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July 14, 2009

Keeping abreast of trends

Filed under: American Food,duck — Mr. Henry @ 8:44 pm

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Years ago duck was only available either in fancy restaurants or as a whole bird you ordered ahead of time from the butcher. Today most butchers carry vacuum sealed duck breast such as those prepared by D’Artagnan.

Unlike chicken or turkey, duck can be eaten rare. Like other fowl, its fats are found chiefly in the skin, but even after the skin is removed duck meat maintains the best of its flavor.

Indeed, duck is the perfect summer entrée – intense, toothsome, flavorful, but not terribly fatty.

Slice the breast over a salad of mixed greens with a side of string beans and new potatoes. Balsamic vinegar goes very well, or spiced marmalades. If you don’t mind firing the oven for a bit, try roasting diced potatoes, carrots, beets, zucchini, or anything else in the market. Let cool, mix with chopped green salad, and toss with a vinaigrette. Pair with a burgundy.

At the dZong house Mary served duck breast with sautéed swiss chard, mache salad, and roasted rhubarb (with ginger and stock), all fresh from the garden. As an appetizer sautéed with a shallot were crostini of black trumpet chanterelles collected in the Catskills woods.

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Duck half breast comes with one side skinned. A thick layer of fat covers the other side, and this layer becomes your friend in the pan or under the grill. Pan sautéing is the easiest for this household because the Henry range has a fan that ventilates outdoors.

Eight minutes with the fat side down yields a dark brown layer of pure flavor. Be sure to score the fat beforehand so that more of it touches the skillet surface. When you turn to brown the meat side you may find your pan too deep in fat. Mr. Henry likes to skim along the way and save the fat for frying potatoes.paro-dzong.jpg

Now your pan is perfectly hot, its surface covered in duck fat, the finest of frying oils. Brown the meat for a few minutes more, or finish in the oven if you prefer. Remove and let rest a good ten minutes. Mr. Henry prefers the texture of duck breast at room temperature.

The whole affair is incredibly quick, easy and painless. It’s no wonder restaurant menus are dotted with duck breast preparations.

July 5, 2009

Pickles

Filed under: American Food,Holidays,Sushi — Mr. Henry @ 12:55 pm

On the Fourth of July pickles get to be serious business.pickles.jpg

Fourth of July is the one day of the year when pickles are prominently featured among menu items, one day when pickles are not just eaten but lingered over, examined, discussed, and debated.

Is sugar appropriate in the brining liquid? Is garlic an obligation of faith or a detour from the true path? And what about pickled artichokes, cauliflower, onions, carrots, or odd Japanese vegetables like gobo (burdock root), lotus root, or seaweed?

Yesterday David reported confidently that the secret ingredient in Murray’s Sturgeon Shop’s tuna salad is a splash of pickle juice.

(Mr. Henry hopes he has not revealed one of Murray’s closely held proprietary secrets inadvertently landing himself in a legal pickle. Mr. Henry, you see, is not represented by counsel, nor does he wish to contest a court action from an injured party. The above was revealed in innocence, Murray, as part of a think piece about pickles and America on the Fourth of July. Have a heart, Murray, can’t you? It could all just be rumor, anyway.)

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Like all true pickle eaters, Mrs. Henry holds strong opinions on the subject. At Recipe, a new restaurant on Amsterdam Avenue, Mrs. Henry thought the pickled artichoke had sat too long. Its crunch was gone.

When Mrs. Henry pickles, she pickles for a day or two, not more. Her pickled cabbage becomes a military exercise for mastication muscles and back molars as well as a sharp, crisp cleansing for the tongue.

Mr. Henry’s favorite pickling liquid is sushi vinegar, a sugared vinegar required for proper sushi rice. Every so often in a sauce pan over a mild flame she dissolves ¾ cup of sugar into a bottle of white vinegar. The apartment smells pickley for hours.

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Although Mr. Henry has been instructed repeatedly to leave that bottle alone, he confesses to using its contents with regularity. Add a splash of cold sushi vinegar to freshly sliced salted cucumbers and instantly you get a pickle to rival any vegetable or condiment.

It may not be what Americans remember as traditional, but it’s better than those squishy green things in the bottle.

June 28, 2009

Weasel words

Filed under: American Food,Philosophy — Mr. Henry @ 11:26 am

 In a friendly discussion over dinner with Ceci, Mr. Henry brought up the topic of swine flu.

“H1N1 flu!” she said sharply. “Use the correct terminology.”

The rebuke smarted. Mr. Henry is unaccustomed to being upbraided for political incorrectness especially with regard to his favorite entreé, the noble and virtuous swine, baron of the barnyard. Striving always to use correct terminology as well as correct grammar Mr. Henry would never knowingly insult a pig.

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Ceci happens to be U.S. director of the World Society for the Protection of Animals, an organization that has inaugurated a new and useful system for labeling foods as well as supermarkets according to degree of humane treatment.

With a score of 76 points, Whole Foods wins by a mile. At the back of the pack, Wal-Mart gets 10 points. Clearly such labeling is still in its infancy but the effort is worthwhile.

From the site you will learn that “natural” is a weasel word not clearly defined by law or custom, a word often more misleading than helpful.

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Oops. There he goes again employing unfair and harmful species stereotypes against benighted weasels forever condemned in the public imagination to notorious roles of thieves and sneaks while they simply try to provide for their weaselly little families. Mr. Henry sincerely regrets the error.

June 22, 2009

Chicken livers

Filed under: Chicken,lunch,Wine — Mr. Henry @ 4:35 pm

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Mr. Henry forgot the livers.

It could happen to anyone. It could even happen to you if you had endured three solid weeks of liquid skies.

In New York it’s been raining forever. Strange never-before-seen varieties of mushrooms are sprouting from tree roots and branches. The baby hawks have frizzy feathers. Liberal-minded New Yorkers have acquired new empathy for Bangladeshi villagers in monsoon season.

Friday afternoon a soggy Mr. Henry’s lumbered into Citarella. Center cut pork chops, sweet potato purée, asparagus under the broiler, and cucumber salad constituted his quick and easy dinner menu. The humidity, however, had sapped his strength. He needed fortification.

For strength nothing beats chicken livers, especially chicken livers Moroccan style.

To rinsed and trimmed livers add salt, black pepper, chopped garlic, a teaspoon or more of cumin, a half teaspoon each of curry powder and hot paprika (cayenne works very well, too), and a couple tablespoons of olive oil.

After the livers have marinated for a good long while, sauté them in their marinade and serve them on toast with lots of chopped cilantro (or parsley). Finish with cold clementines.

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Normally Mr. Henry marinates for a few hours, perhaps a day….marinates his livers, that is, not himself. But this time he plainly forgot. Since no one else in the family enjoys this hearty delicacy, no one missed them at table.

On Monday he remembered. What would a weekend bathing in strong spices do to a chicken liver?

It worked miracles – an intensity of flavor never before experienced. Considering the gravity of the moment, he felt it appropriate to open a bottle of Burgundy at lunchtime.

June 13, 2009

At breakfast…

Filed under: Breakfast,Dessert,Fruit,Philosophy,Wine — Mr. Henry @ 11:54 am

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John Updike writes in his final book Endpoint:

                                              Perhaps
we meet our heaven at the start and not
the end of life.

If Updike is remembered only for a single line, this should be the one.

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Although Mr. Henry’s rejoinder may not achieve the eloquence of Updike’s iambic pentameter, here goes:

At breakfast you may eat the sweet
you left untouched the night before
and greet the day’s beginning with
the satisfaction knowing that
tomorrow you’ll have more.

The sweet in question this week is Mr. Henry’s favorite dessert from a platter of figs: prunes stewed in red wine with sugar and cinnamon. On yogurt it transports you to a heavenly realm.

The season is early for pit fruit – peaches, plums, nectarines. White peaches in the market aren’t bad but cannot approach the sublime aromas they exude in August.

Citrus in June has faded a bit from the high quality of springtime Indian River fruit, but pineapple remains a dependable choice. Its palate-cleansing acids encourage good digestion leaving the stomach full and the mouth clean.prunes.JPG

Breakfast is the one moment of the day when something sweet is genuinely appropriate. Coffee’s bracing bitterness seeks balance in a delicate, sophisticated sweet. Instead of an icky, oily gut bomb like a doughnut or a Danish, reach for plum tart, apple pie, banana bread.

Even the morning mayhem brought to you by The New York Times cannot defeat the genuine thrill of such a breakfast. It’s a transcendent experience – life’s promise in each mouthful. Plus, you have the whole day ahead of you to walk off the calories.

June 2, 2009

Fish caper

Filed under: Fish,lunch,Sandwiches,Take Out — Mr. Henry @ 8:16 am

Mr. Henry was short on time and on ingredients. Ocean caught off St. Augustine, cleaned and frozen in skim milk right on the boat, mahi-mahi filets had not yet completely thawed. At 11:15 a.m. Mother Henry was ravenous, asking whether her son was ever going to fix that fish.

When lunch is late, Mother Henry is not at her best.

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How do you hurry a mahi-mahi onto the lunch plate? The answer is salt.

Sea salt liberally applied helped the fish thaw. Scouring the fridge for ingredients, Mr. Henry found a bottle of capers, a lemon, and some dried parsley flakes – just sufficient to construct a sauce piccata.

Dredge the salted filet in flour (with black pepper) and sauté to a light brown in a mixture of butter and olive oil. Remove to a serving plate and deglaze your pan with lemon juice, white wine, or both. (Add more butter if you want more sauce.) Add capers and chopped parsley (fresh is preferable), combine briefly and pour over the filets.

From start to finish the whole thing won’t take more than five minutes, so don’t begin until your guests are ready to eat.

The recipe works equally well with filet of veal or breast of chicken. To assure the meat is evenly thin, pound it flat beforehand between plastic wrap.

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Capers are a curiosity – immature flower buds cured in brine or vinegar. The best ones are Italian cured only in rock salt. Before using these you should them soak in cold water for a few minutes.

Mr. Henry’s friend Famous Howard lives exclusively on take-out. In his refrigerator there are precious few items, but always a bottle of capers. Howard finds the addition of capers adds immeasurably to the flavor of almost any sandwich.

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As a history buff Howard might be excited to learn that capers are mentioned in The Epic of Gilgamesh, a Sumerian story from the third millennium B.C.

May 26, 2009

Relief from Casual Water

Filed under: Tea — Mr. Henry @ 8:12 am

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On a golf course if water is temporary, that is, if the course designer did not place it there as a deliberate hazard, it is called casual. If you hit your ball into it, on your next shot you can get relief, that is, you may pick up your ball and drop it one club length away from the water.

In the whole of Florida, however, there is no relief from casual drinking water. Florida tap water is naturally sulfurous and unnaturally chlorinated. Pick your poison, vacationer.

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Water, water every where
And all the boards did shrink
Water, water every where
Nor any drop to drink

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Ya’ll know it’s an albatross of a problem.

Although bottled water may not taste sulfurous or chlorinated, it still harbors that plastic aroma, plastic that pollutes landfills. When it’s 87 degrees and 97% humidity outside, however, you’ve simply got to drink plenty of water.

Steer clear of Gatorade, whatever you do. Mr. Henry understands that down here Gatorade has been used in enhanced interrogation techniques – Gatorboarding. Very effective.

Iced tea remains the savior, the universal donor. Try to avoid “sweet tea,” too, for obvious reasons. (Sugar micedtea.jpegakes you thirstier.) After a few days in the Sunshine State you begin to crave tea with top notes of sulfur and chlorine.

Add a squeeze of lemon for a tart, minerally aftertaste, what connoisseurs of sauvignon blanc affectionately call “cat pee.”

Mr. Henry’s own recipe is to put several tea bags (English breakfast) in a big pitcher filled with water left to steep slowly in the refrigerator. Because the tea develops no bitterness, you need neither milk nor sugar.

May 17, 2009

The Garden of Eden

Filed under: lunch — Mr. Henry @ 4:22 am

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Ever since Mr. Henry began working from home, lunch has become his special repast, a delightful and often solitary communion with leftovers and a laptop.

In winter he usually applies heat to whatever he finds resting in the refrigerator but from spring through autumn lunches are eaten cold. Indeed, many foods taste better cold or at room temperature. Italian antipasti served under olive oil aptly illustrate this principle.

Whether eating cauliflower, asparagus, fennel, potatoes, lentils, cucumbers, lettuce, olives or bread, there is one magical preparation that seems to transform each into a fulfilling experience – hummus.

A preparation of ground chick peas with tahini, hummus surely dates to prehistory. In the Middle East both chick peas and sesame were cultivated as early as 10,000 BC.

Did Eve prepare hummus for Adam and the boys? Alas, her recipes don’t survive.

Native to India, cucumbers are mentioned in the ancient Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh.

Wandering in the desert the Hebrews sent forth lamentations for chick peas and leeks so abundant back in Egypt.

A certain degree of imagination is required to believe that the Garden of Eden was once located in Iraq, yet surely pockets of beauty remain. Have you ever tasted dates from Basra? The salty, sandy soil of southern Iraq yields the most flavorful date.

When you pour a dollop of olive oil on feta cheese does your imagination not stray back to classical Athens, an empire built on the exportation of olive oil?

Mr. Henry eats the food of the ancients. Moreover, when he cooks he usually reaches for an iron skillet probably indistinct from ones forged by the Hittites late in the second millennium BC. Sic transit gloria mundi.

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