Michael Ruhlman, What Are You Reading?

What Are You Reading is a new feature that will appear from time to time here on lisa is cooking. I’ve been open about my obsession with books and food publications, and I thought it might be fun to ask around and find out what other people are reading. I want to know what people have read lately that was interesting or inspiring. So instead of asking what’s your favorite book ever, I’m asking what are you reading?

Michael Ruhlman has appeared on several television shows including Cooking Under Fire on PBS, was a judge on the Next Iron Chef on the Food Network, appears occasionally as a judge on Iron Chef America, and has been a featured guest on Anthony Bourdain’s No Reservations. His most recent book is Ratio: The Simple Codes Behind the Craft of Everyday Cooking, and he recently co-authored the cookbooks Ad Hoc at Home and Michael Symon's Live to Cook. More of his informative and thought-provoking writing as well as stunning photography by Donna Ruhlman can be found on his blog. I wanted to know: Michael Ruhlman, what are you reading?


Michael: I most recently finished Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human. A delightful and compelling read, the book argues that it was the eating of cooked food that shaped our bodies into what they are today and shaped our society.


Also, I’ve been reading The New Yorker food issue with excellent stories on taste creation, Michelin restaurant evaluators, and Calvin Trillin.





I’m currently finishing much needed non-food reading, The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, an excellent long novel.













Thank you for participating, Michael! Check back to see who answers the question next time and what other books are recommended.


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Homemade Thin Mint Cookies

Recently, there had been a lot of talk about Girl Scout cookies, and those sweet, little girls standing at tables with stacks of cookie boxes are pretty hard to turn down. Everyone has a favorite Girl Scout cookie. I’ve always liked the Do-Si-Dos and Samoas, but the hands-down most popular has to be the Thin Mint. I had heard so much exicitement about them lately, I thought it would be fun to make them from scratch. I looked through a few books and found some reasonable facsimiles, but the one that seemed closest to the original in appearance and texture was the thin mint cookies from Super Natural Cooking. The chocolate wafers are made with whole wheat pastry flour and powdered sugar, and they’re dipped into mint-flavored melted chocolate.

The cookie dough was mixed and then wrapped in plastic and left to chill in the freezer for 20 minutes to make it easier to handle. Still, it was a sticky dough, and in the book, Heidi suggests rolling it out between layers of plastic wrap. I could tell that rolling it on a floured surface would have caused a lot of extra flour to be incorporated, but with big sheets of plastic, rolling the dough was a breeze. It was rolled to a thickness somewhere between one quarter inch and an eighth inch. Too thin and the cookies would have been brittle; too thick and they wouldn’t have had a nice crunchiness. The cut cookies were baked and allowed to cool. Then, semi-sweet chocolate was melted and flavored with mint extract. A tip to keep in mind is to add a little extract at a time and taste as you go. I added the extract in one half teaspoon increments and ended up adding a total of two teaspoons. But, each brand is different so, unfortunately, tasting is a task you just have to do. With a face full of chocolate, I set about dipping the cookies and then letting them dry on parchment paper.

The good news about making your own thin mints is that you can choose the ingredients that go into them. In the cookies, I used Van Houten cocoa powder from France (a lovely gift that I continue to enjoy). And, for the chocolate coating, I used 58 percent cacao El Rey feves. You can also decide how minty you want them to be. It’s hard to say no to those little girl scouts selling their cookies, but the homemade version is pretty irresistible too.




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Neapolitan Crostini and Scrambled Eggs with Bottarga

We’re blessed with a few pretty amazing grocery stores here in Austin, and we also have some great ethnic markets and specialty shops in addition to a lot of locally produced items sold at our farmers’ markets. Yes, I spend a lot of time shopping for food, and I’m driven completely insane when I can’t find certain ingredients despite having all these great places to shop. I once spent the better part of a day on an unsuccessful search for salt-packed anchovies, and I’ve never seen bottarga sold locally, and fennel pollen was a whole other story. The good news is that I recently learned of an online source for all of that and more. I was offered samples of a few products from Sausage Debauchery which offers a lot more than just sausage, and I was thrilled with the quality of everything I received. For my first use of the Sicilian, salt-packed anchovies I received, I decided on the Neapolitan crostini from Molto Italiano.

Before using the anchovies, I soaked them in a few changes of cold water and drained them. Then, I split each anchovy lengthwise and removed the spines. For the crostini, toasted bread was rubbed with a raw garlic clove. Then, the bread was topped with a fresh, Calabrian ricotta that had been mixed with red pepper flakes, black pepper, and chopped fresh oregano. The anchovy fillets were placed on top, and the crostini went back under the broiler for a minute or so. The ricotta was nicely softened and warmed, and the anchovies became glistening. I like anchovies, and I’ve enjoyed a lot of different kinds and brands of anchovies in a lot of different dishes, but these were what anchovies are all about. There was no tinny taste, and the flavor wasn’t masked by any oil often used in packing. They were a little salty, and I’ll rinse them even more carefully next time, but the flavor of the little fish themselves was fantastic. To store the remaining anchovies, I packed them into a couple of disposable, airtight containers, covered them with coarse sea salt, and put the containers in the refrigerator.

Another product I received was grated mullet bottarga from Sardinia. I was inspired by a scrambled egg and bottarga dish I’d read about in the The Zuni Cafe Cookbook. The Zuni dish is a very carefully prepared version of scrambled eggs in which slivers of butter and some grated bottarga are whisked into the eggs before they’re slowly and gently cooked over low heat while stirring with a wooden spoon that has been rubbed with garlic. It’s then served with more grated bottarga on top. It sounds lovely, but I was rushed and just scrambled some eggs in melted butter the same way I usually do and then topped them with the grated bottarga. I’ll try the very careful preparation next time. There’s a cured flavor to bottarga, not unlike smoked salmon, and it was a treat with the eggs for breakfast. It tastes of the sea in a way that I like, and it would be a nice topping on breadcrumb-crusted, broiled clams. I also look forward to using some of the grated bottarga on pasta. Although this is cured fish roe, there are no chemical preservatives used as it is simply dried with salt. The products I received were really good stuff, and the site has a lot of other great things to offer as well.

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Jaden Hair, What Are You Reading?

What is this? Well, this is a new feature that will appear from time to time here on lisa is cooking. I’ve been open about my obsession with books and food publications, and I thought it might be fun to ask around and find out what other people are reading. I want to know what people have read lately that was interesting or inspiring. So instead of asking what’s your favorite book ever, I’m asking what are you reading?

Last Saturday, I attended a food blogger workshop here in Austin which was organized by Babette Pepaj and Jaden Hair and co-produced by Natanya Anderson. The talks and presentations at the workshop were very informative, and it was a great opportunity to meet some fellow bloggers while learning new things. I cooked up the idea for this new feature over the weekend and since I’d just met Jaden, I wanted to ask this question of her first. Although Jaden requires no introduction, I’ll go ahead and mention that she’s the award-winning food blogger behind Steamy Kitchen, appears twice a month on the Daytime Show, and is a columnist for Discovery’s TLC and for Tampa Tribune. Her book is The Steamy Kitchen Cookbook. So, with no further ado, Jaden Hair, what are you reading?


Jaden: The book I'm currently reading is Crush It by Gary Vaynerchuck. I was lucky enough to have met him in Austin on Monday, and he is every bit as energetic, passionate and caring in person as he is in his book. I actually bought his book via audible.com the day before I flew to South by Southwest and downloaded it to my iphone to listen to while driving. Even though it's not about cooking or food, Gary is a fellow blogger, social media expert, and he totally gets it about the future of small business, entrepreneurship, and marketing. I highly recommend it!




Thank you for participating, Jaden! Check back to see who answers the question next time and what other books are recommended.

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Manchego Cheese Crackers with Marcona Almonds

My blue theme for snacks on Oscar night only went so far. I made a blueberry crumble tart that I really enjoyed, and I tried a blue cheese and apple hors d’oeuvre that I ended up not loving. The third item I made completely abandoned that theme but was delicious. These manchego cheese crackers with marcona almonds are from The New Spanish Table. I just finished the book after reading it off and on since November when I tried a few tapas from it. There’s a lot of information in there. Anya von Bremzen covers regional preferences, historical facts, and modern takes on Spanish cuisine. There are many interesting side notes with explanations about ingredients and origins of dishes. Some of the recipes are very traditional, some are chefs’ contemporary twists on classics, some are more involved than others, and a few, like these cheese crackers, are simple ideas that she learned from friends. This recipe was given to her by Melissa Clark, and the intro note about how hard the crackers are to resist is definitely true.

To make the dough, softened butter and grated manchego cheese were creamed together in the bowl of a mixer. Flour and salt were added, and the dough was supposed to form itself after a bit more mixing. Mine remained very crumbly and wasn’t sticking together at all, so I dribbled in just a tablespoon or so of milk and let the mixer turn a few more times until it seemed like dough. It was then formed into a log, and I flattened that into more of a long, square-ish shape which was wrapped in plastic and left to rest in the refrigerator for an hour. One quarter inch thick pieces were cut from the dough, and each was brushed with egg wash and topped with a marcona almond before being baked for 15 minutes.

The crackers were crunchy on the edges and a little tender in the middle and full of great manchego flavor. Marcona almonds are pretty addictive all by themselves, and they made the crackers even better than they already were. This was a very basic cracker with just butter, cheese, and almonds for flavor, and I’m not complaining about that at all, but I was thinking about how it might be fun to add a little smoked paprika or a pinch of cayenne next time.





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Blueberry Crumble Tart

I always bring a few snacks to an annual Oscars party we attend, and for last Sunday’s party, I wanted to sort of work with a theme. I was certain it was going to be an Avatar-dominated Oscars so I was thinking ‘blue.’ I couldn’t have been more wrong, and obviously, I didn’t do so well with my Oscars betting this year, but at least this blueberry crumble tart was tasty. The recipe is from The Modern Baker, where it’s called a blueberry crumble pie. I wanted the cut pieces to be a simple, square form that would be easy to pick up at the party, so I baked it in a rectangular tart pan. I was also a little worried about how runny and gooey the filling would be, and to make it firmer and easier to handle, I used a little extra cornstarch. That part of my plan came together well. The pieces were easy to cut and easy to pick up without the filling running all over the place. At least that prediction worked out for me.

The tart crust was made from the sweet tart dough recipe in the same book. That dough includes an egg, an egg yolk, and baking powder in addition to the butter, flour, and sugar. It was mixed in a food processor and then wrapped in plastic and left to rest in the refrigerator for 20 minutes or so. It was more dough than I needed for my rectangular tart pan, so I also made a small, free-form rustic tart to leave at home. The filling was made with frozen blueberries, sugar, a tablespoon more of cornstarch than the four tablespoon suggested, and nutmeg. After cooking and thickening, cold butter was stirred into the blueberry filling mixture. The ample crumb topping was made by combining flour, baking powder, cinnamon, brown sugar, and melted butter. Once folded together, it was left to sit while prepping the tart shell and filling. Often it’s tempting to double the quantity of a crumb topping, but I can tell you this recipe made plenty and doubling it would have been way too much. Once the filling was spooned into the shell and the crumble topping was sprinkled on top, the assembled tart baked for 40 minutes.

The crust was flaky and golden and lovely, and the filling was just firm enough and full of blueberry goodness, but the crumble topping was my favorite part. Those nuggets of buttery, crunchy, fun were a delight on top of the tart. It could have been almost any fruit in the filling because in the end, the blueness of it didn’t matter at all, but I’m glad that concept led me to this tart anyway.




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Black Bean and Quinoa Salad

In the December Food and Wine, there was a story about Boston chef Ken Oringer and the tailgate party he hosts on the day he cuts down his Christmas tree. The picnic menu for this party was a really good one, and I have to keep the pages I cut from the magazine because I’d like to recreate the entire thing some day. It included cubano sandwiches, this black bean and quinoa salad, mulled cider, an avocado, grapefruit, and hearts of palm salad, artichoke and spinach dip with spiced pita chips, and caramel pecan bars. Reading that list again just now made me a little hungry. Last week, I wasn’t ready to throw a picnic party and prepare all of that, but I had a plan for jibaritos and thought this salad would fit well with them. As usual, when I cook dried beans, I cook a lot of them at once. I planned ahead, cooked a lot of beans, set aside the amount needed for this recipe, and stored the extra beans in the freezer for future uses. With the black beans already cooked, prepping the salad was quick and easy.

First, the quinoa was cooked and then spread on a sheet pan to cool quickly. A dressing was made by whisking together sherry vinegar, soy sauce, lime juice, and a chopped chipotle chile, and then olive oil was incorporated. Sliced scallions, minced red onion, finely diced yellow pepper, and chopped cilantro were combined with the cooked and cooled black beans and quinoa. The dressing was poured over the mixture, it was tossed to combine, seasoning was checked, and that was it.

The salad is so full of flavor and varied textures you won’t even pause to think about how healthy it is. The chipotle added a little spiciness, and you could increase that and taste as you go while making the dressing. Obviously, you could change the vegetables in the salad, but the ones suggested were a nice mix of colors with the yellow pepper against the black beans and flecks of green cilantro and scallions here and there. This makes a very large quantity of salad, but it stores well in the refrigerator. It’s also great on a bed of arugula and topped with some crumbled feta, so I didn’t mind having a big bowl of it in the refrigerator for a few days.




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