Stay at Stove Dad

Go Giants! Game-Day Frikadeller Recipe

When I wrote earlier that I didn’t know where the time went last weekend, I wasn’t telling the whole story. A good part of it was spent watching the Giants overcome the Packers. And a good rest of the part of it was spent getting ready to watch the game.

This was a rare occasion. In my circle, I don’t have many football-watching friends (well, that’s not entirely true: one friend has repeatedly invited me to Giants Stadium to share his home-field tickets, but I’ve never gone). Last weekend, though, while in Lake Placid, I discovered that my friend E., as I’ll call her here, was my kind of football fan. She liked the game when it was playoff time. I don’t have the patience for regular season games (note to self: ask shrink about that), but when the end of the season is on the line, I’m there.

So we set out to tune into the Giants, but missed their triumph over the Atlanta Falcons because we were watching bobsledding practice (there are some things you can do in Lake Placid that you just can’t do anywhere else, at least not on the East Coast). Having failed to catch the Giants victory, we settled for the first half of the Broncos-Steelers contest. Clearly, our football-watching skills needed work, because the second half of that game was by far one of the most exciting finishes in playoff history (or so I subsequently read).

Still, we had fun, eating popcorn and guacamole and drinking beer. So, excited by the Giants’ excellent playing of late, I invited my friends back over for the most recent game, and I whipped up a batch of Frikadeller (Danish meatballs).

Football and Danish meatballs are not exactly a natural combination, but let me tell you, they are a great one. I was able to make the meatballs ahead of time, and keep them warm in the oven. This meant I was sipping a Corona on the couch while the game was on, and not standing in the kitchen.

I had never heard of Frikadeller before last year. I first came across them in Laurie David’s excellent book, “The Family Dinner.” The recipe comes from David’s personal chef, Kirstin Uhrenholdt; it was her grandmother’s. There are many nice things about them—kids love them, they’re easy to make, and they’re delicious being the top three. My friends and their son and my family gobbled them up—at half time, of course.

Game-Day Frikadeller

 

• 2/3 cup cold water
• ½ cup homemade, unseasoned breadcrumbs (or a little more, depending on how things go, how many visitors you have coming over)
• 2 eggs, slightly beaten
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon pepper
• 1 tablespoon apple-cider vinegar (or white wine, if that’s all you have)
• ¼ cup chopped fresh parsley
• 1 small onion, minced
• 2 lbs ground turkey

 

In a large bowl, combine all the ingredients except the turkey. Stir well until mixed together. Let the mixture rest in the refrigerator for about ten minutes, until the breadcrumbs absorb the liquid

Add the ground turkey to the bowl and mix well

Heat oven to 350 degrees.

Oil a baking sheet and set it nearby.

Heat a large frying pan with some oil for frying.

Using a spoon and/or your hands, make small balls out of the mixture and place the mixture in the frying pan. Flatten the balls so the are no longer round, and are more oblong than circular.

Fry on one side until brown, and then flip.

When brown on both sides (more or less), remove the meatballs from the frying pan and slide them on the baking sheet.

Repeat until all the mixture is used up and you have a baking sheet full of meatballs.

Bake the meatballs in the oven for 20 minutes.

 

Serve with a hearty bread or some other starch (I made a variation on fried rice) and a vegetable (I made a salad).

Sufficient for 4 adults and 3 children easily. Also good the next day.

 

Olympic Rabbit Stew Recipe

As I mentioned earlier, I cooked up a delicious rabbit stew while on vacation recently in Lake Placid. Just this weekend, after I returned, I had a chance (call it twenty-minutes—where does the time go with a family???) to throw together the above drawing, because, as I also mentioned, the stew was so good the night I made it, that I forgot to photograph it.

I was inspired to make the stew after reading the recipe in the New York Times. It’s by David Tanis, and I saw it in his great column, “City Kitchen.” The headline is for a braised rabbit stew, so when I was packing to go away, I threw my trusty Le Creuset  cast-iron casserole in the trunk of the car, before heading north.

On my way out of town, I didn’t bother to read the driving directions my friend had sent me, and I became flummoxed upon exiting the George Washington Bridge. I had Googled the route, though, and I took an educated guess. Route 4, to Route 17, turned out to be a fine way to go, and I was reminded of this misadventure when I finally took out the newspaper clipping and read the recipe through fully in Lake Placid.

Tanis’s column didn’t mention anything about using a casserole, but damned if I had lugged that heavy iron pot three hundred miles for naught. I was going to use it, recipe or no recipe.

I also didn’t have porcini mushrooms. And I didn’t have chicken stock. So I used vegetable stock, and snuck in an anchovy or two to boost the flavor. Tanis had written that the proportions of the recipe “are forgiving and not etched in stone,” so I figured the ingredients might be forgiving, too. And sure enough, the dish was delicious.

His recipe calls for cooking the rabbit for about an hour in the oven. I was doing it on the stovetop, so I had to guess when it would be done. The nice thing about a braise, is that it is very forgiving. As it turned out the night I served it, everyone needed to get their children into bed before eating, so it sat on the stove for well more than an hour. The meat was falling off the bone by the time we ate it, and there was nothing left when we were done. I served it over couscous.

Olympic Rabbit Stew

 

• 1 whole rabbit (2 1/2 to 3 pounds)
• Olive oil
• Salt and pepper
• Flour, for dusting
• 1 onion, finely diced
• 2 cups leeks, finely diced
• 2 anchovies
• 6 garlic cloves, minced
• 2 tablespoons rosemary, roughly chopped
• 8 ounces cremini or portobello mushrooms, thickly sliced
• Pinch of red pepper flakes
• One 28 oz can of tomatoes, chopped
• 1/2 cup dry white wine
• 1 cup unsalted chicken broth (or vegetable stock).

 

Cut the rabbit into 9 pieces (or ask your butcher to) as follows: with a sharp cleaver, cut the saddle (center portion) into 3 pieces, leaving the kidneys attached. Cut the front portion (front legs) in half through the backbone. Chop each hind leg into 2 pieces.

Heat 1/4 inch of olive oil in a Dutch oven. Season the rabbit pieces with salt and pepper, then dust lightly with flour. Lightly brown the rabbit for about 3 minutes on both sides, working in batches. Set aside

Pour off the used oil, wipe out the pan and add 2 tablespoons fresh oil. Heat to medium-high, add the onions and the anchovies and cook till soft, about 5 minutes. Add the leek, garlic, rosemary and mushrooms. Season generously with salt and pepper, and add red pepper flakes to taste. Cook for 2 minutes more, stirring.

Add the chopped tomatoes and wine, and let the mixture reduce for 1 minute. Add the broth, bring to a simmer, taste and adjust seasonings.

Return the rabbit to the dish. Cover the dish, and simmer for about 1 hour. Let rest 10 minutes before serving.

Yield: 4 servings.

 

Creamy Mushroom Bruschetta: A Guest Post

I was recently interviewed by Paul Kidwell, a public relations consultant and freelance writer, for an article about men and cooking on the Good Men Project website. It was a pleasure to hear from Kidwell, who lives in Boston with his wife and son, a nineteen-year-old sophomore at Boston College. Kidwell told me that “he thinks about food – its preparation and consumption – about every two seconds, and is happiest when in the kitchen making a meal for his family.”

Naturally, I wanted to hear more, and he was kind enough to send me a beautiful guest post. I like it for two reasons. One, I love mushrooms; and two, my kids are still very young, and I can only imagine what it will be like when they are in college. It kind of makes me misty-eyed, frankly, but I’ll stop. Here’s his guest post.

Christmas Help

The emails started coming in early December; finding my In Box at the oddest hours of the morning. 2:17, 3:47, 4:12 was when my son, Songwen, who is a Boston College sophomore, decided to take a break from one of his many all-night study excursions in preparation for final exams and end-of-term papers to send me notes requesting that I make certain dishes during his semester break. The subject lines read like a menu from a restaurant specializing in warm, cozy comfort food asking for dishes such as lobster paella, beef stew, mushroom cassoulet, Tuscan white bean soup, and veal marsala.  I had to laugh when I thought of his classmates who were probably also sharing the same pre-dawn hours dreading upcoming tests of their own academic mettle, while my boy has visions of shimmering garlic, bubbling  stews, and simmering soups dance in his head. He is nothing if not my child when it comes to sharing my passion for cooking and eating good food; something I schooled him on at an early age. 

And this Christmas he will not only enjoy eating the meals, but also join me in the kitchen in their preparation; a greater gift I cannot imagine.

For his first meal I am planning on making Pasta Alla Carbonara, Tuscan white bean soup, roasted asparagus and creamy mushroom bruschetta. The first three are classic dishes and everyone has their own recipe. The bruschetta is a recent find from a feature in the Wall Street Journal. It comes from April Bloomfield, chef/owner of New York’s Spotted Pig.

Creamy Mushroom Bruschetta

• 3 tablespoons olive oil, plus extra as needed
• 1 pound mushrooms (chanterelle, maitake or king trumpet), sliced into ½-inch pieces
• Salt
• 2 cloves garlic, peeled and finely chopped (about 1 tablespoon)
• 1 tablespoon butter
• 3 tablespoons roughly chopped flat leaf parsley
• 1/4 cup crème fraîche
• 2 tablespoons finely sliced chives
• 4 (¾-inch) slices rye bread

1. Set a large, heavy pan over medium heat. Add 3 tablespoons oil. Once very hot, add mushrooms and a pinch of salt. Sauté them, stirring from time to time, until browned and tender, about 6 minutes. Once mushrooms cook down, traces of their juices should streak the pan. If too dry, deglaze with splashes of water.

2. Stir in garlic, butter and parsley. Cook until garlic is golden, 3-4 minutes. Season to taste with salt. Remove pan from heat. Stir in crème fraîche and chives until evenly distributed.

3. Set another pan over medium-high heat. Once hot, add a slick of oil and lay in bread. Toast both sides until crisp and golden, 1-2 minutes per side.

4. Whisk together 2 tablespoons oil and lemon juice. Place arugula in large bowl and toss to lightly coat with dressing. Season with salt.

5. Spoon mushroom topping over toasts. Serve bruschetta with salad.

Late Autumn Sangria Recipe

In my item about Progressive Dinners, a month or so ago, I mentioned that I would post some of the great recipes for the food and drink that was served that night. In the holiday spirit, I present a recipe for Sangria, served by a dad who used to be a professional chef, so he knows what he is talking about. It's an autumnal recipe, and even though the temperature is dropping, trees are lighting, and carolers are out, it is still autumn. He does mentions glüwein, or mulled wine, in his intro, though, so I'll have to see if he has a recipe for that. It might be more appropriate for the coming months (and if you have a good glüwein recipe, be sure to let me know).

Autumn Sangria

Sangria is a great way to use bottles of wine that have been opened but not finished. A wise restaurant will use all of the opened by-the-glass bottles from the previous day to make a house sangria or similar punch e.g. glüwein, resulting in consistently fresh wines by-the glass (I hate it when I get served a glass of wine in a restaurant that was clearly opened days ago.) This is an autumn adaptation of the Spanish classic.

Many sangria recipes specify wine varietals, but due to the amount of sweeteners and adjuncts, I feel that this is irrelevant. The only exception is over-oaked wines, which I feel are inappropriate for all occasions.

The purpose of making sangria is to use the ingredients at ones disposal; including, but not limited to, the season and one's preferences. The following recipe is only a framework from which to work. The crucial ingredients after the wine are the sugar, orange juice, and citrus to provide a balance of acidity and sweetness.

 

Sangria

•       Approximately one 750 ml bottle of red wine (mixing in some white wine is fine too)
•       1 cup spiced simple syrup (see below)
•       1/2 cup orange juice
•       1/2 cup brandy
•       1/4 cup Triple Sec
•       2 juice oranges, cut into thin half slices
•       1 lemon, cut into thin half slices
•       1 red apple, halved, cored and cut into large dice
•       1 red pear, halved, cored and cut into large dice
•       1 cup sparkling apple cider (can substitute Sprite)

Combine all the ingredients, best if allowed to macerate overnight. Add the sparkling apple cider just before serving. Serve over ice.

Spiced Simple Syrup

•       2 cups water
•       1 cup sugar
•       1 cinnamon stick
•       ½ teaspoon whole cloves
•       1 teaspoon whole allspice
•       5 whole star anise
•       2 slices fresh ginger
•       Pinch of freshly grated nutmeg

To make the spiced simple syrup

Place all of the ingredients in a saucepan. Bring to a boil and simmer until reduced by half. Allow to cool and strain.

Stone Soup or Never Ending Lamb Stew?

Last weekend, Nina, Pinta, and  Santa Maria and I had my brother, his wife, and their two-year-old son over for Sunday supper, a move that allowed me to meet two goals. The first is to spend more high-quality time with my siblings and friends. The second is to spend less money on lunch, by bringing a meal to work each day.

Lunch used to be easy for me. I’m fortunate to have a nice cafeteria at my office, but lately, perhaps because of this nation's absurd drive to produce ethanol (which pushes up the cost of corn and feed for livestock), or perhaps its because of the rise in oil prices (which makes it more expensive to transport the food), the cafeteria has been charging more, and the quality has slipped. I realized that I was routinely spending more than $10 a day to have lunch, and I wasn’t exactly happy with what I was eating. So I decided I’d bring my food, instead of buying it.

But making breakfast, lunch, and dinner for the wife and kids is already a bit overwhelming, so I was flummoxed about how to add another meal to the mix for myself. The only thing I could think to do is what has always worked for me—just cook more food at home.

One week I roasted two chickens on a Sunday, and had one bird that night for dinner. The next day, I had half a bird and a left-over baked potato for lunch, and another half a bird and some quinoa salad the following day. My plan has been working out pretty well, and this week I’ve been eating a great lamb stew that I made for my brother and his family.

I knew when I wanted to make them the lamb stew that I would need to do something to stretch it. I wasn't thinking of the stone-soup folk tale, but it's a bit like what happened. They didn't bring stones, but I brought clams. I made them pasta alle vongole, too, as a first course, and we all had plenty of food to eat. And there was plenty of it left over.

One nice thing about this lamb stew is that it has pinto beans and lima beans in it. Even if your serving of the stew doesn't have much meat, you are still getting a lot of nutrition. At first, I thought it was an odd combination of ingredients (and I don't even like lima beans, ordinarily), but I had great faith in the cookbook where I found the recipe. It comes from one of my favorite ones, Food and Wine's collection from 2001. I just checked on Amazon. It apparently is out of print, but you can get new copies for $0.75, and used copies for $0.13. Now that's a great way to save money. If you're looking for a good cookbook, look no further.

And how does the stew taste? It reminded me of the finest daube I ever had, one cooked about a decade ago in Provence by a friend who had rented Patricia Wells's house there. The hint of red wine took me right back to those halcyon days in the French countryside.

 

Never-Ending Lamb Stew, with Beans and Olives

 

• 1 cup dried pinto beans—soaked overnight in water to cover, drained and rinsed
• 1 bay leaf
• 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 2 pounds boneless lamb shoulder, cut into 2-inch, or smaller, pieces
• Salt and freshly ground pepper
• 2 1/2 ounces finely chopped pancetta
• 1 tablespoon unsalted butter
• 3 large shallots, minced
• 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 2 tablespoons tomato paste
• 1/3-1/2 cup dry red wine
• 4 cups stock (I used vegetable stock, from bullion, which is all I had on hand, but the original recipe calls for 4 cups beef stock or 1 can low-sodium beef broth diluted with 3 cups of water)
• 1 1/2 cups frozen baby lima beans
• 2/3 cup Calamata olives, pitted and halved
• 1/4 cup coarsely chopped parsley

In a medium saucepan, cover the dried beans with water. Simmer the beans with the bay leaf over low heat until tender, about 45 minutes. Leave the beans in their cooking water.

In a medium enameled cast-iron casserole, heat 1 tablespoon of the oil. Add half of the lamb and season with salt and pepper. Brown the meat over moderately high heat, about 3 minutes per side; transfer to a plate. Repeat with the remaining oil and lamb.

Add the pancetta and butter to the casserole and cook over low heat until the pancetta is slightly crisp, about 4 minutes.

Add the shallots and cook until softened but not browned, 3 to 5 minutes.

Stir in the flour and cook, stirring, for 1 minute.

Stir in the tomato paste and then the wine and simmer, stirring, for 3 minutes.

Whisk in the stock until smooth and bring to a boil.

Return the lamb to the casserole and simmer over low heat, skimming a few times, until the lamb is tender, about 1 hour.

Drain the dried beans, add them to the stew and simmer for 15 minutes longer.

Cook the lima beans in a small saucepan of boiling water until tender, about 4 minutes; drain well.

Add the lima beans to the stew and season with salt and pepper.

Stir in the olives.

Spoon the stew into shallow bowls, sprinkle with the parsley and serve.

Note: The lamb stew can be prepared ahead up until the point where you cook and add the lima beans. And the original recipe, from Food & Wine, can be found here.

 

 

 

The Return of the Cioppino

Once, a little over a decade ago, at a time when the Fulton Fish Market was planning its move from its long-term home in lower Manhattan to its current location in the Bronx, I was approached by a literary agent with a book idea: write a history of the market, with the help of a fishmonger who worked there. He put me in touch with a fishmonger, and we expanded the concept to include recipes from his fellow purveyors. We were going to make it a cookbook.

We had a few meetings, and I started to work on the book. Many sleepless nights ensued, when I would get out of bed at 3 a.m. to catch the tail end of the market, which runs while the rest of the world is in bed (or dance clubs, depending on your idea of fun).

Soon, though, it became apparent that the idea of making a cookbook with recipes from fishmongers was fatally flawed. Fishmongers, for the most part, don’t cook. There were plenty of suggestions to put Old Bay on things, but that hardly made a cookbook. I dropped the project.

The fishmonger did leave me with one of his recipes, though. Well it wasn’t really a recipe, but a suggestion for one. He liked to make a cioppino, or fish stew, that he declared got its name because it was a catch of the day kind of thing, made with what ever you could “chop up” and throw in it.

I’ve since learned that the Times (and Wikipedia) beg to differ. It’s some kind of San Francisco thing, according to them, in spite of its Italian-sounding name (it has roots in that country, apparently).

The cioppino came back into my life the other day, when I was visiting a friend, Paul Greenberg, and he made it for dinner. Greenberg, the author of “Four Fish: The Future of the Last Wild Food,” knows his way around the kitchen and the fruits of the sea. Here’s how he prepared it:

"Four Fish" Cioppino

 

For the base:

• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 2 onions chopped
• herb bouquet in cheese cloth consisting of parsley, thyme, oregano, bay, white peppercorns
• 5 cloves garlic
• 1 cup chopped leaks (but I used scallions)
• 2 celery ribs (but I used cauliflower ribs)
• 3/4 lb mushrooms sliced (but I used 2 small potatoes cubed)
• 1 cup white wine
• 1 cup chopped tomatoes
• 4 cups Fumet (fish stock)

You fry all this up and douse it with wine, let the wine boil off and add the fumet.  Boil for about 15 mins then let sit for 30-60 mins (the longer the better)

For the seafood

The recipe I was working from calls for clams, scallops, mussels, shrimp and crabmeat.  All I had on hand was shrimp and striped bass.  I shelled the shrimp and boiled the shells in a metal strainer in the base to give it a little more flavor.  I poached the seafood in the base for abou5 3-5 minutes until a little underdone assuming it would cook more on the stove.

Notes: This is adapted from adapted from Rick Moonen's "Fish without a Doubt." Details are on page 317 of the book, and I have to say if a fish expert like Greenberg has Moonen's volume on his shelf, you should too. And if I was going to mess with Moonen's recipe as much as Greenberg did, I'd have no qualms about substituting chicken stock for the fumet. Here's how the final dish looked:

 

 

Thanksgiving Planning Tips

I have never hosted a Thanksgiving, but I hope to do so someday. In preparation for that big day, I'm starting to take notes. When I looked back at the Thanksgivings of my youth to draw the comic strip for Saveur's website that included the Spinach Madeleine recipe, the research yielded something that might help me going forward.

My mother not only found her original spinach recipe, but she also found a set of instructions about how to pull off such a big party. I always wondered how she did it, and now I have an inkling. Some of the advice is a bit dated, but much of it is very practical, just like my mother.

How do you plan for the holiday, and how did you learn to do so?

Here are the instructions:

Pork Roast Recipe

This morning, I jostled past my fellow commuters and climbed the subway stairs in Midtown. Coming up to the bright street, I caught sight of the sunlight on an office building’s marbled facade, and I was reminded of why I live in New York City.  I need to have people around. I love their energy and creativity. To me, the buildings of Manhattan are a physical manifestation of the human imagination.

On a smaller scale, I see cooking the same way. The meal is a creation of the imagination, and it brings people together. The other day, Santa Maria ran into an old friend in the neighborhood. She was having her kitchen renovated, so we made plans to have her over for dinner.

The night we got together, our friend, who is a literary agent, was coming from a meeting with one of her writers from out of town. That meeting ran late, and as happens with writers, there were some complications. The writer lives on a farm, and he had spent the day harvesting apples. He hadn’t eaten since that morning.  We took him in, and served him dinner.

I had planned on serving a pork roast, and it was large enough for an extra guest, even one who was hungry from laboring in the field all day. This pork roast is a great party dish, because it doesn’t require much active work. Once you put in the oven, all you need to do is keep an eye on it, and make sure the pan doesn’t dry out.

Pork chops are often served with applesauce, and this roast is based on that idea. I put the meat on top of slices of apples and pieces of sage, and as it roasts, the apples cook up nicely with the pan drippings and the herbs. The result is  not exactly applesauce, but it’s delicious. Just ask the apple farmer. He loved it.

Pork Roast Recipe

• 1 apple, washed, cored, and sliced
• 1 bunch sage, washed
• 4-6 cloves of garlic, to taste
• One 2-3 lb boneless pork roast
• Salt, to taste

 

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees

Slice the garlic into thick pieces, and with a pointy knife, stab a bunch of holes in the top and sides of the pork roast. Put the garlic slices along with bits of sage into the holes

Salt the meat

Lay the apple slices on the bottom of a roasting pan (for a piece of meat this size, I use a small ceramic pan) in roughly the same area as the size of the pork roast

Lay a few sage leaves over and under the slices

Perch the pork roast on top of the apples. The apples should be under the meat. They can be stacked a few layers high. Just don't leave them in the pan uncovered by the meat.

Pour a bit of water in the pan so the bottom of it isn't dry.

Put the meat into the oven and roast for about 30-45 mintues. Make sure the pan doesn't dry out. You don't want anything to burn in the pan. Add more water as you go along, if necessary.

After about 30 to 45 minutes, turn the heat down to 350, and continue to roast until the meat is 150 degrees internal, about an hour to an hour-and-a-half total.

Let the meat sit for ten minutes before slicing and serving.

Gather the apples and sage in a bowl and serve on the side.

 

Mushroom Sauce for Steak

Over the weekend, I had a chance to work on my steak-cooking skills. We don’t eat red meat very often, at least not steak, and so I’ve never felt confident about cooking it. The more I make it, though, the better I get at it. It's a bit like learning to ride a bicycle.

On Saturday, we threw a dinner party for my brother-in-law’s fiftieth birthday, and I took the gamble of serving steak. I had six steaks to cook, and I filled the house with so much smoke it looked like a Civil War battlefield. I knew this was going to be the case, so I had sent Santa Maria and the kids out of the house for a half hour. I was left along with the meat.

I have a crutch when I make my broiled leg of lamb—the instant-read meat thermometer, and I figured I could use it to help insure that I got the meat right. I was feeling a lot of pressure—my brother-in-law is from Texas, and he’s the one who schooled me over the summer on how to grill steaks. I had to get these right.

Three different cuts of meat—New York strip, rib eye, and Delmonico—were before me, and they were each of a varying thickness. I took them out early, got them to room temperature, and salted them heavily. I heated a cast-iron pan until it was smoking, then rendered in the pan the big side strip of fat on the steak. I charred one side nicely on a high heat, then flipped them and turned the heat down.

I was cooking the meat about an hour or two in advance of the dinner party, so I wouldn’t have to work when my guests were here, so I knew I would have time to let the meat sit. This, it turned out was key. I cooked each steak until it was 125+ degrees internally (raw, according to the printing on the thermometer's dial), and figured I had it made. The steaks would sit while we had our drinks, and they would be nice and pink inside.

Alas, it didn’t turn out exactly that way. A few of the cuts were a bit too raw inside for me. I think that next time I will cook them to 130 degrees, and see how that goes. It didn’t make a difference the night of the party, though. At the last minute two guests cancelled because their child was sick, so there was more than enough well-cooked food for everyone.

Nina and Pinta gobbled up their servings. It was the first time they ate steak, and unlike other new foods, it one went down without any problem. In fact, we had steak for lunch the next two days, and then we ran out. That didn’t stop Pinta from asking for it at the other evening. When I told her I was serving flounder, she said, “Why aren’t we having steak?” Yes, why not, indeed.

I served the steak with fennel risotto, and a simple mushroom sauce. The sauce proved to be as popular as the meat; here’s the recipe.

Mushroom Sauce for Steak

• One medium shallot, diced
• A handful of Cremini mushrooms, washed and sliced thinly
• ¼ cup or more of a decent red wine
• Some very good butter

In a good sauté pan, sauté the shallots in a bit of olive oil until they are soft.

Set the shallots aside.

On a high heat, sauté the mushroom slices until they brown a bit on the edges. You don’t have to cook them all the way. Work in batches, if necessary, and don't crowd the pan.

As each batch of mushrooms cooks set them aside with the shallots.

When the final batch of mushrooms is cooked, toss the shallots and the previously cooked mushrooms back in the pan. Add the wine and the butter and reduce to desired thickness.

Salt to taste, and if you have a herb you like, such as thyme, or tarragon, by all means add that, too.

Server with the steak, and allow guests to spoon it over their cuts of meat.

How to Roast a Pig, Part One: La Caja China a.k.a. the Magic Box

Put a roasted pig on a table, and you’ll learn a thing or two about human nature. People will gather as soon as they smell the scent of the roasted meat. They’ll start salivating. They’ll start stamping their feet. And once they taste that crispy, salty skin, they’ll be hard pressed to contain themselves.

I discovered this on Saturday at the Smorgasburg, the new weekly Williamsburg food market, which so kindly donated space for the writer Manny Howard, the firefighter Josh Lomask, and myself to roast a pig to help support local farmers. Thanks to the generosity of Fairway Market and Roaming Acres Farm, we raised money for the Greenmarket’s New Farmer Development Project.

Before Saturday, I had never roasted a pig in my life. But thanks to Roberto Guerra, who sent a La Caja China to New York for the barbecue, I did it without breaking a sweat. If you think you can't roast a pig, you are mistaken. La Caja China is magical.

It's an aluminum-lined wooden box that holds the pig as the coals burn above it. Somehow it allows you to roast a whole pig in a mere four hours. And it’s pretty darn foolproof. In my next post I'll go into more detail, but for now take a look at this short video by Bobby Flay. It captures much of the experience very well, and gives a little history of the box. A link is here, and the video is below: