Recipe of the Month: May 2012

Spring is quickly turning into summer as breezy, sunny days are being replaced by hot, humid ones. I found out the good news that my local farmers market will resume its regular weekend operation Saturday, after its annual spring hiatus. I can't wait to see what they have to offer this weekend. Perhaps some fresh herbs? Strawberries? Garlic scapes?

The most popular recipe during May was my favorite from the spring pasta week: Asparagus and Snap Pea Pasta, a dish that's bright in color and flavor, accented with lemon and mint. Also quite popular were the Momofuku Milk Bar Corn Cookies and the Truffled Mushroom Mac & Cheese.

The most popular post remains the Happy Endings Whore's Bath cocktail, although another cocktail I did in March, the Honey-Nut Old Fashioned, also gained significant traction this month.

June should be a fun month for Cook In / Dine Out. I have a theme week planned around techniques for bringing smoky flavors indoors and a cross-promotional, TV-themed, tie-in with another blog. Stay tuned for that!

Cocktail: Kickin' Cucumber Collins

I say this drink is "kickin'" because it's incredibly spicy. It won't burn your mouth, bit it will awaken your senses.

Making the ginger-peppercorn syrup

The star ingredient is the ginger-peppercorn syrup, which gives the drink a potent yet refreshing kick. To temper the heat, I added other soothing ingredients: fresh mint and muddled cucumber, plus the herbal taste of yellow Chartreuse liqueur. The syrup is also good with just gin, lime juice and club soda, if you want something simpler.

Kickin' Cucumber Collins

1 oz. ginger-peppercorn syrup*
8 mint leaves
About an inch of peeled cucumber, chopped
1 oz. lemon juice (1/2 lemon)
½ oz. Chartreuse
1 ½ oz. gin
2 oz. club soda

Add syrup and mint to shaker and muddle. Add cucumber and muddle again. Add ice, lemon juice, Chartreuse and gin. Shake well and strain into collins glass with ice. Top with club soda and garnish with cucumber slice and mint.

*To make ginger-peppercorn syrup, combine 2 tablespoons coarsely cracked peppercorns, ¼ cup chopped ginger (about 3 inches peeled ginger root), 1 cup water and 1 cup sugar in a medium saucepan. Bring to boil and cook 2 minutes. Reduce heat to low and simmer 5 minutes. Remove from heat and steep for 40 minutes. Strain out solids.

Food (Section) Fight!: Week 21

Food (Section) Fight! is my weekly look at The Washington Post's Food section and The New York Times' Dining section with my verdict on which section had the better content for the week.

New York Times

Today's feature story is about chefs becoming well-known for cooking ethnic food that isn't a match for their own ethnic heritage. Portland, Oregon's Andy Ricker of Pok Pok and the new Pok Pok NY is prominently featured, as is Alex Stupak of Empellón Cocina (and Top Chef first season winner Harold Dieterle, whose cooking I'm a big fan of). Writer Francis Lam discusses how sometimes such chefs are able to better adapt foreign cuisines to American palates because they aren't as tied to the culinary traditions they are inspired by.

Sort of a light week from my point of view. The only other story I was really into was Pete Wells' review of Back Forty West, the new Soho eatery that's moved into the former Savoy space. I wasn't really wowed by today's recipes; even Mark Bittman's Charred Peppers didn't excite me much.

Washington Post

The Washington Post led with David Hagedorn's feature on modernist cuisine with a focus on the equipment chefs are using to marry homestyle cooking with techniques from molecular gastronomy. There's a nice photo gallery with the online version. Mintwood Place, Elisir and Rogue 24 are among the restaurants featured in the story.

Jane Touzalin has a preview of 10 must-have cookbooks perfect for summer. Aliza Green's Marking Artisan Pasta sounds particularly intriguing to me, as does the recipe adapted from Annie Rigg's The Meat Free Monday Cookbook for Sicilian Cauliflower Pasta.

Greg Kitsock has a story about beer breweries doing more to lure guests for tours and tastings, although I'm a little confused about his statement that in D.C. breweries can offer tastings but the beer cannot be consumed at the brewery, since DC Brau's website says exactly the opposite: that it MUST be consumed inside the brewery. Dave McIntyre reviews chardonnays made from Oregon-grown grapes, including the Chehalem Winery Inox Chardonnay, a crisp and fruity unoaked style that I sampled last winter and thought was quite good.

Tom Sietsema's First Bite is a rather unusual choice: the buffet at the National Gallery of Art, although it makes more sense once you read that José Andrés did the Catalan-influenced menu, designed to tie in the current Joan Miró exhibit. Lastly, Tim Carman profiles food truck ChefDriven, the project of former brick-and-mortar chef Jerry Trice from Annapolis.

Verdict

The Washington Post. A nicely balanced week of features, equipment, cookbooks, recipes and drinks.


Score

The New York Times: 11
The Washington Post: 10

Rehoboth Beach, Del. Dining Guide (Part 1)

Babyback ribs, Pig + Fish.

[Update: Pig + Fish has closed. Cabo has closed, replaced by Papa Grande's.]

Rehoboth Beach may have grown a lot over the years, but at its core it's still the quaint little beach town of your sunny summer memories, albeit with more hotels and outlet malls on the highway.

The town proper is a perfect mix of shops and restaurants catering equally well to both families and adults, including the significant number of gay and lesbian vacationers that call Rehoboth their "home away from home."

When it comes to food, there's a little of everything too, from the standard boardwalk fare of saltwater taffy, fries and pizza to upscale fine dining, such as Espuma, whose chef, Joe Caputo, was a James Beard Award semifinalist this year in the mid-Atlantic chef category.

Chris and I have been vacationing in Rehoboth Beach almost every summer for 13 years now. Over the years, we've seen quite a bit of change in the restaurant scene. We have our definite favorites, several of which we discovered as new restaurants and got to watch rise to prominence (and a few sadly that didn't make it). Here's our Rehoboth dining guide, one I hope to update periodically.

Dinner

It's hard for us to discover new dinner spots since we're fiercely loyal to two favorites, and a trip to Rehoboth Beach wouldn't feel right without visiting them both. Dos Locos (208 Rehoboth Avenue) has hit gold with its fresh take on Tex-Mex. Grilled fajitas and frosty lime margaritas are the perfect fare to enjoy as the sun sets after a day on the sand. Everything we've had tastes fresh and never greasy. Every time we go we're reminded that Dos Locos serves better Tex-Mex than anything we get in D.C. Despite the fact that the restaurant has expanded and become very popular (expect to wait if you go at prime dining hours),we always see owners Joe and Darryl working the host stand and bar and they always make us feel welcome.

Our other favorite is Pig + Fish (236 Rehoboth Avenue), which, as it name implies, excels at serving hearty grilled meat and seafood. My personal favorite is the braised barbecue pork shank, a falling-off-the-bone tender smoked pork shank served in a tangy barbecue sauce with sweet potatoes and spinach. Through the years, we've also enjoyed the Tabasco smoked pork tenderloin, babyback ribs (pictured at top) and seared scallops. As a starter, you can't go wrong with the tomato-mozzarella salad, a hearty take on the classic Italian Caprese served with beefsteak tomatoes, a fresh basil honey-mustard vinaigrette and reduced balsamic glaze. Lastly, I must say the service here is always top notch, particularly if we're served by Carissa, whose friendly and efficient service is among the best we've had at any restaurant.

Braised barbecue pork shank, Pig + Fish.

We were pleased by our first trip to newcomer Cabo (210 Second Street), a new project from aforementioned Espuma Chef Jay Caputo that opened this year in the former Porcini House space. It bills itself as "modern Mexican," which seems an apt description for the food. If you like smoke, you're in luck. Walking to the beach in the morning, we could smell the cooks at work and weren't disappointed by the tequila smoked chicken tacos and the suckling pig burrito. The only disappointment was the appetizer. Although the bowl of fresh guacamole was tasty, I didn't appreciate the floppy, undercooked corn tortilla chips. Nevertheless, that should be easy to correct (and I doubt diners would mind if they just bought them, although I do appreciate the effort to go house-made).

Lunch

We usually drive to Rehoboth Beach in the morning and have a tradition of making Grotto Pizza (multiple locations on the boardwalk and Rehoboth Avenue) our first meal. The Baker's Choice is our usual pie, made special by its tangy pickled bell peppers. Nicola Pizza is the other major pizza operation in town, although I haven't eaten there in years, so I can't comment on its quality.

If you want pub fare, your best bet is Dogfish Head Brewing & Eats (320 Rehoboth Avenue). Of course, it's best known for its locally brewed Dogfish craft ales, and on site you can get special ones not available at retail or in other restaurants. But it has good food too like hearty burgers and wood-grilled pizzas. Like Dos Locos, this is another particularly popular spot, so plan accordingly.

Breakfast

Breakfast is traditionally the most challenging meal for us. A longtime favorite, Retro Cafe, closed last year, forcing us to find a new favorite place. This year's best breakfast was from Robin Hood (54 Rehoboth Avenue), a no-frills diner near the beach that serves a basic but well-executed menu (the home fries with my western omelet were really good). Corner Grille (11 S. First Street) also does a decent breakfast.

Hoping for something a little more upscale, this year we tried the restaurant at the Boardwalk Plaza Hotel (2 Olive Avenue), but were disappointed. The service was prompt and friendly and the food was fine but not spectacular. The syrup on my pancakes the menu claimed was Vermont maple was clearly maple-flavored corn syrup (perhaps they think Aunt Jemima has moved her operation up north?).

Royal Treat (4 Wilmington Avenue) is the most popular breakfast place and its pancakes are excellent. However, it opens later than other places and you are guaranteed a line, so if you want to hit the beach early (and the beach is so beautiful in the morning when it's not yet crowded), I don't recommend it. Save it for your last day before heading out of town.

Treats

What's a trip to the beach without a few sweet treats? The commercial center of Rehoboth's mile-long boardwalk offers quite a few options. The iconic Dolle's (1 Rehoboth Avenue) is certainly worth a mention. I'm not really a fan of saltwater taffy, but I do love their caramel corn. For ice cream, the first decision is soft-serve or hard. For the former, I recommend Kohr Bros. (multiple locations on the boardwalk) frozen custard, which comes in many flavors supplemented if you wish with a dip in chocolate or sprinkles (or both). For the latter, the aforementioned Royal Treat can't be beat. I had a really divine peanut butter and vanilla cone on our last night.

Sunset over Silver Lake, Rehoboth Beach, Del.

Rehoboth Beach on Dwellable

Early Summer Fruit Salad

With Memorial Day ushering in the (unofficial) start of summer, I'm even more in the mood for fresh, local ingredients as the region's farmers markets swell with produce.

We stopped at a market on our way home from the beach today and picked up some berries. It was Chris's suggestion that I make a fruit salad, which turned out to be just perfect today.

For the dressing, I used a simple combination of lemon juice, lemon zest and honey, augmented with fresh basil. To make basil ribbons, known as chiffonade, stack the basil leaves largest on the bottom, roll up the stack and make thin slices across the roll (see photo at right).

Early Summer Fruit Salad

8-10 fresh strawberries, sliced
1/2 cup fresh blueberries
1 apple, cored and chopped
1 banana, sliced
1 orange, peeled and sliced
8 basil leaves, cut into ribbons
2 tsp. lemon zest
1 tbsp. lemon juice (1/2 of a lemon)
1 tsp. honey

1. Combine fruit in a large bowl. Add basil and lemon zest.

2. Whisk together lemon juice and honey. Pour over fruit and stir carefully to combine.

Homemade Pasta with Sausage-Tomato Sauce

Want to really impress a crowd and make them think you slaved in a hot kitchen for hours (without really doing that of course)? Time for homemade pasta.

Making pasta is surprising easy. Every time I do it, I wonder why I don't do it more often. Clearly, it's not as simple as tossing a box of the premade stuff into a pot of boiling water, but it's not so complicated as to require days or even hours of your time. In fact, I made this dish from scratch start-to-finish in exactly 1 hour.

The secret to making quick homemade pasta is to rough it a little. I have a pasta rolling kit for my Kitchen Aid mixer, which I like and use from time to time, but doing so increases prep time significantly, makes a bigger mess and is more fussy than if you use a much simpler tool: a rolling pin. Sure, you won't have perfectly uniform results, but there's something kind of nice about that. The uneven thickness and odd shapes says "homemade" in a way that perfectly cut thin linguine does not.

I've tried homemade pasta recipes from Mark Bittman and Mario Batali. The approach for this recipe combines what I've learned from the both of them. For the flour, I used half all-purpose flour and half pasta flour (i.e. semolina flour). Semolina flour is coarser than all-purpose flour, so the resulting dough must be kneaded a little bit (unlike Bittman's all all-purpose flour dough which doesn't need kneading--say that parenthetical a few times fast). It also requires a little more moisture to come together well. I ended up adding at least a tablespoon of water after mixing the dough to make it form a nice ball. This is a compromise: getting the easier handling of regular flour with the superior flavor of semolina.

After letting the dough rest for about 30 minutes, I rolled it out. The thinner the better--no more than 1/8-inch thick and even that is pushing it. After that, I use a pizza wheel to cut it in strips about 1/2- to 3/4-inch wide. This mades it pappardelle, a type of wide fettucine. It cooks really quickly, just a couple minutes in boiling water.

For the sauce, I went with something pretty traditional here: a tomato sauce with onions, sausage and basil. I used the Whole Foods chicken sausage and mixed hot and mild.

Pasta Dough

1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup pasta flour (semolina flour)
1 tsp. salt
3 egg yolks
2 large eggs
1 tbsp. water plus more if needed

Sausage-Tomato Pasta Sauce

1/2 lb. Italian sausage (hot or mild, pork or chicken)
1 sweet onion, diced
Seasoned salt to taste
1 tbsp. dried oregano
5 tomatoes, chopped
8 basil leaves, sliced into ribbons (chiffonade)
Dash of nutmeg
Fresh-ground black pepper to taste
Grated parmigiano-reggiano

To make pasta:

1. Add flours and salt in a food processor and pulse a few times to combine. Add eggs and keep machine running until dough comes together in a ball, adding water as needed to help it come together.

2. Place dough on a lightly floured surface and knead until dough is smooth and a bit elastic. Cover with plastic wrap and let rest for about 30 minutes.

3. After resting, place dough on well-floured surface and roll out until quite thin, no thicker than 1/8-inch. Using a pizza cutter or knife, cut dough into strips about 1/2- to 3/4-inch wide.

4. To cook pasta, bring a large pot of salted water to boil and cook noodles until al dente, about 3 minutes.  Drain and set aside.

To make sauce:

1. Heat a large saute pan over medium heat. Remove sausage from casings and add to pan. Cook until browned, breaking up with a wooden spoon as it cooks.

2. Add onion and seasoned salt and saute until softened and lightly browned. Add oregano and tomatoes and continue to cook until tomatoes have softened and given up their liquid, making a chunky sauce, about 8-10 minutes. Add basil, nutmeg and pepper. Serve over pasta topped with cheese.

Southwestern Slaw with Chicken

For this salad, I wanted a slaw with a distinctive southwestern flavor and something easy I could make mostly using the food processor. I was pretty happy with the results, which have a clean, fresh taste.

I learned something making this: bell peppers don't do well in the food processor. If I were to make this again, I would just dice them. They end up expelling a lot of water, which I mopped up.

Drop the chicken and this is a great side dish to have with tacos or black bean soup. Certainly, you could tweak the vegetable combination. I think some cold cooked corn would be good in this, for example. Vegetarian might enjoy it with a can of black beans instead of chicken.

Southwestern Slaw with Chicken

For the dressing:

1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
Juice from 1 lime
2 tsp. honey
Salt and fresh-ground black pepper to taste

For the slaw:

1/2 head green cabbage (not too big, use less if you have a big head), shredded
1/2 sweet onion, shredded
1 carrot, peeled, shredded
1/2 red bell pepper, diced
1/2 green bell pepper, diced
1 jalapeño seeded, finely diced
3-4 tbsp. cilantro, chopped

For the chicken:

2 tbsp. olive oil
1 lb. chicken breast cutlets
2 tsp. dried oregano
Seasoned salt and fresh-ground black pepper to taste
Juice from 1/2 lime

1. Whisk together dressing ingredients.

2. Combine slaw ingredients and toss with dressing. Allow to sit for about 30 minutes.

3. Heat olive oil over medium heat in a medium frying pan. When hot, pat chicken dry and add to pan. Season with oregano, seasoned salt and pepper. Cook chicken about 10 minutes, turning halfway through. About a minute before taking out of the pan, squeeze the lime over the chicken and turn the chicken to coat both sides with lime juice. Remove chicken from heat, allow to cool, and chop.

4. Serve slaw in a bowl topped with chicken and extra cilantro for garnish.