Cook In / Dine Out Celebrates 1 Year

My Blog is now 1 year old. Happy Birthday!

It's been a remarkable year of recipes and restaurants. I'm looking forward to year two, which I hope will only be more exciting and delicious. Thank you to all my readers, Facebook and Twitter followers and my #1 taster, Mr. Dallas Decoder.

Winter Salad with Yogurt-Lemon Dressing

This winter chop salad appeared in the February 2011 issue of Bon Appétit. It has a lot of ingredients, so get your chopping arm ready.

The recipe writers declared it was designed around a love of the vegetable kohlrabi. Well, guess what…Whole Foods didn’t have any kohlrabi, so my version is kohlrabi-less. There are so many other tasty vegetables here though; I don’t think you’ll miss it much. But if you can find it, by all means toss some in.

I made a few other modifications to the recipe: I added agave nectar to the dressing so that it would have a little sweetness and substituted olive oil for the canola. Another ingredient I couldn’t find was whole-milk yogurt, so I substituted lowfat, which worked fine.

If you want to add some meat, this salad would also be great topped with some sautéed or grilled chicken. Bacon crumbles would be good too.

Winter Salad with Yogurt-Lemon Dressing
Adapted from a recipe by Bon Appétit, February 2011

Serves 2 main course or 4 side dish servings

Dressing:
1 garlic clove, chopped
Sea salt
½ cup plain lowfat yogurt
3 tbsp. chopped Italian (flat-leaf) parsley
2 tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil
2 tbsp. fresh lemon juice

Salad:
4 cups coarsely chopped or torn lettuce leaves (romaine or leaf)
¾ cup ½-inch cubes chopped, peeled jicama
1 small carrot, thinly sliced
½ cup diced celery
3/8 cup canned chickpeas, drained and rinsed
3/8 cup pitted Kalamata olives, halved
¼ cup thinly sliced radishes
¼ cup roasted unsalted sunflower seeds

1. Add garlic to a small bowl, sprinkle with salt and use a blunt instrument (spoon or muddling tool) to mash into paste. Add other dressing ingredients and whisk to combine.

2. In a large bowl, combine salad ingredients. Toss with dressing and serve on plates or large bowls.

Mustard Greens Salad with Roasted Cauliflower, Almonds, Grapes and Chicken

For New Year’s, I declared that mustard greens are the new kale. This was a bit of a leap of faith—I hadn’t actually cooked with them yet, but I have been seeing them more and more in recipes. This salad was my introduction to the hearty green with a slightly bitter mustard flavor.

The green comes from a variety of mustard plant. It has ribs that should be removed first if eating the green raw and a curly leaf like a more cooperative version of kale. Some recipes call for “massaging” the leaves to make them easier to eat. Like I’ve done for kale salads, I sliced them into thin strips.

The rest of this dish is inspired by the roasted cauliflower starter we had at The Nomad, which included marcona almonds, grapes, cheddar cheese and shavings of raw cauliflower. I used all those elements but the cheese, along with some sautéed chicken.

I couldn’t find marcona almonds at Giant or Whole Foods, so I used blanched almonds instead, which have their husks removed and thus resemble marcona almonds. To slice the raw cauliflower very thin, I tried doing so with a knife but found a mandolin set to 1/8-inch thickness to be an easier way to be slices of uniform thickness.

Mustard Greens Salad with Roasted Cauliflower, Almonds, Grapes and Chicken 
Inspired by Cauliflower Roasted with Grapes, Cheddar & Marcona Almonds, The NoMad, New York

Makes 2 dinner portions

½ head cauliflower
5 tbsp. plus 2 tsp. extra virgin olive oil
Sea salt
1 tbsp. plus 2 tsp. red wine vinegar
1/3 cup blanched or marcona almonds
¾ lb. chicken breast cutlets
Fresh-ground black pepper
8-10 mustard green leaves, washed, ribs removed, leaves sliced into ½-inch wide strips
1 cup green grapes, cut in half

1. Preheat oven to 350 F.

2. Using a mandolin (or, if you’re really good, a knife), make a few 1/8-inch thick slices of cauliflower, slicing through the head at a point where the florets are connected to the corn. Set aside the slices. Cut the remainder of the head into florets.

3. In an oven-safe medium frying pan, heat 1 tbsp. olive oil over medium heat. When hot, add cauliflower florets and sauté until lightly browned, about 5 minutes. Season with sea salt while cooking. Place pan with florets in the oven and roast until fork tender, about 15 minutes. Drizzle with 2 tsp. red wine vinegar. Set aside to cool.
4. In a small frying pan, heat 2 tsp. olive oil over medium-low heat. Add almonds and cook until lightly browned, occasionally tossing the nuts and watching carefully to prevent browning, about 8-10 minutes. Set aside on paper towel to cool.

5. In a medium frying pan, heat 2 tbsp. olive oil over medium heat. Pat chicken breast cutlets dry with a paper towel, add to pan, season with salt and pepper, and sauté until browned and cooked through, about 10-12 minutes, turning once.

6. To make the dressing, whisk together 2 tbsp. olive oil, 1 tbsp. red wine vinegar and fresh ground black pepper to taste. Add to large bowl with the chopped mustard greens and roasted cauliflower florets and toss to coat with dressing. Serve greens and cauliflower in large bowls topped with almonds, grapes, chicken and sliced raw cauliflower.

The Canlis Salad

My blog’s first recipe posted almost a year ago was the Astoria Salad, an updated take on the classic Waldorf Salad that originated in the kitchen of the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. To celebrate my 1-year anniversary and kick off a series of salads for New Year’s, I offer another famous restaurant salad creation, The Canlis Salad.

Canlis is a restaurant in Seattle I’ve never been to but would love to visit. Its perched-on-hill, Frank Lloyd Wright-ish architecture evokes the cool hideaway at the end of Hitchcock’s North By Northwest. The large picture windows look out not at Mt. Rushmore but of the city, Lake Union and the Cascade Mountains. With a view that stunning they could probably serve cold cereal and still pack in the crowds.

But as tempting as it may be to bank on the view, from what I’ve read, Canlis is committed to having a good kitchen too. In October,  Eater Seattle included it on a list of the 38 Essential Seattle Restaurants, saying its “food and service has no peers in Seattle.”

The current season of Top Chef, which was filmed in Seattle, took over Canlis for an episode during which the contestants had to cook the restaurant’s menu from its opening night in 1950.

One of that menu’s dishes that endures to this day is The Canlis Salad. It’s similar to a Caesar Salad but with a more interesting flavor profile thanks to the fresh herbs, particularly the prominent mint. I attempted a faithful recreation based on the recipe available from the Canlis website.

Making the homemade croutons was one of the best parts. After putting them in the oven, I was left with the bread crusts and the remnants of the butter, garlic and herbs in the mixing bowl. Sometimes I think it’s unexpected snacks like this that make cooking most enjoyable. Within 10 minutes the kitchen smelled really good too.

A note about tellicherry peppercorns: they may look like your garden variety of peppercorn, but they are special, allowed to ripen longer than other types of peppercorn so they develop more complex flavor.

The Canlis Salad
Adapted from The Canlis Salad, Canlis Restaurant

Croutons:
2 tbsp. unsalted butter
¼ tsp. garlic powder
½ tsp. Italian seasoning
Sea salt to taste
4 slices of Italian bread, crusts removed, cut into cubes no larger than 1-inch

Dressing:
¼ cup fresh lemon juice (juice from 1 lemon)
½ cup extra-virgin olive oil
¼ cup pasteurized egg (original recipe calls for coddled egg but states you may substitute this)
¼ tsp. fresh ground tellicherry pepper
Kosher salt to taste

Salad:
4 slices (about 1/3 lb.) thick-cut bacon
1 head of romaine lettuce, outer leaves and core removed, cut into 1-inch pieces, washed in warm water, dried and chilled in refrigerator
8 cherry tomatoes, halved
½ cup thinly sliced scallions
½ cup thinly sliced fresh mint
1 tbsp. finely chopped fresh oregano
¾ cup freshly grated Romano cheese

1. Make the croutons. Preheat oven to 300 F. Melt butter in small bowl. Stir in garlic powder, Italian seasoning and salt. Add bread cubes to a large bowl, pour butter mixture over cubes and toss to coat evenly. Bake in the oven about 25-35 minutes until lightly browned and dried out (croutons will continue to dry out after removing from oven). Set aside to cool.

2. Make the dressing. In a medium bowl, whisk together the lemon juice, olive oil, egg, pepper and salt.

3. Add the lettuce, tomatoes, scallions, mint, oregano and all but two tablespoons of the cheese to a large bowl. Toss with the dressing. Divide the salad onto plates. Top with croutons and the remaining cheese.

Looking Ahead: Round Up of 2013 Food Trends

It's fun to pretend we can look into a crystal ball and predict what will be the hot trends of the New Year. I did so (a bit cheekily) in my own In/Out list published a couple days ago. Here are 10 other 2013 trends list from around the web:

Huffington Post: 2013 Food Trends: 13 That Other Publications Agree On. This is a good place to start, since Huffington Post has aggregated trends appearing on other sites, such as fermentation, chicken and popcorn.

New York Times: After Crispy Pig Ears, 10 Trends for 2013. I already gave a shout out in The Feed to this great list by Julia Moskin, which includes raw winter vegetables, barrel-aged hot sauce and chicharrones.

Bon Appetit: The BA 25: What to Eat, Drink & Cook in 2013. My favorite food magazine thinks the Korean chili paste gochujang will give sriracha a run for its money and that bartenders will be jailbreaking the SodaStream to carbonate their cocktails.

Food & Wine: Top Food Trends to Try in 2013. My other favorite food publication suggests that bread and butter plates, ramen and blue curaçao are among the hot new things for this year.

Epicurious: Epicurious Predicts the Top Food Trends of 2013. The top recipe website thinks chef collaborations will be hot in 2013 and that cauliflower will displace kale as the vegetable du jour.

CNN Eatocracy: Eat This List: Tater tots, invasive entrees and other food trends we'd like to see in 2013. Eatocracy's new feature, Eat This List, kicks off with a look ahead at the year's top food trends, which will include tater tots (interesting) and thoughtful non-alcoholic drink options (hmmm...hopefully the alcoholic ones will be thoughtful too).

Tribune Newspapers: 2013 food trends: What's the buzz. This list includes Greek yogurt (which I think was already way hot in 2012), molecular gastronomy (definitely since the publication of Modernist Cuisine at Home) and high-end Bordeaux (interesting pick I haven't seen elsewhere).

Cooking Light: Our Predictions: 2013 Food Trends. The healthy-cooking magazine forecasts kimchi, vegetables in general (common among many lists) and better burger buns in our future.

The Food Channel. Comfort food with an ethnic accent, smoke flavors (another item common to many lists) and high-end specialty bakery product make this list.

Kitchen Daily: Food Trends for 2013. Healthy dining out, savory fruit and local artisans are among the items on this rather health-conscious list.

The Feed - January 2, 2013

The Feed is my weekly round up of interesting food-related stories from newspapers, magazines, blogs and websites.


Today I start my new food journalism feature, The Feed, which will replace Food (Section) Fight! While my previous series focused on The Washington Post Food section and the The New York Times’ Dining section, this regular feature will go more broadly into food journalism I find compelling, interesting or perhaps confounding. Anything is game for this column.

Washington Post: “Sizzle and steam, Edwardian style,” by Becky Krystal. Just in time for the Season 3 premiere of PBS’s acclaimed costume drama, Downton Abbey, the Post offers an insider look at how British food of the early 20th century is depicted on the show, including recipes for Saute Chicken Lyonnaise and Potato Puffs.

New York Times: “After Crispy Pig Ears, 10 Trends for 2013,” by Julia Moskin. I love the stories that forecast what the big food trends for this year will be, and Moskin does a typically excellent job with her forecast, which includes raw winter vegetables, artisanal soft-serve and smoked “everything.”

Wall Street Journal: “Sirloin With Popovers and Winter Vegetables,” by Kitty Greenwald. I didn’t realize until last weekend that The Wall Street Journal has food coverage. I’ll have to keep an eye on it, as I rather enjoyed this recipe article featuring a perfect winter dish of pan-seared steak with popovers, red cabbage and celery root puree courtesy of Gramercy Tavern Chef Michael Anthony.

Lucky Peach (via BuzzFeed): “The Beginner’s Field Guide to Dim Sum,” by Carolyn Phillips. Phillips’ story, which appears in the Chinatown issue of Lucky Peach, offers an exhaustive crash course on Dim Sum, the popular Chinese “small plates” meal, including a look at its tea-house origins and an illustrated guide to 24 common dishes.

Bunkycooks: “Lentil soup with sausage, chard, and garlic.” This time of year calls out for hearty soups and Bunkycooks offers a deliciously spicy recipe along with some New Year’s resolutions.

2013 In / Out with Cook In / Dine Out

In	Out
Imitating Chipotle. The fast-casual Mexican chain has revolutionized fast food to embrace freshness, sustainability, quality and local ingredients for just a few dollars more, and the stalwarts of the industry have taken notice.	Imitating Jaleo. Every time I go to a new restaurant and the server explains to me that their menu is small plates and we should order X number to share, I long for an entree I can call my own.
Roasted chicken. Palena Cafe, The Nomad and Zuni Cafe all have their house specials. It's time we each did.	Luxe burgers. Chef-driven burgers were everywhere last year, achieving market (and arterial) saturation.
Mezcal. The smoky Mexican spirit is increasingly popular and bars and has culinary uses too (try glazing sautéed chicken with mezcal and agave nectar--yum).	Bacon. The smoky-salty meat has gone from breakfast to sandwiches to dinner to dessert and even cocktails. I love the versatile meat as much as anyone, but I think it needs a rest.
Mustard greens. Whether sautéed, steamed, braised or raw, this green is ready for its close-up.	Kale. Sure, it's delicious and nutritious, but the hearty green got overworked in 2012 and needs a break.
DIY pickles. Fermentation appears to be a growing trend and pickling, whether quick or in jars for longer term, is a great way to creatively preserve foods.	DIY yogurt. Seems like a lot of effort when there are so many inexpensive and delicious varieties on the market now.
Farro. I'm seeing this chewy Italian whole grain more frequently on menus and I think it's time for home cooks to give it a try.	Quinoa. Definitely overplayed as grains go. Plus, a lot of people don't seem to really like it, so time to find a healthy grain you don't have to convince yourself to eat.
Izakayas. An Izakaya is a Japanese-style bar that also serves food. Several notable ones have opened recently in D.C. (Kushi, Seki) with more on the way (Daikaya, unnamed 6th & F NW).	Gastropubs. Commonweath and Againn in D.C. have closed. This trend appears to be on the way out.
Bread courses. Bon Appetit and Food & Wine both noted that specialty breads are hot in restaurants now. Love it.	Tasting menus. Critics are turning against restaurants that hold diners captive for hours with course after course of pricey, self-indulgent nibbles. Isn't "choice" one of the nicest things about reading a menu? Let's bring it back.
The '80s cocktails. Last year's cocktails were all about the early 20th century cocktails, as "speakeasies" dotted every city. With the '80s having already made returns in fashion and music, it's time to put a fresh spin on drinks from the greedy decade.	Aperitif-based cocktails. I'm sure we'll still be making cocktails with Aperol, Campari and Cynar, but it's time to draw the line. Their low alcohol content means they can't be stored in the bar, and my fridge is full!
East Asian influence. D.C.'s Little Serow and New York's Mission Chinese Food were two of 2012's hottest new restaurants (and see Izakayas above). Americans are increasingly interested in Asian food with spice, creativity and authenticity.	Scandinavian influence. How much longer can Noma hold on to its "best restaurant in the world" title? And why, if it's so great, hasn't Scandinavian cuisine taken much hold in America beyond the cafe at Ikea?