Sauteed Brussels Sprouts

Instead of the ordinary steamed or oven-roasted Brussels sprouts, try this truly unique recipe for Brussels sprouts with the leaves removed. Everyone hates overcooked sulfuric sprouts but with this recipe the sprouts will be slightly sweet, not bitter, and caramelized. It makes a great side dish for almost anything. This is an adaptation of a recipe by Lidia Bastianich featured on Chef’s Story on PBS.

Sauteed Brussels Sprouts

1 pound Brussels sprouts
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 to 3 cloves of garlic
salt
hot red pepper flakes (optional)
balsamic vinegar (optional)

Wash the Brussels sprouts and pat them dry. Core each sprout and remove and discard any bruised outer leaves. Then separate the leaves one by one and slice the heart into two or three pieces.

Add the olive oil to a pan set over medium heat. Smash the garlic and add to the pan. When the garlic has had a chance to sweat but not brown add the leaves. Add salt and hot peppers flakes to taste. Stir so that the leaves are coated with the oil. Cover and cook at medium low heat for about 7 to 10 minutes, stirring now and then or until the leaves are tender and lightly browned. Add a splash of the vinegar toward the last minutes of cooking time. Serve immediately. Yield: four servings.

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Merkato 55

With a nondescript dark frontage, Merkato 55 delights on entry. The restaurant is a beautiful mix of modern, dark finishes with an African vibe. The second floor is especially beautiful with large booths, oversized blooming branch arrangements, and window treatments brandishing African faces. I am left wondering who those faces are and what significance they hold in the history of the continent and its culture. On arrival of the waitress we are greeted and handed menus that are mahogany boards. Unique cocktails and wines were pointed out to us. I later learned that the cocktails are named after African dances. A very unique one in particular is the "agbekor," which the waitress had recommended. It was a blend of vodka, grapefruit juice, and a floating hot pepper. The wine menu is limited with only one African wine on the menu, which I ordered. The South African Shiraz was served in a stemless wine glass, no different than the water glasses. Interestingly the water was served in a quart-size milk jug. Our visit happened to fall during Tap Project Week, in which $1 donations for tap water are made to UNICEF to bring clean water to children around the world, but unfortunately the restaurant was not participating.

We began our dinner by ordering appetizers that the restaurant has coined "kidogos" or small bites. We enjoyed a wonderful array of African breads with an apple coconut dip. It would have been preferable if the breads were complimentary just as the eight olives were. Still, the breads were excellent with a selection that included pita, whole-wheat pita, sesame bread, za’atar bread, a nan-type bread, and an African-spiced cornbread of which unfortunately there was only one piece to be split between the two of us. The menu offers about four choices per dip, chutney, and sambal, well over-priced at $4 each for only about two tablespoons. It would have been nice to order more, but we were pinching our pennies for the main course. We decided to forgo the enticing small plates for that same reason.

For the main course I chose the berbere grilled rack of lamb served with grains of paradise sauce and an eggplant stew. The lamb was perfectly prepared, tender, blackened, and crispy, but I found the three-rib portion to be a bit small for my appetite. But about six side dishes are available as add-ons for those with larger apetites. The grains of paradise sauce was good enough to mop with the African bread, and the eggplant stew was simple and flavorful, but also a small portion. The dish reminded me of steak au poivre, leading me to find out later (through internet research) that grains of paradise was used as an inexpensive pepper substitute in the Middle Ages. At $32 the lamb is the second most expensive main dish. Also exceptional was the jerk-style pork belly with a mango and radish slaw. The pork was served with a mole-style sauce and was succulent, fork tender, and crispy. The plating was very simple with the slab of meat placed on the sauce, topped off with the slaw. I was a little confused as to why there would be a dish prepared with Jamaican seasoning in an African restaurant, but it seems the conceit here is that the restaurant covers the entire African Diaspora, which I felt was a bit overreaching. Nonetheless the pork was a well-received experiment in fusion.

For dessert we both ordered the espresso chocolate cake, but it turned out, according to our waitress, that either the restaurant had run out of the cake or the menus were printed incorrectly. We weren't all too pleased with the other offerings that we were left to choose from, but ended up ordering the crushed-cashew-battered-and-fried bananas served in a wax paper sack with a small plate of chocolate, coconut, and tamarind sauce. Unfortunately the sauces were layered on top of each other on a small dish and could not be enjoyed separately. Taken altogether it was an unremarkable dish of inconsequential proportion. The fried bananas did not taste much like bananas and the taste of cashews was indiscernible. The waitress too had recommended this. Looking back I now think it is not always best to follow recommendations from the wait staff. The menu does not mention the crushed cashews, so those allergic to tree nuts should be aware. The waitress mentioned the cashews only after I had taken my first bite, but luckily I am not allergic.

I think the restaurant still needs to work out some finishing touches. The menu could be tweaked to showcase a stronger African influence. I expected to be overwhelmed in a good way with African influences in the food, but instead I found it underwhelming with the usual: pork, lamb, chicken, beef, fish or whatever protein with a simple African influence. I think that the preparation of the meals is biased; it is being filtered through a colonial European view. The countries or flavors that are represented in the dishes are allusive and need to be made explicit.

Some caveats of the restaurant include the appearance of what looked to me as unfinished plastered walls, restrooms that are so dark that they can double as caves with tiling that appeared to not have the grout completely washed off, makeshift paper coat room tags, and receipts handed over without the use of a folder. The restaurant manages to accomplish what I think it has set out to do, that is beautiful decor in the main rooms and bar, excellent service from the minute one walks in, and exceptional food of the highest quality.

Merkato 55
55 Gansevoort St
New York, NY 10014
212-255-8555
Open daily for dinner from 5:30 p.m. to 12 a.m. and lunch on Saturday and Sunday from 11:30 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Appetizers range in price from $4 to $13 and entrees from $10 to $35.

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Dan Barber of Blue Hill and Stone Barns on Sustainable Practices and Farming Technology

At the recent meeting of the Experimental Cuisine Collective at New York University, Dan Barber, chef of Blue Hill restaurant in New York City and at Stone Barns, and creative director of Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture spoke about the future of Blue Hill and farming technology and sustainable practices currently in use or soon to be implemented at Stone Barns. Barber began by announcing the recent opening of a new test kitchen at Blue Hill at Stone Barns in partnership with Cornell AgroScience for the testing of the relationship between food and flavor. It will test how field, pasture, and garden affect the flavor of food with the aim of proving that the best ecological practices create the best flavor in food. So far no one has studied food through what Barber calls the vector of flavor.

Barber went on to talk about new projects at Stone Barns, which has recently begun to follow the methods of Dr. Temple Grandin, the autistic woman who revolutionized animal welfare in the cattle industry. Barber said that there is a direct correlation between good animal husbandry and the pursuit of flavor. As an example, barber spoke in depth about his recent visit to Spain, where he met a man whom he calls the Jesus Christ of foie gras.

Eduardo Sousa, a fourth generation geese farmer, produces foie gras that is not the result of gavage or force-feeding. Sousa runs his farm Pateria de Sousa in the Badajoz province of Spain and claims that his geese are entirely content with their existence on the farm. They feel protected and do not migrate because they are provided for in every way including protection from predators by a fenced in area that is electrified from the outside. After they have swelled to the appropriate size following their natural gavage, the geese are slaughtered all at once. In 2006 the Paris International Food Salon awarded Sousa the Coup de Coeur for innovation, which created an immediate controversy among the French, who believe that his free-range-feeding method does not create real foie gras. Sousa claims that traditional force-feeding with a metal tube is an insult to history. Foie gras production dates back to Egyptian times when the Jews would use goose liver as an alternative to schmaltz, because it was suitable for the kosher diet. The Egyptians loved the liver so much that they demanded greater production and thus force-feeding was developed.

Soon after Barber returned from Spain, he was contacted by Tom Brock, a Californian farmer who, like Sousa, raises geese for the production of foie gras. Brock disagrees with Sousa’s method of geese raising and claims that the resulting product is not real foie gras but Spanish spam. He instead relies on the traditional force-feeding method, but in lieu of using a metal tube he uses rubber, which he claims the geese enjoy. According to Barber, in his experience with both products, the result from either method produces delicious and indistinguishable foie gras. Stone Barns has purchased 70 geese to be raised for meat in the first year. Barber hopes to implement and test the two methods for producing foie gras in the future.

The future of Stone Barns is about sustainable practices. A good example of this is the farm's way of grazing its animals. Stone Barns has about 40 different varieties of indigenous grasses in one square foot varying in height from four to six inches (alfalfa is not used because it is not indigenous), which is ideal for the free-ranging sheep and chicken. The chickens follow the sheep and eat the shorter grasses along with bugs while also providing sanitary cleanup by pecking at the manure left by the sheep. The broken-down manure serves as fertilizer, but if left untended would burn the grass. The farm also uses fiberglass fencing to keep the animals in certain areas so that the fields are not over grazed. The hens are privy to what Barber calls egg-laying hotels, where each hen lays approximately five eggs per week. Currently Stone Barns has 1,100 laying hens which produce 13,000 eggs per month. Due to the hens’ omnivorous diet, which also includes kitchen scraps, the eggs are high in omega-3 fatty acids. The hens benefit from the scraps, which otherwise would go to waste because it is against the law to feed pigs kitchen scraps that have been touched by humans.

Barber spoke of a revolutionary method for producing beef of the highest quality in which a sonogram is used to identify grade (intramuscular fat percentage) by scanning the area between the 13th and 14th rib. Traditionally this area could only be graded after the cattle were slaughtered. In general only 10 percent of 10,000 cattle produce high-grade meat. With the information from the ultrasound the cattle’s diet can be altered or the cattle can be removed from the breeding cycle. Other than the sonogram method there is a method that was in practice as early as the 1860s in which the cattle hair and hair oil content indicate the marbling score.

The cattle at Stone Barns are fed a diet of grass with the exception of hay in winter. Currently the farm has 70 cows with more to come. The rumen converts the grass into protein and then into fat. A conventional all-grain diet blows out the rumen and creates milk very high in unsaturated fat. Moreover, milk from grass-fed cows has five times the CLA (conjugated linoleic acid) than conventional milk. The farm produces ricotta, milk, butter, and ice cream for use in the restaurant. Whey, the byproduct of the dairy operations, is given to the pigs. This addition to their diet produces exceptional charcuterie with larger specs of fat, unlike grain-only-fed pigs whose fat smears. Barber mentioned that many chefs prefer to purchase meat from pigs that have been confined, because the meat is soft, easy to cut, and highly flavorful (all due to low muscle oxygenation), but he believes that the meat can be just as good from pigs that get adequate exercise along with a diverse diet, both of which yields a diversely flavored product.

With the goal of creating best-flavored products, Stone Barns has also turned toward corn with funding from Cornell to test the heirloom flint corn variety, which has not been grown in North America since the time of the American Indians. The farm uses the American Indian practice of the three sisters, where the corn is planted in 100 percent manure (providing its abundant need for nitrogen) along with beans and winter squash. In this practice the beans use the corn stalk in lieu of a pole while the large leaves of the winter squash provide shade. The planting of flint corn was very successful with 99 percent germination. The corn was tested at different times before harvesting for optimal sugar content using a refractometer, a device that is commonly used in wine making to test the brix level (sugar content). The corn that was produced was exceptional in its high flavenoids and nutrient density due to both the precise harvesting and the fact that the cold Northeast provides the ideal condition for growing sweet corn. The harvested corn is then ground for polenta. Interestingly the Italians have been growing flint corn specifically for use in their polenta production. In traditional polenta making, the germ inside the corn kernel is removed to increase shelf life, but in this instance, the restaurant grinds the corn to order, producing polenta of the highest quality of taste.

Stone Barns continues to explore farming technology of the future. Barber gave genetics as an example: scientists at the USDA believe that plants are not expressing certain dormant genes, which could affect flavor. Its aim is to test the possibilities of bringing out flavors through genetic transmitters that turn on the dormant gene, so that, for example, the strawberry tomato variety can actually taste like strawberries.

Barber finished his presentation by announcing a partnership with the French Culinary Institute, the Four Seasons Chef Program, with the goal of educating chefs in sustainable farming practices. Barber reminded everyone that it is up to eaters and chefs to follow flavor and demand products of the highest quality. In many kitchens there is a disconnect between the chef and the product, but the chefs at Blue Hill participate in farm chores, underscoring the farm’s mission to teach the methodology of farm to table cooking. Barber said that the goal at the restaurant and the farm has always been to have chefs wear white coats and overalls.

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James Peterson Shares His Cooking Wisdom

Instead of reading from his new cookbook Cooking, with its 600 recipes and 1500 photographs, James Peterson, cookbook writer, cooking instructor, and former chef, told an audience of inquisitive members at the James Beard House yesterday an abridged story of his life. Peterson became interested in food at a very young age despite his mother’s lack of culinary expertise and penchant for cooking frozen meals. He recalls the early 1960s in America as a time that was culturally deprived in terms of food. His two Southern Californian aunts eventually ignited a love for food in young Jim. From them Peterson gained an appreciation for liqueur at the prime age of 10. Jim would visit the two women for a few weeks at a time, and at one such visit he was asked what he wanted for dessert. His reply was Crêpe Suzette only because he had heard his mother say it was the fanciest. It took a long time for the dessert to be prepared, with Jim helping measure the Grand Marnier, but it turned out wonderful. At another visit, Jim’s mother sent along a gift of Irish Mist liqueur. His aunts gave Jim a drink of the liqueur and in the following nights for two weeks they tested all different liqueurs. At an upcoming show and tell at his school, Jim, a fourth grader, gave his presentation on the different liqueurs of the world to an uninterested classroom and a shocked teacher.

At the age of sixteen, Jim became interested in chemistry. Like cooking, he found chemistry intriguing because it was a process of discovering what happened to substances when heated. After going to school for chemistry, Jim found his choice of career disillusioning and decided to take a trip to the Far East in search of a guru. After a fruitless search in India, Peterson fell back, out of necessity, on cooking as a short-order cook. He continued his travels by making his way from east to west, even going as far as Japan and finally ending up in France, a place that became his turning point. In France Peterson truly discovered culture in food. He saw that the French cared enough about food to talk about it on a daily basis, whereas in America eating food was simply a time where conversation recounting the day might be held. A meal of chicken poached in cream with tarragon was Peterson’s moment of discovery. It was at that moment that he decided to make a career in food. He went back to the U.S. and worked again as a cook until inspiration struck in the form of Richard Olney’s book Simple French Food, which led him on a quest to find Olney, who at the time was living in France. Olney was happy to recommend restaurant apprenticeships and Peterson ended up working at two different three-star Michelin restaurants while taking courses at Le Cordon Bleu. At these venerable restaurants Peterson says he learned that cooking, even of the most extravagant kind, is doing a lot of little things right.

Back in New York, Peterson worked at various French restaurants until he became chef at Le Petite Robert, where he worked for four years until its closing. He then went on to teach culinary classes at both the French Culinary Institute, while also writing its curriculum, and the Institute for Culinary Education. Afterward he authored his first book Sauces, which won the James Beard Award for best cookbook of the year and is to this day considered seminal in the field. According to Peterson, the book made for the demystification of complicated recipes for French sauces by providing systematic descriptions for preparation that were missing in most sauce recipes of the time. Many more cookbooks followed.

Peterson finished his talk with advice for new food writers and cooks. For writers, Peterson says, it is very important to find one’s voice. In his own books Peterson says that his style has changed over the years, from an authoritative voice in Sauces to a lighter voice for home cooks in Splendid Soups. It is important for a food writer to develop that style and recognize the audience that he or she is writing for, be it an imaginary one at first. For cooks, Peterson says that first and foremost recipes must work. Good recipes only come about by having good technique and testing, testing, testing. Peterson finds cooking and jazz analogous: in jazz one learns many chords and notes to improvise the music; in cooking one learns technique which is then transferred to the preparation of the meal. Final words of advice from James Peterson: if it tastes good, use it; our senses are reliable, so season until it tastes good; and be generous with salt.

Peterson continues to create cookbooks, for which he shoots his own photography, and is currently working on a meat book that had been on the back burner—the missing link, according to Peterson, in his gamut of cookbooks. Peterson teaches food styling at the Institute for Culinary Education.

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Chicken with Lemon and Fennel

Here is a very quick and easy recipe that can be put together in minutes. With a bit of a Mediterranean influence, this recipe makes use of the uniquely flavored fennel and lemon, which is in abundance during the winter season. For a sweeter taste try oranges, which will work just as well as lemons if not better.

Chicken with Lemon and Fennel

2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
2 lemons
1 fennel bulb
salt
pepper
olive oil

Salt and pepper the chicken breasts to taste. Marinate the chicken in the juice of one lemon for at least a half hour or overnight in the refrigerator. To prepare the fennel, cut off the stalks and the root, saving the stalks for stock if desired, save the fronds for garnish, and slice the bulb into thin slices. Cut the remaining lemon into thin slices, discarding the ends.

Turn on the broiler, and prep a baking pan with a few tablespoons of olive oil. Place the chicken breasts on the pan and broil for about 7 minutes, turning the breast half way through the cooking time. Top the breasts with the lemon and fennel slices. Lightly salt and pepper the fennel, and drizzle with olive oil. Broil for 5-7 minutes more or until the breasts reach an internal temperature of 165 degrees. The fennel should be wilted while retaining a slight crispness. Serve with a garnish of chopped fennel fronds. Yield: two servings.

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