dissections.

Where've I been, since I've barely been writing on the blog? Taking classes full-time and working full-time. Oh, and taking a couple vacations. Amidst it all, I've been cooking but barely posting. I drafted this post a while back, and I've left it in draft mode until now. Here goes.

This post is about a hot black pepper and my favorite organ: the heart.

Last Saturday, my morning started in Anatomy lab slicing through a brown, formaldehyde-scented sheep’s heart. With misplaced bravado, my lab partner and I sliced down what we were sure was the right (the right, and also correct) edge of the anterior side of the heart. When we opened the heart, instead of two neat halves, two pairs of atrioventricular valves, two atria, two ventricles, we just had a bit of a mess, including an improperly bisected tricuspid valve. We were on the wrong side of the heart. It was a mess-- quite different from the first heart dissection I ever completed, which was fascinating and satisfying enough to inspire this painting.

Later that night, I found myself preparing a meal at home, up a culinary creek without a much-needed hot pepper. The only one in the house was especially treasured, the only fruit growing and ripening on the pepper plants by the window in my kitchen. The black pepper, pictured below, at left of the frame:

I reluctantly cut the pepper down, all 2" long of it, and sliced it open to check out the color and the flavor of the pepper. I was pleasantly surprised to find a subtle heat and a lovely deep red color inside of the pepper. I realized, after I made the first incision, that the pepper and the heart were some strange bookends to my day. Both were fragile and spectacular gifts to explore-- a heart from some unknown animal in a distant place, and a pepper that I very nearly left outside to fall victim to the cycles of snow and frost.


AMH

dutch babies.

A friend made these German pancakes for me (from memory-- I found smittenkitchen.com's version today) while I was staying at her place and I was intrigued. Dutch babies are like thick, baked crepes-- eggy as all hell, beautifully browned and great with lemon juice and sugar, or with honey, blueberries and yogurt, as I chose to enjoy them today. Delicious.

AMH

whole wheat muffins.

One day I'll actually watch Mark Bittman's instructional videos before preparing his recipes. Until then, the digital versions of his recipes will remain my guiding light.  I stumbled upon this whole wheat muffin recipe and immediately recognized an opportunity to put to good use some whole wheat pasty flour I had kicking around.

According to Bittman, the trick to these muffins is first the use of the whole wheat pastry flour, a finer-milled cousin of the heavy whole wheat flour I usually have to cut with white flour to keep my baked goods light. The second secret is the addition of one cup of mashed fruit-or-certain-vegetables in lieu of water. I used mashed zucchini and was satisfied with the neutral flavor and smooth texture. I would imagine that fruits like peach, apple or banana would impart much more flavor to the muffin, which could be a plus or minus depending on your fruity preferences.

My muffins came out moist, therefore smoother-battered and lacking the lovely texture in Bittman's photos and videos. I hypothesize this is due to my use of waterier-than-potato zucchini, thin and improvised "buttermilk" (1 teaspoon vinegar per cup of milk) or perhaps my larger muffin tins.

Nonetheless, these muffins were very satisfying: slightly sweet, lightly buttery and just whole-wheat-flavored enough.

AMH

best breakfast potatoes.

This post is taken nearly verbatim from an e-mail I recently sent to a friend. I think the story works pretty well as is, so here it is:

Crispy breakfast potatoes always seemed like a staple that I wouldn't need a recipe for, because they are so obvious and simple. I imagined: salt, potatoes, oil. While in Napa during my mapmaking days, I encountered crisped potatoes that were exactly the size, crispness and flavor that I prefer, vaguely reminiscent of what I used to enjoy at the diner by the seawall in my hometown. The potatoes were so perfectly delicious that I went into the kitchen at the bed and breakfast I where I was staying, tracked down the chef and asked her for the recipe.

That was in 2005, and I've been making these potatoes for brunches and breakfasts ever since. The seasoning instructions are all to preference. I think that the initial high heat, the pre-mixing of the spices (and the simplicity of using just one herb) and size of the cut potatoes all make this recipe work. Sadly, the only photo I have is before cooking, as these hot potatoes have always disappeared too quickly to be caught on film.

Best Breakfast Potatoes

1. Preheat oven to 500 degrees.

2. Cut 2 lbs of potatoes into small, roughly 1/2" square chunks. I leave the skins on.

3. In a large metal bowl, mix 1 teaspoon (or to preference) of each of the following seasonings: salt, garlic or onion powder (not garlic or onion salt), crushed black pepper, and any herb of your choice.

4. Add potatoes and enough olive oil to coat the potatoes.

5. Mix the potatoes with the oil and seasonings until well-coated.

6. Spread spiced and oiled potatoes evenly on a metal cookie sheet and bake for 10 minutes at the highest heat, stirring every 5 minutes and/or rotating pan to ensure an even bake.

7. Adjust heat to 350 and bake for 15 more minutes, or to preferred crispiness.

Serve hot, with ketchup, eggs and coffee.

AMH

a distraction from winter.

The walk to work this morning was dark, frozen and sparkling. We're in the depths of winter, and a British study says that Monday was the most depressing day of the year. As such, I'm making efforts to bring little bits of summer into my life, at least by eating spicy, warming  foods and getting sunshine (what sunshine?) when I can.

This morning I encountered a Bittman piece entitled "Allowing Citrus to Add Sunshine."   I'm not sure if it was the slippery walk to work or the tantalizing image (below, from the Times) that convinced me, but I would like to make and consume a beautiful winter citrus salad very, very soon.

AMH

smoky inspiration.

Pimentón de la Vera is my third favorite culinary discovery of 2009, behind my kitchen garden and the mandoline. I stumbled upon the mysterious "Spanish paprika" in several recipes in October, while preparing a Spanish-themed dinner party in honor of a friend who had spent some time abroad in Madrid. I located the paprika at South End Formaggio, and fell in love. I was a year behind Bittman, and so are you. Buy this spice.

Why do you need it? Because pimentón is paprika's tastier and much more interesting cousin. According to About.com:

Pimentón de la Vera has a distinctly smoky flavor that comes from the process of smoke-drying the peppers with huge amounts of oak wood in the drying houses. Peppers are placed on racks above the fire and farmers turn the peppers by hand once a day. This drying process takes about two weeks.

The smoky, spicy flavor imparted by this paprika adds warmth and character to recipes, and most distinctively a compensatory meatiness in some dishes I had to adjust for my vegetarian guest of honor. For the Spanish-themed dinner party, the recipes I made featuring the pimentón's smoky heat were:

• Smoky Chard Sauté. A simple tomato/garlic/chard sauté with a smoky undertone and slight, pleasant fennel flavoring.
  
• Cauliflower Gratin with Manchego and Almond Sauce. There are no words or photos to describe how delicious and over-the-top rich this recipe is. Golden manchego crust, golden-edged cauliflower, a soft smokiness and a subtly almondine sauce. Sigh.
  
• White Bean and Chorizo Salad, revised with the addition of pimentón, "fake" soy chorizo and extra oil to compensate for the lack of real spiced sausage.
  
• Finally, the entrée: a delicious, improvised, slightly blasphemous vegetarian paella that was satisfying in both taste and texture. I combined several recipes and created the rest, so I would need to work backwards through my memory to piece the recipe back together. Instead, I suggest that you don't make vegetarian paella. Make real paella.
  

I also served many non-pimentón offerings, including vegan moussaka with a pine nut cheese, and a bounty of flan, figs, fresh bread with guava paste, chevre, manchego and gouda, trays of raw and marcona almonds, olives, and a perfect orange-honey-almond spread made with almonds left over from the gratin. This dinner party, for 14 guests, was the first that I had ever prepared. There was plenty of food, and I had done enough prep work in advance that, come dinnertime, I only had to throw the gratin and the moussaka in the oven and prepare the paella and the sauté on the stovetop.

I was too busy cooking to even think about capturing my creations with a camera (a first for me!). Most importantly, the dinner guests and the guest of honor loved the meal. I was quite proud of the results-- with pimentón by my side, the night went off without a hitch. Here is the one food photograph I managed to take at the dinner party, a delicious image but wholly lacking in pimentón:

 AMH