knife & skillet

Home Cooking in the Age of Covid-19

Unless you’re a celebrity perched upon a hill, having your groceries and food delivered by an underpaid worker, and posting videos of your phone calls w your celebrity friends while (literally) looking down on and insisting others just stay home to plank the curve, whatever the fuck that means, then you probably have at some point been out doing the now perilous job of grocery shopping and cooking for yourself.

Anyway, as if you need another person to tell you what to do, here I am.

Thing is, grocery shopping and cooking are probably the only forms of entertainment we all share these days, and it's a good time to learn some new skills.  If anything, it's a good time to make mistakes.

Learn to break down a chicken, it will not only save you money but will give you something to do.  From there, learn to make stock.  Make use of every bit of meat on the bones.  Use the giblets to make sauces.  I took two chickens home and made food for a week for three people, cooked every night:  Tacos, fried rice, grilled sweet and sour legs.  Try not repeating recipes.

These are skills that will last you a lifetime.

While Eating a Pear

After we have finished here the world will continue its quiet turning and the years will still transpire, but now without their numbers, and the days and months will pass without the names of Norse and Roman Gods.

Time will go by the way it did before history, pure and unnoticed, a mystery that arose between the sun and moon before there was a word for dawn or noon or midnight,

before there were names for the earth’s uncountable things, when fruit hung anonymously from scattered groves of trees, light on one smooth green side, shadow on the other.

Sautéed Carrots

As a side, carrots make an amazingly simple dish.  Very little has gone into this prep:  get some fresh carrots from your farmers and quickly blanch, but not fully.  Using your fingers carefully remove the outer skin.  This will maintain the beautiful “ugliness” that make carrots so appealing.

Recipe:  Fall Harvest By Chef Joy Cuevas

Spiced Rum Panna Cotta Ingredients 90ml Heavy Cream 2oz Spiced Rum 1ea Vanilla Pod 1ea Cinnamon Stick 75g Sugar 1ea Nutmeg 5ea Gelatin, Sheets

Method Boil all ingredients except the gelatin sheets; remove cinnamon stick and vanilla pod. Add gelatin sheets and pour mixture into molds.

Honey Brown Butter Madeleine Ingredients 6ea Eggs 6oz Sugar 1oz Brown Sugar 0.5tsp Kosher Salt 2ea Lemon, zest 1ea Orange, zest 8.2oz AP Flour 0.5Lbs Brown Butter, melted 0.25oz Baking Powder 1.12oz Honey 1tsp Vanilla Extract

Fall Harvest by Pastry Chef Joy Cuevas

This next dish is by Chef Joy Cuevas who currently runs the pastry program at SOCA in Sherman Oaks.  Chef Cuevas had spent years in some of Los Angeles’ top kitchens including Bouchon Beverly Hills, London West Hollywood, Montage, and The Sunset Marquis Hotel.

Based around a spiced rum panna cotta, Chef Cuevas really wanted to do something different with a butternut squash and wanted to incorporate it with earthy spices.  

The dish also includes a honey brown butter madeleine, butternut squash confit, pumpkin seed glass, and maple shaped edible hibiscus leafs.

Avocado & Lima Bean Mash Scarlet Runners, Grilled Cactus Market Greens w Prickly Pear & Passion Fruit

This recipe could not get any easier. For the avocado & lima bean mash:  mortar + pestle, mash chunky, add lime juice and season w salt.

To keep the color of the scarlet runner beans from greying out, vinegar is added to the water: Add enough water to cover the surface of the scarlet runners with 1 inch of water, add ~1tsp vinegar for every cup of water used, bring to a boil, cover and remove from the heat.  Let sit overnight or for at least one hour to cool. Reserve.

The State of Toast in Los Angeles (or, Avocado No Toast)

In the future, when aliens discover a time capsule from 2017, they will find two items that have become ubiquitous in our city's weekend morning ritual:  a piece of artisanal toast, and an odd looking teardrop shaped fruit from an avocado tree.

Aguachile Rojo

For these two aguachiles, I will forgo a recipe and detail the ingredients that were used along with the method.  This will be the way most of the recipes will be posted going forward.  This lack of hand-holding will be expanded on a separate post, but it's something I've been thinking a lot of lately, and it's led me to think that most people, though they may love food, they don't necessarily love cooking.A quick walk down any cookbook aisle will be filled with spines reading Fast, Easy, Quick, Under 30 Minutes, Simple, etc... anything to get people to spend less time in the kitchen.  That is the opposite of what I like.  I love being in the kitchen and cooking and spending time in there, eating the food is the reward.  Or maybe not.  It may not even be good.  It might suck.This is not taking into account the time thinking, the planning sourcing shopping blah blah blah.So, if you want an easy meal, I think Gwyneth has got you covered.

Aguachile Negro con Langosta

If you've never had aguachile (or heard of it) then it's relatively easy to imagine.  A close and obvious relative would be ceviche, but where ceviche is composed mainly of fresh lime juice, aguachile has the addition of chile peppers to the lime juice.  And that addition is important here, as the name implies. To have a mild aguachile is to miss the point entirely.  Not to say the peppers should overpower the taste of the shrimp, lobster or what seafood may be added, but it should be as pronounced as the other ingredients. Think, to double down here, of a peppercorn sauce.  Most sauces will/may contain peppercorns, but the addition of a substantial amount of peppercorns to a cream sauce is what gives it character and taste, thus: peppercorn sauce. These next few recipes featuring aguachiles take some liberties from what may be found in street vendors or restaurants, but it's the balance of tastes with the citrus and chiles that matter.

The marinade for the lobster tail is made of lime juice, oranges, and habanero.  Tarragon was used in place of Hoja Santa, which would have added a mint/licorice/anise flavor, but tarragon works as a substitute.  Look for a balance here, but about 50% lime juice will help.

Grill Recipe: Kumquat, Green Beans, & Red Bell Pepper Matambre

Grilled Summer Vegetables w Grilled Garlic Vinaigrette

Summer in California is long.  And, actually, many vegetables which may be around a month or a few weeks somewhere else (provided, ahem, you are indeed shopping at a farmers) can be found here in Sunny Southern almost year round.  So go to your farmers and grab something in season, it wont be what is pictured here but it's the freshness that counts.

But as far as grilling, heres what I did which translates well to most other veggies:  place on hot grill to mark, transfer to indirect/low heat till somewhat soft.  Remove, cool, cut to desired sizes, dress.

Wild Mushroom Tart Sage Crust Garlic & Shallot Cream

This savory tart recipe aims to bridge our Spring season with that of Summer while being visually attractive, since we eat with our eyes first (as they say), then with our sense of smell, and finally our sense of taste. Save for the garlic and shallot cream, I will not be spelling out a recipe because the ingredients are interchangeable:  substitute parsley or thyme or your favorite herb for the sage.  Grab your favorite mushies or find some you've never used before, you really can't go wrong. Recipe:  Garlic & Shallot Cream Heavy Cream, whipped to medium Sour Cream Garlic, microplaned or finely minced Shallot, microplaned or finely minced Method:  Fold the sour cream, garlic, and shallot into the whipped heavy cream, season. Reserve.

The recipe for the tart crust is the same as the one used for the Strawberry Tart recipe with the omission of the chamomile dust.  Instead, whole sage  leaves, brushed with butter, are placed on the dough after blind baking, allowing them to fry.  Frying whole herbs is one of my favorite kitchen tricks; the herbs mellow out while still being very present, lending their aroma to the dish, and none of the bitterness associated with eating raw herbs.

For the mushrooms I am using fresh Forest Nameko which have a delicate meaty flavor, quickly sautéed in browned butter. Most wild mushrooms will do though we are lucky at the Hollywood Farmers Market to have the amazing selection from the LA Funghi (I know I know). To finish off drizzle some of the garlic and shallot cream on top and garnish w some edible flowers.

Cherimoya & Strawberry Tart, Chamomile Pastry Crust Cherimoya/Chamomile Cream Cheese Frosting Cherimoya Glaze

Chamomile Pastry Crust 1ea Chamomile Pastry Dough (recipe here) Roll out Pastry dough to 0.25" even thickness, enough to cover 9" tart pan. Blind bake at 350F for 20mns. Cool. Fully bake crust to golden.  Reserve.

Cherimoya & Strawberry a/n Cherimoya, seeds removed, medium dice a/n Strawberries, sliced lengthwise a/n Caster or Fine Sugar a/n Lemon, juice Toss cherimoya in sugar and add lemon juice to coat; reserve excess cherimoya liquid. Do same with strawberries; reserve in separate bowls.

Cherimoya/Chamomile Cream Cheese Frosting a/n Cream Cheese, soft a/n Sugar a/n Reserved Cherimoya Liquid a/n Chamomile Dust (recipe here) Whip cream cheese, add sugar to taste; add cherimoya liquid to taste making sure frosting does not become runny.  Fold in chamomile dust.

Cherimoya Glaze 1part Water 1part Sugar a/n Cherimoya Liquid Make a thick simple syrup w equal parts water/sugar, add cherimoya liquid to taste; reserve.

Recipe: Chamomile Tart Crust

For this next set of recipes, the crust of the tart takes center stage - with minor steps, the character of the crust is transformed into the centerpiece of the pastry. Cherimoya and strawberries are used for the topping, with chamomile being used three ways: as part of the dry ingredients, in the pastry cream and, finally, a dusting of the flowers before serving.

I will go into cherimoya on a later post because, though we’ve all see in it at our farmers, it still feels a bit strange, but it’s an amazing native fruit that has a beautiful, pillowy custard texture with a delicate tart/sweet flavor.

The recipe is in baker’s percentages because, in the long run, it is easier to work with, but 150g (100%) of flour will yield one 9" tart shell.

Chamomile Dust 2ea, Fresh Chamomile Bunches

Pick the chamomile flowers; place on a parchment lined baking sheet. Bake at 250f/120c for ~20mns to dehydrate flowers. Place flowers in a mortar & pestle, grind finely, sift. Reserve.

Ingredients & Method 50% Sonora Wheat Flour 50% All Purpose Flour 10% Chamomile Dust 5% Fine Sea Salt 100% Butter, unsalted, cold, cubed 10% H20, cold 10% Vodka, cold