all – Page 78 – Oswald Rivera

Category: all (page 78 of 79)

Gourmet Magazine – R.I. P.

After 68 years in publication, Gourmet magazine is calling it quits. The food journal that defined a generation is no more, a victim of the economy and technology. Why leaf through a magazine for recipes when you can get whatever recipe you want with just one key stroke or the click of a mouse? These days you can google everything from preparing a fruit salad to the finer points of whale blubber steak. Thus, Gourmet, as an entity, is no more.

Truth be told, I was never a partisan of Gourmet Magazine. My subscription lapsed years ago and I never renewed it. After a time I found the magazine rather snooty and condescending in its manner. It was food for those who were considered “my betters,” I thought. I found its recipes, for the most part, arcane, tine consuming and complicated. Who wants to spend a weekend cooking up a Black Forrest cake? There were much more venues out there for simplicity and economy.

Still, I’m sure Gourmet Magazine will be missed. Just one more fount on culinary information that is now gone. It seems like a generation is passing. Julia Childs is gone, James Beard is gone and, now, Gourmet. I shall mourn its passing.

Plantains – Part I

September 29, 2009 / Oswald Rivera / 0 Comments

Plantains are an integral part of my culture. We boil them, we fry them, we add them in casserole dishes; we eat them as appetizers or with the main meal. They are ubiquitous in the Caribbean. Almost every island has a claim to them. To those if us who are not familiar with plantains (platanos), think of them as bananas on steroids. And in Puerto Rican cuisine there are two categories that we enjoy.

The first category are green, unripe plantains. These we serve as tostones, or fried green plantains. And that is what we will discuss today.

Green plantains, these days, can be found almost anywhere. My wife and I summer in Vermont. And even in Vermont we can find plantains. In the regular world, any Caribbean or Asian market will carry them. In the northeast, they are found in almost any supermarket.

I prefer tostones to their close cousin, the amarillos, the ripe plantains. Some folks prefer the ripe ones. It’s all a matter of taste. They are both equally delicious.

In the recipe included below the plantains are fried twice. In other parts of the Caribbean, notably Jamaica, the plantains are deep-fried just once. They are not pounded and re-fried. For those who follow our method, the unbroken skin of the plantain is used for flattening the tostones. Otherwise, you can acquire what is called a tostonera in any Latin market. This consists of two pieces of wood or plastic that hinge over to enclose the plantains slices. Here, again, I defer to tradition. Nothing beats the plantain peels and the flat of the hand for pressing the tostones.

The recipe is from my first cookbook, Puerto Rican Cuisine in America (Perseus Book Group).

TOSTONES (FRIED GREEN PLANTAINS)

3 green plantains

4 cups water

2 tablespoons salt

Vegetable oil for frying

1. To remove the skin from the plantain, cut tips at both ends, cut a slit along the length of the plantain and peel off. To facilitate easier handling, some cooks dip plantains in hot water for 5 minutes and then remove the skin. Once plantains are peeled, cut into diagonal slices about 1-inch thick. Reserve peels.

2. Combine water and salt in a bowl and soak plantain slices for 30 minutes. Drain well.

3. Fill a cast-iron or heavy bottomed skillet halfway with vegetable oil. Heat oil until very hot (about 375 degrees). Deep fry plantains for 5 to 7 minutes.

4. Remove with slotted spoon and drain on paper towels.

5. Place a plantain slice between two plantain peels, envelope fashion, and pound flat with the palm of the hand. Repeat until all slices are pressed. Return plantains to the skillet and cook until golden grown (about 5 minutes longer). Drain on absorbent paper towels and sprinkle lightly with salt.

Yield: 12 to 18 tostones.

Fish and Mustard—A Great Combo!

September 19, 2009 / Oswald Rivera / 0 Comments

A couple of blogs ago I did something on Quick Meat Patties in a Mustard Sauce. That started me to thinking, Why can’t I do the same thing with fish? This all came about when I decided to roast a whole fish I had acquired in Chinatown. I had been looking forward to this meal. I hadn’t cooked a whole fish in quite a while. But, necessity being the mother of invention, I checked my fridge and noticed I had some mustard and cream. So, why not combine the two and make what the French would call a moutard sauce?

It was a simple process: score the fish with a few cut marks, season, pour the mustard-cream sauce over it, and bake. Easy, quick, and nutritious. For an accompaniment we had baked scallion potatoes. Also an easy process: cut the potatoes in 1-inch chunks, drizzle with butter and bake along with the fish. At the finish, sprinkle with chopped scallions or parsley.

When baking the fish, I suggest any white firm-fleshed fish. Blue Fish may be too oily, and a whole salmon may be too cost prohibitive. The recipe also works well with fish fillets and fish steaks; although cooking time may vary depending upon thickness of fillets or steaks.

WHOLE FISH IN MUSTARD-CREAM SAUCE

1 whole fish (about 2-2 1/2 pounds), gutted, scaled, clean, with with head

and tail intact.

Salt and ground black pepper to taste

1/2 cup mustard ( Any good mustard will do—from Grey Poupon to

Gulden’s)

4 tablespoons heavy whipping cream (preferably organic)

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

2. Wash fish under cold running water and clean with paper towels. Then score fish on each side with three to four knife cuts across the body.

3. Season with salt and pepper.

4. In a small bowl, combine the mustard and heavy cream.

5. Place fish in a greased baking dish; and spread the mustard- cream

sauce over it.

6. Bake for 45 minutes or until skin flakes easily with a knife or fork.

Yield: 4 servings.

Tarru-Bird Stew – The Oldest Recipe in the World

September 10, 2009 / Oswald Rivera / 0 Comments

When I was researching my second cookbook, The Pharaoh’s Feast (Avalon Books), part of the deal was that I had to research ancient recipes. The Pharaoh’s Feast deals with the history of cooking throughout the ages, from day one to the present. I came across some really great gems, inclusive of the recipe noted below. It comes from three Akhadian clay table from the Yale Babylonian Collection. The tablets are a collection of recipes from the old Babylonian Empire, circa 1700 B.C.E. They are not a cookbook. They are more of a culinary record written for administrative purposes so that the recipes could be codified for the benefit of those who would enjoy them—the big whigs in the hierarchy. They show that ancient Mesopotamia had a vibrant and sophisticated cuisine for its time.

Tarru can translated to mean fowl. Thus this recipe could have been made with wild pigeons, quail or partridge—any small bird. For modern usage I recommend Cornish game hens or poussin (young chickens). The recipe is arcane, but using common sense, one can come up with something worthwhile. It’s your basic stew; and it goes well with boiled potatoes or steamed rice.

Some words inscribed in the tablets have yet to be translated, such as samidu. The recipe contains onions, garlic, leek, milk and samidu (whatever the hell that is). It also calls for a broth made of mutton. I figure you could use any rich meat or beef broth. Also, one of the ingredients given is”hulled cake of malt.” I’ve substituted malted milk powder—and it works.

So, make believe you’re in Ancient Babylon, you just got home from a hard day in the fields, or from haggling in the marketplace over some horse or camel, and the Tarru-Bird Stew is just waiting for you.

TARRU-BIRD STEW

2 Cornish game hens or poussin

1 small onion, peeled and finely chopped

1 whole leek, rinsed and finely chopped (green part only)

2 cloves garlic

4 tablespoons milk

4 cups beef broth or bouillon

1 tablespoon shortening or 2 tablespoons vegetable oil

Salt to taste

2 teaspoons malted milk powder

1. Rinse the Cornish hens under cold running water and pat dry with paper towels. Split hens in half.

2. Put the onion, leek, and garlic into a mortar and pound until everything is crushed together. If you don’t have a mortar and pestle, you can place the ingredients in a heavy bowl or saucepan and crush with a potato masher or the back of a spatula or large spoon. Add the milk, and mix. Do not cheat by emulsifying in a food processor—it will come out too watery.

3. Place the Cornish hens in a large pot, casserole, or Dutch oven. Add the beef broth, shortening, salt, and malted milk powder. bring to a boil, stirring constantly. Lower the heat and simmer, covered, for ten minutes.

4. Add the onion mixture. Cover and continue simmering until the hens are tender (10 to 15 minutes).

5. Place the hens on a serving platter as is. Or you can carve them into small pieces, if desired, with the broth served over them.

Yield: 4 servings

Quick Meat Patties in Mustard Sauce

August 28, 2009 / Oswald Rivera / 0 Comments

Sometimes, the best meals come out of necessity. You know, those times when you have to whip up something with a particular item, and use what’s available in the fridge. Recently, me and my beloved mate acquired some bison patties. Yup, bison patties—as in buffalo meat. We’ve become partisans of bison because of its nutritious element and minuscule cholesterol content. But this recipe I conjured up can be done with beef , turkey, chicken or lamb patties. Or you can Take some hamburger meat and cook it the same way.

QUICK MEAT PATTIES IN MUSTARD SAUCE

4 patties, beef or other (see above)

Salt and black ground pepper to taste

3 tablespoons olive oil

3/4 cup sour cream

4 tablespoons mustard (if you have Dijon, great. If not, any good mustard will do)

1. Season patties with salt and pepper on both sides.

2. Heat oil in a medium skillet. Add patties and cook over medium heat about 1-2 minutes on each side. The cooking time will vary depending on type of meat used. Bison patties take less time to cook than regular burger patties. Just trust your judgement.

3. Stir in sour cream and mustard. Cover and cook until sauce is heated (about 1minute longer).

4. Serve over rice, boiled potatoes, kasha, or couscous.

Yield: 2 servings for big eaters; or 4 servings for regular eaters.

Mushrooms Make You Feel…Good

August 19, 2009 / Oswald Rivera / 0 Comments

I am a mushroom lover. Have been since I was a kid. There’s something about their earthy flavor that just grabs me. Mushrooms have been around since antiquity. Depending on your source, there are anywhere from 10,000 to 38,000 types of mushrooms. Only about 3,000 are edible.

The ancient Chinese, Greeks and Romans loved mushrooms. Sometimes with fatal consequences. As was the case with the Roman Emperor Claudius. In Ancient Rome, when an emperor died they would automatically declare him a god and put him in their pantheon of deities. Well, old Claudius, at a banquet was fed some poisonous mushrooms. The minute he tasted them he knew something was up. So he rose and addressed the assembled audience, declaring, “I think I am becoming a god”—and keeled over.
As you can tell, some varieties can be deadly: such as the famous “toadstools of the amanita genus, commonly known as amanita phalloides or “death cap.” Other varieties can be used for medicinal purposes, inclusive of the reishi, which is highly prized in Chinese medicine. And some can give you a trip, literally, such as the psilocybin mushrooms, which are hallucinogenic. Of course, these are illegal.

But we know mushrooms mainly for their dining pleasure. Today, apart from the white button mushrooms of my youth, there are numerous gourmet types such as enoki, crimini, porcini (often used in soups and sauces), oyster mushrooms (known to reduce cholesterol), chantarelle, shitaki, portobello, and , of course, the ultimate fungi, truffles—which can cost you anywhere from $130 to $390 per pound for black truffles, and $1350 to $2700 per pound for the white variety.

The best way to cook mushrooms, I’ve discovered, is the old Roman method: sliced and sauteed in olive oil with slivers of garlic. But for you adventurous types, below is a perfect dish for summer: portobello mushroom sandwiches.

And, no, you don’t need truffles for this. But be aware that you’ll need large portobello mushroom caps. Done right, they taste like a steak.

BASIC PORTOBELLO MUSHROOM SANDWICH

2 large portobello mushrooms, washed, cleaned and stemmed
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 slices (about 1 ounce each) mozzarella or Swiss cheese
2 bagels or sesame seed buns, toasted
Oregano to taste

1. In a medium skillet heat the olive oil.
2. Add portobellos, stem face down, and cook for approximately two minutes. Note that the cooking time will vary depending on size or thickness of mushrooms.
3. Turn mushrooms over, add slices of cheese on top, and cook 2 minutes more or until cheese melts.
4. Sprinkle with oregano and serve on toasted bagel or bun.
Yield: 2 servings.

Summer Dishes

August 14, 2009 / Oswald Rivera / 0 Comments

Image via Wikipedia

Mid-August and it’s sizzling out there. This is no time for elaborate meals and dinners. We want something fast, nutritious and cool. Below are some quick summer dishes one can create in minutes. All dishes should be served at room temperature.

Mushroom Salad: Wash and clean a bunch of mushrooms (about 1-2 pounds—you can choose whatever you want: white mushrooms, criminis, portabellos, etc.); cut in half or quarter any large ones. Steam about 5 minutes. While still warm, toss with sliced shallots or onions; add olive oil, minced garlic, ground black pepper, coriander, chopped fresh cilantro, and red wine vinegar.

Combination Beans: Combine cooked or canned beans, drained. You can mix any variety: black beans, red beans, chickpeas, etc. Add diced red and green pimentos, and a minced jalepeno or tabasco pepper (make sure you remove seeds). Season with juice from one lime, chopped marjoram, oregano and ground black pepper to taste.

Horta (a seasoned salad): Steam or poach two pounds of dark leafy greens (spinach, collards, kale, etc.). Drain, cool, squeeze dry and chop coarsely. Add olive oil, oregano, ground black pepper, and fresh lemon juice to taste.

Basic Green Salad: Wash and cut plum tomatoes into slices. Lay in a circle on a big plate with mixed greens, black olives cut in half, and cubes of goat cheese (preferably manchego—if you can get it). Season with ground black pepper, salt and oregano. Drizzle with red wine vinegar and olive oil. Garnish with a sliced boiled egg.

Aioli is a sauce popular in Provence that’s served with seafood, shellfish, boiled eggs, and potatoes. In a blender or food processor, blend 3 cloves peeled garlic, 1/2 teaspoon salt and 2 tablespoons olive oil until creamy and smooth. Transfer to a bowl (preferably wood), and very slowly add 3/4 olive oil, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon until mixture thickens. Traditional Aioli included a raw egg, but nowadays that’s not recommended due to health reasons.

Whichever recipe you prefer, enjoy. Or you can try making up your own summer snack. The possibilities are endless.

The New York Bagel

August 2, 2009 / Oswald Rivera / 0 Comments

To me, bagels are like a religious experience. And that’s saying a lot for a non-believer. For every New Yorker, bar none, bagels are a rite of passage. This delicious savory transcends race, creed, gender, ethnicity, political affiliations,whatever. If you’re a newcomer in the city, or been here all your life, bagels are part of your psyche. For most, it is the morning meal that defines your day.

Nothing compares to a New York style bagel, boiled, chewy, and crusty. Eastern European Jewish immigrants brought the bagel with them to North America at the turn of the twentieth century. And they settled all over, not only in New York. Many went to Canada so that today you have the Toronto and Montreal-style bagel. I’ve had Canadian bagels. They’re not bad. But there’s something about a New York bagel that just makes it different. Some say it’s the water and, to a certain extent that may be so. Supposedly, the water from New York reservoirs is among the best in the nation. All I know in that I’ve had bagels (or facsimiles thereof) in other parts of the nation and Europe. It ain’t the same.

However, I did discover that when the genuine thing is not available, there are passable substitutes. About fifteen years ago I took a trip to Bozeman, Montana, a beautiful part of the country. No New York bagels. But I discovered that, in a pinch, Lender’s Frozen bagels aren’t that bad—especially if you’ve got nothing else.

And of course, we all have our preferences in types and flavors. We know that bagels are often topped with seeds (the most popular being poppy and sesame), or infused with other ingredients. My wife, Holly, prefers onion bagels. I prefer pumpernickel. We both love our bagels topped with whitefish. Although, from what I’ve seen, the all-time favorite is still bagels with lox and a schmear (cream cheese). Lox is cured salmon. I prefer Nova, or Nova Scotia lox, which is cured in a milder brine solution. Some aficionados prefer gravlax (gravad lox), which is not smoked and coated with a spice mixture.

Most Midwesterners out there are saying, What’s with this bagel thing? Well, it’s like an egg-cream soda, another New York staple. If you’ve never had it, you just don’t know. When I was in Buffalo one time, I had a beef on wek. It’s a local thing that once you try it, you get hooked.

Oh, if you can find a genuine shop that makes their own bagels on premises, like Bagel Works on First Avenue, then you’ve struck gold. Bagels have become a big industry and most are now made for distribution nation wide. So, if you have to, wherever you may be, look out for the local product. Believe it or not, they are out there. We discovered local bagel joints even in the wilds of Vermont. If it’s made on site, you’re in heaven.

Hot Weather Relief – Gazpacho

July 27, 2009 / Oswald Rivera / 0 Comments

Summertime and the livin’ is easy. The same with dining; and cold soups are a welcomed relief from the dog days of summer. Forget about hot, sturdy stews. Those are for midwinter. We want cool relief. And cool soups, weather at room temperature or chilled, have been with us since soups were invented. The most renowned of these, of course, is Vichyssoise (pronounced “vihsh-ee-SWAHZ” or “vee-she-swahz”). It’s a rich creamy potato-leek soup that is served cold. And, no, it ain’t French. It’s AMERICAN! Its creator was Chef Louis Diat of the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in New York City, and he conjured it up in 1917.

But the king of cold soups, in my humble opinion, is that Spanish classic, gazpacho. Gazpacho has Moorish origins. In 711 the Muslims of Northern Africa, known as the Moors because of their mixed Berber and Arab lineage, invaded Spain. It wasn’t until 1492 (date sound familiar?) that the last of the Moors were expelled from Spain. But they left a lasting influence, especially in their cuisine. Gazpacho evolved from an Arabic dish. The word itself derives from the Arabic word for soaked bread. And the initial recipe called for soaked bread, olive oil and garlic. The Spaniards referred to this as ajo blanco, or a garlic soup. When tomatoes and peppers were brought back to Spain from the Americas, these were added to the soup, so that today we have the famous tomato-based gazpacho that originated in Andalucia in Southern Spain. In Malaga, a province in the region of Andalucia, they boast of their Malaga-style gazpacho which includes crushed peeled almonds and red wine vinegar.

The recipe included is the traditional Moorish type gazpacho and it comes from my cookbook, The Pharaoh’s Feast, which is a history of cooking through the ages from day one to the present. For those of you who have been brought up on the tomato-base gazpacho, give this one a try. Its simplicity and natural flavors are a revelation.

GAZPACHO CON AJO BLANCO

1 cup untrimmed fresh bread, cubed

3 cloves garlic, peeled and finely minced

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup olive oil

Cold water

1. Soak the bread in water. Drain and squeeze to extract excess moisture.

2. In a mortar (preferably earthenware), pound the garlic until crushed.

3. In a wooden bowl, mix the garlic, bread, and salt, and stir in the olive oil.

4. Add cold water as desired, to get the smoothness of a soup. Serve at room temperature.

Yield: 4 servings.

Pizza: The Great Jewish Invention

May 27, 2009 / Oswald Rivera / 0 Comments

Ever wonder how pizza, one of America’s favorite foods, came about? Millions of pies are consumed daily. But how did it all begin? And where did it come from? Of course, one never thinks of this while enjoying their favorite slice. Leave it to a compulsive nut like me to reflect on this. Yet Pizza does have an interesting and varied history. First of all, we think of it as an Italian invention. Well, there are many theories out there as to the origins of pizza, and in this respect our Italian brethren are not the only ones involved.

Pizza, at its basic, is baked dough with toppings; and its genesis comes from flat, round bread cakes that have been with us since the beginning of time. The ancient Greeks had a flat round bread (plankuntos) baked with an assortment and toppings and eaten at the time by the common folk. In ancient Persia (modern day Iraq) soldiers of Darius the Great in the 6th century B.C.E. baked a kind of flat bread on their shields and covered it with dates and cheese. But I do not credit the invention of pizza to those great empires, mighty though they may have been. My favorite theory about the invention of pizza involves the Jews and Imperial Rome. Scoff in you will, but the logic and proof is irrefutable. Just as some credit Irish monks with preserving ancient manuscripts and thus saving western civilization during the Dark Ages, I credit the Jews with inspiring America’s favorite snack.

Here’s how it all happened. In the year 66 of the Common Era, the Jews rose up in revolt against their Roman oppressors in then Judea (modern day Israel). The Romans sent in general Titus Flavius Vespasian with four legions, among them the 10th Legion. The revolt lasted until September 70 C.E. During that time, the soldiers of the 10th legion faced a shortage of supplies, primarily bread. The only thing they had available was unleavened bread that the Jews ate, especially during their holy days. The Jewish unleavened bread was much like present day pita bread, which is still consumed today in Greece and the Middle East (along with countless yuppies on the East Side). But the Romans couldn’t stomach this unleavened bread because, truthfully, to them it tasted awful. So they put toppings on it, usually a mix of olive oil, vegetables, herbs and even honey.

With the squashing of the revolt, the 10th Legion was sent back to its home base in Naples. And the legionaries (much like the GIs returning from Italy after the Second World War with a yen for newly discovered pizza) brought back with them a taste for this flavored flat bread. Soon it became a Naples favorite. In fact, shops have been discovered in the ancient city of Pompeii complete with marble slabs and other tools which resemble a conventional pizzeria.

What about the tomatoes and cheese and all that other stuff? The Romans used cheese as a topping as well. Tomatoes were brought to Europe from Peru in the 16th century, and people in Naples started adding tomatoes to the flat bread

to create the simple pizza that we know today. They became known as “Neopolitan pies” and the men who baked the dish (in the poorer sections of Naples, by the way) were “pizzaioli”—hence the pie became “pizza.”

So there you have it. You can thank our Jewish brethren (by way of the ancient Romans) for this heavenly creation. Today there are hundreds of toppings for pizza, everything from Jalapeno peppers to caviar. It is estimated that American and Canadian citizens eat an average of 23 pounds of pizza, per person, per year, with the favorite topping combination being pepperoni and cheese. And February 9th is International Pizza Day!

Below is the simplest pizza recipe I know. It’s not your traditional pie. It follows more along the lines of the savory enjoyed by the ancient Romans in that it uses a flat bread as the pie. In this case, focaccia. You can get focaccia bread in almost any supermarket these days. My favorite is the Boboli brand which comes in original pizza crust, thin crust, or 100% whole wheat. The recipe is a variation on Pizza Margherita, named after Queen Margherita of Italy who is reputed in 1889 to have inspired her chef to create a pizza with tomatoes, mozzarella cheese and basil—to emulate the color of the Italian flag: Red, white and green.

Combine 2 tablespoons olive oil; 1/2 pound plum, chopped tomatoes (can use good quality canned tomatoes); 2 garlic cloves, finely minced; and salt to taste. Set aside. Top the focaccia with 6 ounces shredded mozzarella cheese, and then add the tomato mixture. Bake on a baking sheet or oven rack at 450 degrees for 8-10 minutes. Remove from oven and top with 1/4 cup shredded Parmesan cheese and 1/4 cup fresh chopped basil. Cut into wedges and serve.

Oswald Rivera

Author, Warrior, and Teacher