Archive for August, 2009
The Ogleshield
August 19th, 2009
It sounds like a tool for a superhero, instead it belongs in the arsenal of a chef. The Ogleshield is an English cheese. It is born of a collaborative effort by Jamie Montgomery (yes, that Montgomery), Randolph Hodgson the owner of Neal’s Yard Dairy, and William Oglethorpe their master affineur. The cheese itself is made by Montgomery with the milk from Jersey cows. A favorite for milk and cream, it’s large fat globules make the milk an unusual choice for cheese. The cheese is aged at Neal’s Yard and treated in the same way as a traditional raclette, salted, massaged, and kept in a moist cave. Instead of a crumbly cheddar, the jersey cheese is something softer and more unctuous, ripe with flavor, and perfect for melting.
We got our Ogleshield at Di Bruno Bros shop in the Italian Market in Philly. A benefit of knowing our cheesemonger is that we get great cheeses and great stories. Hunter explained that the cheesemaker buys back the cheese after it’s aged and uses it for grilled cheese sandwiches made with raw red onion and rye bread. We would have bought it because the cheese was delicious, the idea of the sandwich added a whole new incentive to take some home.
This morning Alex ran out to the Italian People’s Bakery and picked up, among other things, a loaf of everything rye bread. Yes, just like the bagel, this light rye bread had a topping of assorted seeds and salt. He layered thinly sliced red onion and Ogleshield on the bread and grilled it in a pan with a generous amount of sweet butter. The sandwich was amazing. It was rich and almost meaty in flavor. The onions were partially cooked, mostly tender and sweet with the odd crunchy, pungent bite to cut through all the cheese. The seeded rye was the perfect foil, highlighting the earthy qualities of the cheese. Of course, how could we go wrong? Obviously the cheesemaker would know the best way to serve his creation…
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silence does not make the heart grow fonder.
August 19th, 2009
I've ignored you, eggbeater.
I've ignored you, people who read eggbeater.
I'm sorry.
It's for a lot of reasons. None of them good. Or explanatory. Or accurate. Or inaccurate.
All of them rationalizations. None of them valid. All of them murky.
But I'm going to make a list.
Maybe that will help.
I love lists. They usually help. Except when they don't.
The Why I Have Been Ignoring Eggbeater. A List.
Of Reasons. Possible and Accurate and Ridiculous All.
~out of tune drumroll please
`
working too many hours.
feeling heartbroken.
spending too much time dispelling wantonly on twitter.
needing sleep.
cleaning the house. thoroughly.
having a houseguest from oakland.
working too many shifts.
not cooking at home.
not taking a lot of photos.
feeling blue. and cerulean.
making long phone calls to the states.
not making enough phone calls to the states.
taking care of best friends falling apart.
feeling like i live in legal/illegal limbo.
having to hide the names of the places i work/have worked.
thinking that eggbeater doesn't give you what other food blogs give you.
moving to a new country.
wishing i knew more about technology and feeling behind the times.
wanting to re-design eggbeater and not feeling like i have the time or know-how.
not eating enough fruit and vegetables in season.
not understanding how British seasons work.
having a secret relationship as i was losing my first job.
having extreme difficulty navigating the personal-political-managerial egos of my new workplace.
having constant foot-in-mouth disease.
believing the things recent ex said about americans.
being caught up in inordinate drama with the ex and his profound narcissism. (self procalimed: i'm not saying anything he didn't say about himself)
feeling pressure to give recipes recipes recipes.
not feeling like recipes mean much.
being terrified friends of mine here and in states were going to kill themselves.
feeling as though food blogs are ridiculous in the scheme of world and personal affairs.
not feeling like i belong to the clique of london food bloggers.
feeling lonely.
turning into a girl.
trying my hand at dating for the first time in a long time.
only eating tea for breakfast and cheese for supper.
homesick.
angry that i don't know where home is.
feeling the pressure from friends in the states to 'come home.'
feeling betwixt & between.
worrying that my life is moving backwards or staying stagnant.
moving someplace where 'my past is erased.' who i am is an unknown. how i work is questioned.
traveling between confident & low self esteem. as if the border were impossibly thin; permeable.
feeling like the odd man out at work.
promoting my workplace on social media venues.
financial worries.
lack of inspiration.
not having time or gumption to read other people's blogs.
being overwhelmed by my email inbox.
noticing how few personal emails i get. and write.
wanting to write about really big subjects and not knowing where to start.
having few people to share my food thoughts with.
feeling unrequited love with an old love.
marking 4 years since the day she died.
turning 17. amongst people who constantly offer me a drink/give me hangover advice.
living in a new city which is both familiar and foreign.
missing and being missed.
missing having chefs/cooks/pastry chefs as friends.
missing family.
missing california fruit and one farmer and two dogs.
missing portland oregon.
feeling old.
feeling tired, physically & emotionally, from time at work & worry about friends.
not seeing enough nature.
feeling like summer passed me by because i never went swimming or did anything 'summery.'
wondering why i'm here.
wondering where else i should be.
spending too much time alone & without structured plans with friends.
spending too much time at work or working.
it's like playing hooky from school. and for every day that passes, the day to go back becomes exponentially more difficult.
it's rare this chef takes suggestions, but if you have gentle ones, fold 'em up and put them in the hat. i miss eggbeater too, and would like to know what you'd like to see to get you back here more regularly.
until then, thanks for reading, even if intermittently.
The Not Garden
August 18th, 2009
We had plans to grow a garden. Tomatoes and herbs, perhaps a vegetable or two would add to our kitchen supplies and inspire. Plans change, distractions occur, and life can get in the way. Our garden, at least the space where the garden is supposed to go, did not materialize. Instead small patches of purslane have grown into fully established plants, acting as ground cover and a delicious succulent to munch on. The oxalis which cohabits with the purslane is also growing with alacrity. The oxalis has grown pods, an ingredient we became aware of after seeing it in pictures of dishes at Alinea. It was great to peer into our yard and see and taste this ingredient, which we thought might be difficult to source. How little we knew, since it happily grows in the plot of soil intended for a cultivated garden and now filled with what some people think of as weeds and we see as ingredients.
Live
August 18th, 2009
Three Minute Rigatoni
August 18th, 2009
As with dried noodles, different varieties of pre-hydrated pasta have different cooking times. Since we were playing anyway we decided to soak rigatoni in flavored liquid. This time we used crushed tomatoes seasoned with a bit of salt and thinned out with some water. The rigatoni hydrated in this liquid for two hours before we cooked it in boiling salted water. It took three minutes to reach a perfect al dente. To serve we simply tossed the hot pasta with the juices from a fresh tomato salad, added some shavings of Parmigiano-Reggiano and a few leaves of arugula. Quick and delicious.
One Minute Pasta
August 18th, 2009
Cooking pasta is about heat and hydration. We asked ourselves what would happen if we separated the two processes. Soaking the pasta was slightly counter-intuitive. What if it got to soft? What if it all stuck together? We decided that the only thing to do was try it and see what happened. After an hour and a half in a bog with cold water the soaked linguine pasta became pliable, while remaining a bit stiff. The drained noodles held their shape and since the starch had not been activated, they did not stick to one another and could be held without the addition of oil. Once we added the noodles to boiling, salted water we had perfectly cooked al dente pasta in just 60 seconds. Now that we know it works, it is time to see what flavoring the hydrating liquid does.
What we do know is that we have now changed how dried pasta may be cooked to order.
Roasted Barley
August 18th, 2009
We are really excited about the uses of roasted barley in our cooking. It is supposedly a key ingredient in Oreos and its striking color and rich flavor show endless promise. It has a slightly grainy texture that may be a key part of the crunch in those delicious chocolate cookies. (Delicious without the fake white filling. I was one of those who scraped out the stuff and threw it away, happily scarfing down the plain chocolate wafers.) On the top of my list is: grilled noodles, roast barley ice cream, as a medium for spice rubs and to use in a batter for fried fish. We’ll also be playing around with bread recipes. The color makes me think of pumpernickel, one of Alex’s favorites, so we’ll definitely need to do something with that. Perhaps a pumpernickel crepe…
