cooking | ROOT

January 27, 2014

Eating By Color: A Wintry Rainbow Soup

At first it might seem a little fantastical. You might feel a little silly walking through the produce aisle, portioning your fruits and vegetables according to their pigment. But there is some evidence to substantiate this approach, and in the end if painting by numbers makes the masterpiece, then I’m all for it: after all, nature isn’t really big on “originals’.

Last night I read poems at a cafe in Bushwick. Emerging out of the subway, the snow was assaulting and powdery like bags of flour thrown into my face. One New Yorker told us before we arrived that you live or die according to how close your apartment is from the subway. I thought he was being dramatic. Turns out I now understand.

At the end of the night, I ducked into the subway, relieved for the brief moment of respite. Riding the three stops back to my apartment I remembered the wintry rainbow soup my family would make, and knew I’d be cheating myself if I didn’t set about making it immediately.

The version presented here rests heavily upon what produce I’ve been able to procure in my neighborhood. But more important than any one ingredient, is the color of the soup. There must be white, green, yellow, orange, and purple to make this soup right. There’s a hidden logic this criterion that some may be interested in parsing. For me, I’m too busy eating.

A note on the preparation: your favorite vegetable stock will do great. Depending on how much time you have, spending some extra time will make this soup so much better. I prefer making my own stock, which can be easily done using the odds and of vegetables from a week’s worth of cooking, roasted and seasoned according to your liking, and simmered in a pot of water for at least an hour. The key is to roast the vegetables first. Believe me, it’s worth it. For this stock I added potatoes, celery, asparagus, zucchini, carrots, and onions.

Ingredients:

¼ tablespoon of unsalted butter
1 medium onion, chopped
2 celery stalks, chopped
6 cloves garlic, pressed
2 carrots, chopped
1 parsnip, chopped
1 small red beet, chopped
6 cups of vegetable broth
1 cup of kale, chopped
Salt, pepper, sage, turmeric, to taste

Directions

In a large pot, sauté onions on medium low heat until translucent. Add garlic and increase heat to medium. Add celery, carrots, beets, and parsnips and cook for 5 minutes.

Add broth or stock to the vegetables. Simmer covered on low for at least an hour.

Add kale and simmer for three minutes. Add salt, pepper, sage, and turmeric to taste.

January 23, 2014

5 Warming Winter Eats

Moving to New York in the wintertime is, at the very least, a significant challenge. But there is something intangible that comes with 10° temperatures.

When the so-called “Polar Vortex” made its second trip to my new neighborhood, a peaceful calm descended. Lights illuminated the drawn shades in what seemed to be greater volume than I had noticed before. All the bustle was muffled by the overpowering chilly force of nature.

Handfuls of compacted snow whirled into the air that comes in hard gusts out of the air vents above the subway when the train arrives. “Brooklyn is a snow globe right now” I said to a friend in California, “It’s magic.”

I find myself dreaming up new, warming eats and drinks. In memory of one of my favorite European travel discoveries, I’m on the hunt for the best Pirogue in Brooklyn, and hopefully someday I will make a borscht recipe that is an incontrovertible favorite.

In the meantime, here are some of the warm items around the web that are making it to the top of my list:

1) Winter Vegetable Green Curry– A colorful, simple, and tasteful green curry made with seasonal vegetables.

2) Winter Fruit Pie With Walnut Crumb– A rustic winter pie from Epicurious.

3) Coffee Brewing In The Great Outdoors– Though it may seem like light years off, thought of brewing fresh coffee the right way in the great outdoors is an ongoing daydream. Kinfolk recently published a lovely article on the subject.

4) Vegetable Morrocan Stew– A delicious stew from the journal over at Hearth Magazine.

5) Chicken Pho Recipe– As always, recipe-master Deborah Perlman does it again. Nothing quite compares to the Pho-a-plenty streets of San Francisco, but this brings me back.

October 14, 2013

A Visit To The Naschmarkt

Vienna’s most renowned open-air market, with over 100 stalls, has been in operation since the 16th century.

Like so many of the markets of Europe that we’ve visited, the Naschmarkt is a very alive place, suffused with chatter and bargains, produce and wares.

In the 16th century, the market was originally a place where people could buy milk bottles. Milk bottles in this era were made from the wood of the “Asch” tree, which later gave the market it’s original name: “Aschmarkt.”

Now the Naschmarkt is home to spice sellers, fruit stalls, foodie restaurants, and even a craft vinegar vendor:

And while the market is clearly a tourism destination for visitors to the city, it feels surprisingly less damaged by it than the old buildings near the St. Stephens Church, plastered as they are with advertising and neon signs.

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October 11, 2013

Lángos: Deep-Fried Death Trap

Lángos.

The culinary equivalent of it sounded like a good idea at the time.

During our month long stay in Budapest, we ate this dangerous/amazing street food five times. Each time we did, the experience became both progressively better and worse.

There are Serbian, Czech, Polish, and other variations on Lángos but Hungarians are the progenitors of this amazing heart attack food.

Lángos is deep-fried bread essentially, with a yeasty dough that sometimes includes potatoes and sour cream which makes it almost like a mutant latke. The dough (roughly the size of a small pizza) is dropped into a vat of oil, and slathered with garlic sauce, sour cream, and mounds of cheese.

The way people talk about Lángos in Budapest is similar to the way New Yorkers talk about pizza, which is initially what attracted me to it–that and the carnal grossness of the food itself. For such a simple set of ingredients there was an amazing amount of variation among the Lángos that we tried.

In search of the perfect specimen, I found three major categories:

-The Death Cracker: with less yeast and no potato, this version was crunchy and oily. We found these at a couple of markets, none of which were recommended to us.

-The Nuclear Lattke: These contained mostly shredded potato, but were topped and prepared just as traditional Lángos is. Not the original, but satisfying nonetheless. This popular variation is sometimes called “Potato Lángos” or krumplis lángos

-The Last Supper: There are some Lángos that are softer..the dough is thicker, almost like a pizza crust. We found our favorite through our friend Kalman, who swore it to be the best, at the market on the Buda side of the city called Feny Utca Market.

I now believe that in the manner in which cats are said to have nine lives, humans are given around five Lángos before the body revolts. Once the quota is surpassed, the territory is treacherous. So choose your Lángos wisely, and the experience will be unforgettable.

September 21, 2013

Autumn We’ve Come Prepared: A Slow Borscht For A Long Day

Just like that, from one day to the next, the sun glistening onto the waves of the Danube were replaced with dark clouds and a fierce wind.

The first couple of days we fortressed ourselves from the cold, polished off liters of beer, and worked furiously around our flat. Though sneaking ourselves bundled toward the stalls of the Great Central Market in search of some deep-fried sin or another was an ever-present danger/possibility, we decided that a break from the langos life was in order. Hungarian cuisine is magnificent but you won’t survive a great many winters unless roots and greens are consumed at some point.

I jumped at the opportunity to begin making stews, and with boiled beets and stock, cabbage, and some assorted vegetables in the fridge, Borscht was an easy front runner.

While the soup means something different to every country (and many micro-regions) of Central Europe and beyond, my favorite versions have always included: beets, cabbage, dill, & thick hunks of rye bread. I’d recommend boiling beets and saving the juices, which with a simple rue, keep the broth light, rich, and earthy–and don’t forget peppers, golden (or yukon) potatoes, and heaving spoonfuls of paprika.

And I don’t care what anybody says, I will cook this soup as long as I can stand to wait around with a house full of its inescapable aroma.

Having recently visited the Szimpla Kert Market as mentioned in my last post, I still had some fabulous caraway cheese to shred over the top in the absence of rye bread, which absolved me from feeling guilty about not leaving the house once.