: red lentil curry. It’s fantastic if you eat it fresh, but it defiantly looses something after being reheated. I doubled the spices by accident (what a time to mix up tea and table spoons) but it is still excellent. I’d say up the ginger and watch the cumin, but whatever. Also I’ve been trying to eat more apples and spinach and less rice, because eating less meat is not actually better if you eat tons of rice instead. Which is precisely something I would do because I live rice so very much. So there you are. Hopefully more updates to follow. If you have any good vegetable suggestions let me know.

So I had an egg cream the other day. I was at the marvelous Zaftig’s with my father for lunch when I noticed it on the menu and, thinking of President Bartlet (as I often do) I ordered it. I do not think that it was the most fantastic thing that I have ever tasted in my life but it was most definitely a lovely experience. It was like drinking bubbly chocolate milk. In fact that is exactly what it was, as an egg cream contains no egg nor cream but is (as President Barlet said) milk chocolate syrup and seltzer. The result of this is that it creates the most amazing foam when you blow bubbles into it. You may remember the extraordinary experience that was blowing bubbles in milk when you were young (or you may not, in which case shame on you). Hold that memory in your mind and multiply it by about four. Now, four is not a large number but it is difficult to contain in a glass. Even the tall fountain glass that an egg cream is served in. The carbonation from the seltzer combined with the protein in the milk and encouraged by steady blowing produces a dark brown foam that will not go away, even when you swirl your straw in it. Or when your father shoots you a ‘I was hoping that you were old enough to stop embarrassing me in restaurants’ kind of look. Actually I’m not sure that it was that kind of look at all because he did not follow it up with a verbal complaint as he usually does. Actually, the look might have been meant for either of the six year old girls in Halloween costumes on either side of us. One was a kitty cat, her own description, with a black suite and tail as well as pink fluffy ears, wrist, and ankle bands. The costume originally belonged to her cousin and was made by her aunt. However, apparently this aunt is hopeless at crafty pursuits and the costume kept falling apart and the little girl’s mother kept having to fix it. Which she complained about loudly and clearly. The other girl was something fuschia and was out with her grandmother, who was going to visit the girl’s aunt and uncle in Hong Kong.

I digress.

Egg creams were probably invented in the 19th century in Brooklyn. Purists insist that an egg cream must be made with H. Fox & Co., Inc.’s U-bet chocolate syrup. This syrup claims to be the original chocolate flavor syrup. A dubious distinction as one can assume therefore that they pioneered fake chocolate flavoring. Or one could give them the benefit of the doubt and assume that they retain one hundred four year old wording. What to do when one is faced with such choices? Ah, well. No matter. Really, any syrup you like can be used. This is a recipe that is used today. I lifted it from a site (here) that put some screaming color into emphasizing the order that the drink is assembled in and only using these rules can you create a REAL NEW YORK EGG CREAM! (as the site had it):

1.  Put about 1-1/2 to 2 inches of ice-cold whole MILK into the glass and put the SPOON in.  (I will concede that you may put the spoon in first if you want).

2.  Squirt the ice-cold SELTZER in, using as much pressure as you can but the thinnest stream possible.  This generates the creamy white foam without blowing it all over the place.  Fill it until the foam is 1 inch below the top of the glass.  Done right, the foam should be creamy and  snow white, with a distinctive bumpy texture.  This might take practice.  The seltzer spigots in the old-time soda fountains had two positions.  When the handle was pulled forward, the seltzer came out in a thick stream under low pressure.  When it was pushed back, it squirted out a thin stream under high pressure, allowing the soda jerk to create a foamy head.

3.  Pour the chocolate SYRUP through the center of the white foam, until the foam rises to just above the rim of the glass.

4.MIX the drink with the spoon, keeping the bowl of the spoon at the bottom of the glass, then remove the spoon.

However, there is another recipe for an egg cream that contains both egg and cream. Daniel Bell claims that his uncle Hymie originated the egg cream in the 60s and sold them from his second avenue candy store. The recipe was born from the combination of the belief that raw egg would keep a young boy healthy and growing with the problem that young boys were not predisposed to eating raw eggs. Young boys were, however, predisposed to consuming sugared goods. Therefore, slip a raw egg into a chocolate cream soda and boys can be kept healthy and hyper. A proto health-shake. The flaw in this account is that those in the know, that is those who were kids in the hey day of the egg cream, remember consuming it in the 50s as well. No matter, the egg cream is just one of those fantastic things invented by God’s chosen people, like kugle and Hollywood. But remember this, the most important point: Toby likes them, and if Toby likes them they have to be good.

(Egg creams are like the Holy Roman Empire because the Holy Roman Empire was neither holy nor Roman and commonly egg creams contain neither egg nor cream. This was New York magazine’s observation anyway.)