And the Winner Is...

Purple Lover 04! With her comment naming the Irish Soda Bread as her favorite, Purple Lover is the winner of the Short and Saucy Calphalon Pot. Thank you to everyone that participated!

Yup that's a new haircut. We're trying to think of something even better for our 1 year blog aniversary in June, so keep watching the blog! What to expect in the next 100? I've been deeply interested in Asian cooking lately, you may see a post on Ginger noodles as early as next week! And then there's the bread baking class I'm looking at taking, and the return of ice cream as summer looms and the Tiki bars that are supposed to open in Manhattan this summer, we've got a long culinary road ahead of us. Hope you're all coming along for the ride!

Discovering the Egg

There are times when my husband comes home, and looks at me like I'm crazy. These times usually coincide with some crazy cooking project I've delved into. When the kitchen was so covered in flour from my fresh pasta experiments, when the entire apartment was filled with the heavy sent of barbecue sauce, I was the recipient of extremely concerned glances and the deeply worried "Honey?" Such was the scene this past weekend as our waste bin filled with egg shells. He got home, glanced at the cookbooks and magazines that covered every available surface, and knew something was up.

Easter looming, his 27 year old wife had decided to learn how to cook an egg.

I've dabbled before. In high school I would make scrambled eggs, before I finally admitted to myself that I don't really like a whisked and fluffy egg. I've fried eggs, made them Over Easy, and even tried to craft an Egg White Omelet, which hasn't been very successful thus far, more of a spattered but tasty egg white mess really. But on the whole I don't take on the shelled wonders very often, relegating them to ingredient rather then main dish status. Partly it's been because Will really, really hates eggs, so I would be the only one eating them. Partly it's been because, honest to god, I don't know how to cook them in the more sophisticated ways. Speaking to friends, I don't think I'm the only 20 something in America staring down an egg with a bit of bewilderment.

With Easter looming, however, surrounding by the imagery of the egg, I had to have them. I wanted to devour solid whites and runny yolks. I wanted them flavored and boiled and baked, combined with herbs, heated gently, I wanted to bite and slurp and revel in the eggy goodness. NY is a great place to find a variety of eggs, at one Whole Foods alone I have seen quail, ostrich, duck, and emu. As an egg novice, I decided to play it safe and stick to the basic chicken.

There were two big experiments that went into my egg weekend madness. The first was my quest for the perfect soy sauce egg, a quest I blame entirely on the blog Momofuku for 2 which talked about them so temptingly last week. As of this post, it has not gone well. The first trials have been delicious, but not pretty. The perfect boiling times have not been worked out yet, the perfect marinade is still being toyed with, and honestly? It turns out I don't know how to peel an egg. Egg. Shells. Everywhere. Apparently there's a way of getting around this by blowing out the egg. Ew. Stay tuned, I will keep you posted on my progress. If my husband doesn't kill me first.

The second experiment is something I have been mulling in my head for quite awhile. I wanted the sophisticated brunch treat that is the baked egg. I first read about this delicate dish in the January 2008 issue of Gourmet, with amazing food porn splayed across it's pages. In Chef Scott Peacock's recipe little individual servings splayed across an outdoor table, and I felt that one could not start a day in a more impressive and grown up way then by serving up these little beauties. The filling ingredients of spinach and ham were not things I had on hand this weekend, however. What I really needed was something that incorporated cheese. In a bit of impulse shopping over the past two weeks I have ended up with an Irish Cheddar, a Swiss, and a Gruyere all staring up at me in the fridge, begging to be incorporated into various dishes. The epidemic is so bad that, attending a wine and Spanish food tasting at Despana in my neighborhood this weekend, I had to beg Will to not allow me to walk out with any cheese. I mourn the Manchego I left behind.

My research turned out a baked dish with Gruyere, but it included herbs I did not have on hand and was made in a big dish with 10 eggs, not the individual servings I was looking for. Since my husband wasn't going to help me consume this, the individual serving was key.

Eggs with Cream, Gruyere, and Shallot

Makes 2 Individual Servings

Ingredients:

- 1 Tablespoon and 1 Teaspoon Butter plus extra for greasing ramekins

- 1 Shallot, sliced

- 1 Clove of Garlic, Chopped

- 1/4 Cup Shredded Gruyere

- 3 Tablespoons Cream or Half and Half

- 2 Large Eggs

- 1/2 Teaspoon Dried Thyme

- Salt and Pepper

Equipment: 2 (6oz) Ramekins

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees with rack in the middle. Butter ramekins.

Saute shallots in butter until beginning to crisp, about 2-3 minutes in a small pan over medium heat. In the final minute add garlic and saute until fragrant. Remove and divide into ramekins. Stir in shredded cheese. Spoon 1 tablespoon of cream over each serving. Crack 1 egg into each ramekin. Spoon half a tablespoon of cream over each egg. Season with salt, pepper, and thyme. Dot each top with a scant 1/2 teaspoon of butter.

Put ramekins in a shallow baking pan and bake, rotating pan halfway through baking, until whites are just set but the yolks are still runny, 15 to 20 minutes. If you do this in a toaster oven, the time will be closer to 12-15 minutes.

The ingredients are completely based on what I had around, resulting in a perfect cheesy, veggie, herby combo. But really, you can add what you wish. Scallions instead of shallot, or add some mushroom. Fresh Rosemary would be a good substitute for the dried thyme, if you have it around. Heck if my thyme plant hadn't died, I would have preferred fresh.

I served this with a slice of toast on the side, and it was delectable, gooey and yet still sophisticated. It the best of two egg worlds really, the mix and match ability of an omelet, but the runny yolk of a fried egg. Baking gives it that fancy edge that just screams "I should have a mimosa in my hand right now." I'm really always looking for a way to work that phrase into a conversation. Really it's the second best part of brunch. You know, besides the eggs.

PS- Reminder that the Short and Saucy pan (just like mine) giveaway ends tomorrow at midnight Eastern Time! Run over to our 100th blog and leave a comment! And isn't it pretty?

Egg Drinks Redux

So Heather's on an egg kick. There's a lot of them about as of late. It makes me a little nervous because I'm not the biggest fan in the world. More specifically, I like them in a certain context. I like them as an ingredient in things--cakes, french toast. But there's something about the smell of a cooking egg that nauseates me.

But raw egg, which is arguably grosser, doesn't bother me at all. I thought with all the eggs in the house, I would try my hand at some more old timey egg cocktails. I realized after the last egg cocktail blog that I focused only on drinks that involve egg yolk. A huge oversight on my part. The white can add just as much to a spirited drink.

The Savoy Cocktail Book offers a lively recipe for something called The Elk's Own Cocktail.

Elk's Own Cocktail

From The Savoy Cocktail Book

-The White of 1 Egg

-1/2 Canadian Club Whisky

-1/2 Port Wine

-The Juice of 1/2 Lemon

-1 Teaspoonful Sugar

Shake well, strain into wineglass and add a slice of pineapple.

We found a slightly modified recipe on the internet that included Rye Whiskey (we didn't have Canadian Club,) simple syrup instead of sugar and actual measurements which help a lot, but the basic idea is the same. The end result is tart, sweet and savory. It's also not quite as heavy as the egg yolk drinks. And that froth is pretty nifty.

Also as a reminder, the giveaway contest is still going on. Get your entries in by this Friday to be entered. Read the last blog post for details.

One, Two, Skip a Few, Ninety-Nine...

One Hundred!!!!!

That's right after months of cooking, drink making, and photo taking we have reached blog #100!

In honor of the momentous occation, we are celebrating by giving back to you, our wonderful readers! It's an Epicurette giveaway!

All you have to do is leave a comment to this post, saying which food or drink blog we posted was your favorite. We'll write down everyone who comments on pieces of paper, and draw from a hat for our winner! Make sure you are signing in through an account to comment. If this is not possible, copy and paste the text of your comment into an email and send it to mailto:%20EpicuretteInNewYork@gmail.com so I know how to contact you if you win.

Apologies to our International readers (Epicurette in New York has been viewed in over 50 countries!) but due to shipping fees we are limiting this contest only to those in the United States and Canada. We'll try to come up with something more inclusive for the one year anniversary.

The prize? A brand new Calphalon "Short and Saucy" 2 and 1/2 quart pan, identical to my own. It's a great little pan, and comes with a recipe for artichoke dip,

The contest is open until midnight (Eastern Time) on April 1st, and the winner will be announced April 2nd. Enjoy the contest and thanks for reading!

Salt-Baked Branzino or The Fish was Delish and it Made Quite a Dish

I'm a sucker for a good sale. Look in my closet and I can tell you which BCBG boots were discounted on Amazon, which Calvin Klein heels scanned for $20 less then marked at Bloomingdales, and which Kate Spade purse I purchased out of season for 50% off. Ask my husband who is comfortably resting on the Anthropologie bedspread I scored for half price, it's like a sport for me, and I pride myself in it. While I love getting a sale on things I already like (and have been known to stock up) a good sale can also pull me out of my comfort zone. It will entice me to try something I wasn't sure I would like, because it lessens the risk. That is how I ended up, last weekend, staring a dead fish in the face.

I have a very suburban, landlocked relationship to fish. The fish I've made in the past come in fillet form, perfectly clean, wrapped and ready to go. I've dabbled in sushi grade Tuna and spent one harrowing afternoon trying to hack the skin off a piece of Mahi Mahi, but the bulk of my non-shellfish seafood experience comes in the form of Catfish and Tilapia, nice, easy, and kinda boring. One Whole Foods sale flier later, however, and I decided to tackle whole Branzinos, otherwise known as Mediterranean Sea Bass. Well, I told myself I was going to learn to cook Italian, didn't I?

As part of my research I turned back to the Julia Child DVD I had rented last week, where she did an entire show about fish. Part of this show was to take the camera on location to a french fish market, where a skilled cooking professor demonstrated how to clean a fish in fancy ways. At one point they pulled all the organs out through the gills. On one fish they cut in such a way as to shove its own tail through its mouth (pictured, but I didn't do that.) It was kinda one of the grosser things I had ever seen. Really, all of the fish cleaning looked pretty gross. It was bloody, very bloody, and involved a lot of organ ripping. In shellfish, I am cold blooded about this sort of thing, but in a fish with fins, it was freaking me out. I was relieved to find that most nice fish mongers, including the ones at Whole Foods, will do this for you. Someday I will gather the courage to dissemble my own fish, and I promise to post a disgusting blog about it then. For the moment I just let the fish monger hit on me as he wielded a knife into my fish. Must be the designer boots.

There were a few themes that seemed to repeat as I researched these Euro fish. First, the principals of stuffing them with lemon and herbs. That was an easy idea, and economical as I was roasting a chicken this weekend as well, which involves the same ingredients. The second was the idea of packing it in salt. A lot of salt. Basically making a salt shell around the fish and baking it. I had never heard of this or seen it done, this is not a technique often used in home kitchens of suburbia where I grew up, but it definitely seemed interesting. The principal is to almost build a heat trap around the fish, so it can literally stew in its own juice, along with the lemon and herbs. The principal is not to make a crazy salty fish.

Once the thing is baked, the salt shell is cracked and brushed off the fish, and the skin peels off easily after that. Done right and you should only get mild salt flavoring, which seasons the fish nicely. The best tip I got in making sure this was done right was to cover the belly opening with tin foil, to keep the salt from seeping into the soft flesh. Apparently that can cause a gross amount of salty. Traditionally the entire fish is caked in salt, but the recipe I used called for laying them on parchment paper and only building the shell around the top half. I enjoyed this method, as it wasted less salt and was easier to control where all that salt was going. Has anyone ever tried the full encasing or perhaps made little fish snowmen? Tell me about it in the comments!

Salt-Baked Branzino for Two

Adapted from Gourmet Magazine (RIP)

Ingredients:

-3 Cups Kosher Salt

-4 to 5 Large Egg Whites

-2 1lb whole branzino, cleaned with head and tails intact

-6 fresh parsley sprigs

-4 fresh rosemary sprigs

-2 garlic cloves, halved

-4 lemon slices, halved

Directions:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Place salt in a medium bowl and add egg whites one at a time, stirring, until the mixture looks like wet sand (the number will vary)

Rinse fish and pat dry. (Check for any organs your fish monger might have missed. Ick.) Place fish on a parchment-line baking sheet and divide remaining ingredients between the cavities of fish. Cover the cavity with a strip of tinfoil.

Firmly pat half of salt evenly over each fish to cover, leaving only the head and end of the tail exposed.

Bake fish in the middle of oven until salt is just starting to turn golden at edges, 15 to 18 minutes. If your fish is heavier then 1 lb., adjust accordingly, giving it an extra 2 to 5 minutes depending on the size.

Crack salt away from fish and discard. Use brush to get off any stray salt that scatters onto the fish. Peel back skin and carefully lift fish from the bones.

That "carefully lift fish from the bones" part I'm still getting the hang of. Despite what I feel was a rather impressive extricating of the spine and ribs (are they called ribs on a fish?) we still managed to get some tiny thin bones on our tongues, so devour with caution. The actual fish part, though, was delicious! It was very moist and well seasoned by the lemon and herbs which gave it a rustic but complex flavor. I'm not sure I'd ever eaten a sea bass before now, but I am a convert. I demanded and received accolades. I insisted on being toasted for my frugal fish victory. And meanwhile we devoured every edible part of the once whole fish.

Now if I find a coupon for a whole octopus we could really find out what I'm capable of...

Lemon Raspberry Martini

It's time for another Video Blog. The fruity sweetness of this drink makes it perfect for the warm weather we've been having this week. Admittedly it's kind of a girly drink but every now and again, that can be a good thing. Sometimes girly drinks can be the most refreshing...especially if you put a little umbrella in them. Enjoy.

If you're interested in infusing liquor with fresh fruit, check out this past entry on the subject.

Bastardized Irish Soda Bread

I wasn't going to do Irish Soda Bread this year. Or ever really. It's one of those things that I tried like a million years ago, didn't like, and had decided, nope, not for me. It's dry, it's crumbly, it doesn't taste very good, I thought. Then March hit, and the American addiction to Irishness was out in full force. Recipes popped up for stews, potato dishes, and that blasted bread. When Smitten Kitchen succumbed a few days ago with Soda Bread Scones, I read the post with a bit of bemusement at the international addiction to bad bread. Then I saw a link to a previous post from a few years ago, for Deb's standby Irish Soda Bread.

It turns out in 2007 she had done a soda bread out of the NY Times that had turned out wonderfully. Following the trail to the original article, I realized why. This recipe does what American do best, take an idea from another country, and then manipulate it to the point that is completely unrecognizable to the original culture. We are especially good at this when it comes to the products of the Emerald Isle. We took their music and turned it into Tin Pan Alley, and then proceed to look at them strange when they don't know what "Tura Lura Lura" is. The Irish did not, I repeat, did not invent Corned Beef and Cabbage, we inflicted that horror show on ourselves. And despite all of the coconut flavored "Irish Potato" candy being sold in the Philadelphia area right now, you will find very few coconuts in Dublin. I checked. For the most part, I don't think our changes to the Irish culture have improved these things much. True Irish music is awesome, I'd rather listen to the Chieftains then that song about Tipperary. The Irish make Bacon and Cabbage, and I would WAY rather eat bacon the corned beef (sorry mom.) And you readers know what good candy Ireland really has.

The Soda Bread, however, is an area where I think improvements stand to be made. Traditional soda bread includes only flour, salt, baking soda, and buttermilk. Ick. The recipe used by the New York Times, Smitten Kitchen, and now myself involves wonderful things like sugar (and lots of it,) butter, and raisins. As I put together my modified "Irish" bread, it occurred to me that with my complete German heritage but newly minted Irish last name, I'm a bit of an American knock-off of Irishness myself!

"Irish" Soda Bread
Adapted (barely) from the NY Times

Ingredients:
-Butter for greasing pan plus 1/4 cup unsalted butter, melted
-3 cups all-purpose flour
-2/3 cup sugar
-1 tablespoon baking powder-1 1/2 teaspoons salt
-1 teaspoon baking soda1
-3/4 cups buttermilk
-2 eggs, well beaten
-1 1/2 cups raisins or currants
-1 1/2 teaspoons caraway seeds

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 9-inch oven-proof skillet and line with parchment or waxed paper.

In a bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt and baking soda. In a separate bowl, combine the buttermilk, eggs and 2 tablespoons melted butter. Add wet ingredients to dry and stir until just combined. Do not overmix. Stir in the raisins or currants and caraway seeds.

Pour batter into skillet. Brush top with remaining butter. Bake until golden and firm to touch, about 45 minutes to 1 hour. Cool 10 minutes before slicing.

The American bastardization is more like cake, and I've been enjoying it all week with butter spread on it along with my coffee or tea in the morning. The NY Times recommends serving it with really good Irish cheddar and apple slices. However you eat it, you will find it nice and crisp on the outside and soft on the inside, a bit sweet but definitely savory. And if nothing else, it will probably soak up a lot of alcohol, which will be helpful as you drink that oh so authentic green beer.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!