Restaurant Review : Eataly

If you've been keeping up with my Halloween countdown and array of ghostly goodies, you can only imagine how exhausted I was by the end of the month of October. This past week, I have been detoxing with a lot of sleep and a lot of vegetable broth and water. Ok, I'm exaggerating--I have been eating, but I've been slowed down quite a bit.

So, when my friend Lucy contacted me and asked me if I would be available for dinner, I jumped at the opportunity to eat something delicious and healthy that I did not have to cook myself.

We both work in downtown Manhattan, and decided upon the popular and iconic Eataly, located at 200 5th Avenue on 23rd Street, right across from the Flatiron building and on the same block as the Institute for Culinary Education. When I attended my cooking class at ICE, a woman in the class urged me to visit Eataly: "You're right across the street," she said. "It would be a terrible shame to miss it!" That day, as I emerged sleep-deprived and laden with baked goods, I lacked the enthusiasm to go, but this was the perfect opportunity to have a catch up with a friend over dinner and see what all the fuss was about.

Eataly is so much more than a restaurant: it's a market selling meat, fish, cheese, pasta, bread, sweets, beer, coffee, vegetables, and olive oil (to name a few), and a collection of specialized restaurants each serving a different array of meticulously-prepared foods.

As the Eataly website describes, the founder of Eataly Oscar Farinetti wanted to "make high‐quality Italian foods available to everyone, at fair prices and in an environment where people can shop, eat and learn." His partners, the award-winning Mario Batali and Lidia and Joe Bastianich, have collaborated to create a true dining experience that transports you from the heart of Manhattan to the bustle of an Italian marketplace and piazza.

Lucy and I decided to eat at the fish restaurant, Il Pesce. We got seats at the bar that overlooks the kitchen, and each enjoyed our choice of delicious and not-too-pricey seafood. I had the Spiendino di Polpo, a skewer of octopus, fingerling potatoes, and cipollini onions with a fresh lemon taste and a side of crimson beets. Lucy had Mantis Shrimp served in a delicate green pesto with a side of brocoli raab. The quality and presentation of the food was superb, and the flavors welcome and unexpected. Though we had thought of going to the gelateria afterwards for dessert, we were both too full, and instead decided to check out the Caffe Lavazza, which serves coffee, tea, beer, and aperitifs. I had a cold and generous espresso served with Amaretto, and Lucy enjoyed a hot chocolate that was like liquid happiness. All in all, it was a meal worth waiting for.

There are a variety of restaurants and food counters at Eataly, each serving a specialty for--what I would call--fair prices:

Manzo: The most formal dining experience at Eataly, serving a dizzying array of meats, and both modern and traditional Piedmontese beef dishes.
Birreria: A rooftop restaurant and brewery, serving beers brewed on premises with a fantastic view of the New York skyline. Make sure you get there early to avoid a waitist!
La Piazza: A vibrant and bustling (also, standing) eatery serving wine, charcuterie, and cheeses, from Salumi & Formaggi like Prosciutto di Parma or San Daniele from Salumeria Rosi and prosciutto cotto from Parmacotto.
Il Pesce: A fish restaurant with a wide choice of whole fish, shrimp, soups, oysters, and daily specialties from chef, Dave Pasternack. Sit at the bar to get a close-up view of the kitchen and to watch your food being cooked.
Le Verdure: A restaurant for those who appreciate a simple harvest, with plates of colorful seasonal vegetables.
La Pizza & Pasta: The Italian classic, refined.
Lavazza Caffe: A stunning coffee bar serving a wide selection of high-quality and inexpensive (compared to most coffee in New York) coffee concoctions, served with or without alcohol.

In addition to these above restaurants, you can take a look at the take-home and to-go options at Caffe Vergnano, the Pasticceria and Gelateria, Venchi Cioccolato, La Pizza & La Pasta to go, the Rosticceria, and the Paninoteca.

Photo courtesy of Mario Batali's website.

Floating Ghost Cupcakes

As a grand finale to my Hallo-week of special treats, I have saved the best and (perhaps) trickiest treat for last. These ghostly cupcakes were inspired by a slideshow of Halloween cupcakes on Martha Stewart's website (see the original below!). The cupcakes, which use cupcakes topped with fondant to create ghostly little desserts were too cute not to make.

The original Martha recipe calls for homemade Devil's Food cake, suggests using cupcakes topped with marshmallows as the base for the ghost bodies, and uses store-bought fondant. After reading a variation of the recipe on "Not So Idle Hands," another cooking blog, I decided to combine the two and add some of my own tricks.

I have slightly simplified the recipe by using Devil's Food cake mix, and mini cupcakes instead of marshmallows. I also decided to follow Emily's advice from "Not So Idle Hands" and make my own marshmallow fondant rather than buying expensive fondant from the store.

The recipe below is my own interpretation of the Martha and Emily combination.

The Recipe:

1 box Devil's Food cake mix
1 pound of marshmallows
1.5 boxes of confectioner's sugar
1/2 cup of shortening (to grease your hands and the counter)
2-5 Tablespoons of water
24 chocolate-candy-coated sunflower seeds, for eyes

First, make your marshmallow fondant several hours before the cupcakes.

Take your marshmallows and put them in a very large bowl. Sprinkle them with 3-4 Tbsps of water and microwave them 30 seconds at a time, stirring vigorously between heatings, until they are melted and smooth. Then, add the majority of your sugar and stir as much as you can. Grease a surface with lots of Crisco to prevent sticking. Also make sure you grease your hands, as you will be kneading the dough. Plop the mixture down and knead it until well incorporated. As you go along, add the rest of the sugar and as much Crisco as you need to keep it tame. Then, wrap the fondant in plastic and refrigerate for several hours.

In the meantime, carve some pumpkins, finish your costume, and start baking your cupcakes.

Make your cake mix as directed. To make the ghost bodies, you will need an equal number of large and mini cupcakes. The large cupcakes will be the bases, and the mini cupcakes will be attached for the upper part of the bodies. Let the cupcakes cool.

Once they are cool, cut the puffy tops with a sharp knife to make them level. Then, you can glue them together with either frosting or a toothpick.

After it has chilled, roll the fondant out on your counter, using cornstarch to keep it from sticking. Roll it as thin as you can without it tearing (you don't want it to be too heavy for the cupcakes). You might try breaking it up into 4 sections while rolling, to prevent them from drying out. (If it dries, microwave it for 10 seconds at a time and knead in a tiny bit more shortening.)

Now, it's time to cut out circles for the ghost capes. Use a bowl, cup, or circular object to cut circle shapes. Take the circles of fondant and drape them over the cupcake towers. Arrange it so that the folds of the cape look flowy and polished. Once done arranging the fondant, give the ghosts eyes and mouths by pressing sunflower seeds to them or by using icing to draw faces.

Let fondant harden slightly at room temperature before serving.


Check out another attempt / variation on these ghosts at :
http://www.marthastewart.com/333111/ghost-cupcakes?czone=holiday/halloween-center/halloween-center-desserts
http://notsoidlehands.blogspot.com/2009/10/spooky-cupcake-ghosties-plus-easy.html

The Buzz : The Wall Street Journal goes hunting for the best Pumpkin Beers

Last week, I posted about my one and only experience with Pumpkin Ale, specifically Smashed Pumpkin Ale. To my disappointment, it was not very tasty or very pumpkin-y for that matter, and left a bitter aftertaste.

Yesterday in the cooking section of the Wall Street Journal, there was an article that voiced the same concerns that I had raised with pumpkin ale--its bitterness, acidity, and disconcerting medley of spices.

William Bostwick's article, "Gourd Lovin'", from the October 29th edition of the Journal gives the history of pumpkin ale, which has been brewing since the 17th century, and proposes some ales that stand out of the crowd.

I have reproduced the article below. You can look at the original at http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204644504576651132079347592.html?mod=googlenews_wsj . Once again, this is William Bostwick's article from the Journal, and I do not take credit for it.

Gourd Lovin': A new batch of pumpkin beers is proving they're not just a seasonal gimmick

William Bostwick

When the leaves change color, beer store shelves turn orange to match. It's pumpkin beer season, and the trap is set. Each year, we can't resist plucking a bottle or two, but like a bowl of candy corn, their festive hue belies their taste: too sweet, too sour and sodden with perfume-y spice.

It doesn't have to be this way. The best pumpkin beers are the most unexpected. Far from pie-in-a-bottle, they blend in maple syrup, dark chocolate and the vanilla smoothness of oak barrels—dressing the humble gourd in elaborate costumes that buck almost 400 years of tradition.

Long considered the candy-corn of seasonal beers (colorful, but not so tasty), pumpkin beers are starting to prove otherwise. William Bostwick reviews some of his favorites on Lunch Break as Wendy Bounds and Connor Doughtery taste test the brews.

Pumpkin beer is as old as American beer itself. The first settlers from Europe, having braved the wild Atlantic for a strange and tavern-bare land, can't be faulted for slapping beer together from whatever scraps they could find. Into Colonial brew kettles went corn stalks, molasses, tree bark, persimmons and lots and lots of pumpkins. "We have pumpkin at morning and pumpkin at noon," a 1630s ditty ran. "If it was not for pumpkin we should be undone." To some, homegrown beer was not just necessity, but rebellion, a thumbed nose at British imports. But that doesn't mean it was any good.

In fact, it was—and too often still is—awful. Here's why: Sweet and nutty when roasted, pumpkins turn sour when their sugars ferment into beer, giving off an unpleasant cidery tang. In fact, one of the first published recipes for pumpkin beer (from 1771) included an ingredient that was more akin to pumpkin cider: pressed, fermented gourd juice. Brewers hid that taste with a mix of boiled spices like cinnamon, ginger and nutmeg. And that's where it all went wrong.

A brewer I know says that if you can taste a single ingredient in a beer, there's too much of it. Beer is a tippy boat: paddle too hard and it flops into the deep. Belgian wheat beers are regular offenders, tasting occasionally like coriander or orange-peel soup. With pumpkin beers, the opposite happens. Few are one-note—no nutmeg soup here—but their pumpkin-pie potpourri can be even more intense than a single, overemphasized spice. Call it the Candle Shoppe Gestalt: The blend of scents is worse than any individual offender.

And yet that pumpkin-spice canon, established centuries ago, has persisted ever since, analogous now with the season itself. Thankfully, that's changing, as brewers bring new ingredients, wild yeasts and, yes, a subtler spice rack to this style of brew. It's high time for another rebellion in beer: a pumpkin ale that actually tastes great. Here are five that are leading the way.

1. Dogfish Head Punkin Ale, 7% ABV: Named after the bizarre tradition of Punkin Chunkin, in which catapults hurl gourds across a Delaware field, Dogfish Head's classic is a dry, meaty brown ale. The pumpkin provides body-building starch, the spices are restrained and a touch of brown sugar dries the beer out so it snaps like brittle toffee and crunching leaves.

2. Jolly Pumpkin La Parcela, 5.9% ABV: The American masters of wild yeast live up to their name, finally, with a pumpkin beer. Of course, it's so much more than that: a nose of mulled cider, dusted at the finish with cocoa; a sour bite, not from pumpkin but from wild bacteria; and toasted, even slightly burnt, spice to tie it up.

3. Uinta Oak Jacked, 10.31% ABV: Part of Uinta's Crooked Line series of special releases, Oak Jacked takes the Salt Lake City brewery's Punk'n Harvest Pumpkin Ale, bumps up its strength to 10.31% (get it?) and ages it in oak barrels for six months. The originally perfume-y beer bulks up and mellows out, its spices hidden behind a velvet wave of vanilla-streaked liquor.

4. The Bruery Autumn Maple, 10% ABV: The best pumpkin beer in the patch isn't a pumpkin beer at all. Fall tradition for these SoCal brewers means staying up all night to roast 600 pounds of sweet potatoes for every batch. They bring a nuttiness and yes, a slight cidery sourness, but it's wonderfully offset by earthy molasses, maple syrup and a fruity Belgian yeast.

5. Smuttynose Pumpkin Ale, 5.6% ABV: More spicy than spiced—this ale from Portsmouth, N.H., is bracing and bitter. Less aromatic than most, with more noticeable hops, it's not an obvious pumpkin beer, but not quite anything else. Who says autumn can't also be refreshing? This is the only pumpkin beer that rightly comes in a six-pack.

Mixed Messages

So, for those of you who are not in the New York metropolitan area, it's snowing. It's also October 29th and before Halloween.

My pumpkin made this face when he looked at the weather out the window. I made a similar face.

Talk about a Halloween fright!

A New York City Halloween: Chocolate Rats

It's Halloween time in the city, and that means all kinds of spooks and scares. If you're throwing / going to a Halloween party this weekend, you might consider these ironic and creepy treats--chocolate covered strawberries made to look like rats.

They're easy to make, and promise to spook your guests.

This recipe and photo come from Kitchen Daily.

The Recipe:

20 large strawberries
40 sliced almonds
2 3.5-oz bittersweet or semisweet chocolate bars, coarsely chopped and melted
40 slivered almonds
20 2-inch pieces of black licorice laces

Line a baking sheet with waxed or parchment paper. Trim a small piece from one side of each strawberry so they can rest flat on waxed paper. Insert 2 sliced almonds about 1 inch from pointed end of strawberry to make the ears on the rat. Repeat with remaining strawberries.

Insert a fork into the wide end of a strawberry. Holding the strawberry on fork, spoon the melted chocolate over the fruit to coat, allowing any excess chocolate to drip off. Place on baking sheet. While chocolate is still wet, arrange 2 slivered almonds to create eyes, then place licorice pieces at the bottom of the wide end of the strawberry to form a tail. Repeat with remaining strawberries, chocolate, almonds, and licorice. Chill until firm.

Boo!


Read more: http://www.kitchendaily.com/recipe/chocolate-dipped-rats-149369/#ixzz1c5utlmhD

Quick, Easy, and (Decently) Healthy Lasagna

My mom has been away on business and my dad can't cook. That means that, if I'm planning on not being home for dinner, I have to cook him something ahead of time so that he doesn't go to bed crying after realizing that there are no more cold cuts.

Yesterday, upon realizing that I was going to be gone all day--from 8 am until 11 pm--I knew that I needed to cook that night. Now, the last thing you want to so after preparing, cooking, and eating one dinner is to start making another, but that's just what I did. After finishing up my potato and leek soup, I set to making the next day's dinner for when my father got the grumbles and my mom stumbled off the plane.

This lasagna is an adaptation from the one of the back of the Barilla box of noodles (super classy, I know), which I made a little healthier. Instead of using marinara sauce, I used Newman's Own garlic and pepper sauce for more flavour, and replaced the ground beef or sausage with ground turkey. In 30 minutes (as I finished the dishes from dinner #1), my lasagna was ready and could go to sleep knowing my father wouldn't starve.

The Recipe:

1 package Barilla lasagna noodles

2 jars Marinara--or whatever suits your fancy--sauce

1 pound meat (turkey, beef, or sausage)

16 oz shredded mozzarella cheese (divided into 10 and 6 oz)

1/2 cup shredded parmesan cheese

15 oz ricotta cheese

2 eggs

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.

Cook the noodles as directed on the package in a big pot. Meanwhile, brown and cook the meat. Once cooked, add one can of pasta sauce and let cook gently.

In a large bowl, mix together the eggs (lightly beaten) and cheeses (only 10 oz of mozzarella) so that they are coated.

Line a 13"x9" lasagna or baking pan with tin foil and put a thin layer of sauce on the bottom. On top of the sauce layer, lay down the noodles so that they are slightly overlapping. If they do not reach the entire length of the pan, put a noodle width-wise to cover the gap.

Smooth down half of the cheese mixture and cover that layer with the meat sauce. Then, place down another layer of noodles. Repeat these layers until you run out of ingredients. Finish with a layer of noodles topped with sauce and sprinkled with mozzarella cheese.

Bake in the oven at 375 degrees F for half an hour. Let set for a little while, and either serve, refrigerate, or freeze.

Potato and Leek Soup

I went to the Farmers' Market this weekend to take advantage of the last fresh produce of the year and picked up some lovely leeks. My dad suggested that I make leek and potato soup.

I was looking for a simple recipe, with a lot of flavor, that I could make quickly and found one that fit the bill: it uses relatively few ingredients, doesn't take much time, and requires no complex kitchen skills. So, chop those vegetables, peel some potatoes, and prepare for a warm and comforting dinner.

The Recipe:

2 tablespoons butter
2 large leeks (see my note below on how to clean leeks)
2 russet potatoes, peeled and cut into small chunks
1 quart low-sodium chicken stock
1/2 cup heavy cream
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 tsp thyme
Chopped fresh chives, for garnish

First prepare the leeks: Feel the outside skin of the leek and cut off the leaves where they start to feel tough. If the portion attached to the white part feels tough cut it until you have the white part and a bit of the light green part left. Cut off the roots and cut the leek lengthwise. Then slice into thin slices. Rinsing leeks is important, but is also a pain. Put your leek slices in a collander, and rinse them thoroughly to get the dirt and sand out from between the thin layers.

In a large saucepan over medium-high heat, melt the butter and saute the leeks until soft, about 3 to 5 minutes. Add the potatoes and stock and cook until the vegetables are cooked through and beginning to fall apart, about 15 to 20 minutes. Using a blender, ladle the soup into the blender and blend until smooth but with some small chunks remaining. You may have to do this in 2 batches. Add the cream and blend to combine, then check for seasoning and add salt and pepper, to taste. Serve hot ladled into soup bowls and topped with some of the chopped chives.