It came in the mail yesterday. It’s the Fall 2016 issue, technically #20. Literally, the third installment of the Lucky Peach spotlight on Cooks & Chefs, also dubbed the Fine Dining issue. I still do not have my own kitchen, but stay tuned…there is real potential for p.139, Fried Chicken: Hawaiian Chicken with Spam Fried Rice!
Page 18 – Lucky Peach #17 – The Breakfast Issue
Something amazing happened. I cooked a Lucky Peach breakfast in my Mom’s kitchen. Yes, I’m still homeless but her guest room has been mighty comfy lately. After a short gig at Kitchen Mouse in Highland Park (my first ever real restaurant experience, and it was lovely, the peeps there are all fantastic), I have taken up copywriting at an ad agency while burning the midnight oil on my own work (forever). Recently, my friend Bobbo visited from Cordova, Alaska where he’s a forest ranger in the Chugash. He interrupted all my shit and so I decided on his way out we’d have some cocktails while I cooked a warm meal for him and a few other friends. So, here are Brooklyn chef Stephen Tanner’s Bologna Cups, aka the Albany Cafeteria Breakfast. From what I gather from his photos in the LP article, we’d get along fine – smoking and southern boys are right up my alley.
AND I hustled my friend/rad photographer Micah Slay to shoot the pics and drink with us.
Don’t let this breakfast fool you, it’s a juggling act and after I got through my first Capt & Coke, I whipped my crew into shape and put them to work. The bologna cups are easy to make, but I recommend you do them at the end actually, since they take seconds to curl up in a hot saute pan and you want to serve them caliente. By the way, I learned that in L.A. it’s not so common to get bologna sliced at the deli. I witnessed it in some shitty part of Massachusetts with an ex-biker boyfriend I had and thought they did it everywhere, but not so much. Oscar Meyer still rules most deli meat aisles (probably ’cause this stuff is nuclear), but there are many varieties to choose from. I chose the pork & chicken combo over the beef, because after all, bologna is really Italian mortadella sausage. It’s actually a much fancier breakfast than you thought.
It’s the hash browns and salsa verde that take real prep and patience. So, just get right into that. Boil the potato for 9 min, grate it, and then form little piles on a griddle. Put 2 T butter (YEP) on top of each pile on med heat, and let the butter melt all the way through that puppy and then flip it. Add cheddar on top and dream. Tanner reveals that this is his infiltration of the Waffle House hash browns, and holy fuck, he’s got that right.
In the meantime, get someone to make you a drink and then get on the salsa verde. It’s nt the season here in L.A. but since there’s so many Mexicans, you can’t sneeze without finding tomatillos and jalapenos in stores still. Boil the jalapeno for 1 min, then add the tomatillos and turn off the flame. Let them cool, then drain.
Add them to a blender with chopped onion, garlic, cilantro, and salt. I say add as much as you like of all those things, taste it and make it exactly how you like, everyone is different on their salsa code.
The real trick is once you have a buzz, make sure someone else wants to do the poached eggs because they take up most of your attention. Tanner gave us a fancy scientific prop instruction involving a cup. The homie Chris was on it, and a 3 min poach was perfect.
Get that slice of bologna hot and curled into a cup and add the cheddar hash browns first, then the poached egg, and top with your salsa verde.
That my friend, is da bomb diggity. Super tasty and pairs wonderfully with Capt. Morgan’s and Coke – and a visit from Ranger Bob.
It’s been a long hot endless summer on the road of life. Partly due to a heatwave, but also because I’ve had no real place to call my own since July. I had to leave my cool vintage apartment in Silver Lake before it fell down, literally and emotionally. The building is known for a famous murder in the 1930’s and sweethearts Kurt & Courtney lived there once, so you can just imagine the pain in the walls of that laundry room (plus the electrical pre-dated grunge by decades). I fortunately left somewhat unscathed and found places to dream at night while day-writing: Mom’s spare room, back of my Subaru, hotel rooms, friend’s couches, etc etc…but a home is on the horizon! Which means, you guessed it, a kitchen to call my own. A tiled cook’s dream. A place to cry over onions. A room to cut myself slicing habaneros with no gloves on and then rub my eyes. A space to fulfill one of my destinies (you can have more than one): TO COOK EVERY RECIPE IN LUCKY PEACH!
Thank you for waiting.
photo credit: “Hitchhiker I” by Sleep Weasel
Pg.72 – Lucky Peach Issue #2 – The Sweet Spot
If I didn’t say it enough in the last post, I really love those corn cookies. Like, REALLY. This next recipe for the corn cookie ham and cheese fell on the pages right after the corn cookie and I just couldn’t believe what was happening to me when I first encountered this. I was absolutely floored at the possibility of making a ham and cheese, one of the greats of the grilled cheese world, with a pair of cookies! But, I’ll pretty much try anything (ask every drug addict that knows me) so I ran to the store, bought some sharp cheddar cheese and black forest ham and went at it. You gotta make the cookies first, so please see my previous post on the corn cookie to get the recipe. Here’s the other specifics:
Look at those yummy cookies, I want to eat some right now just from this photo!! Okay, relax, pull yourself together!
It’s pretty simple, bust out a non-stick cooking pan (I tried a stainless steel the other day actually, and it ripped the top off the cookie, so I don’t know if that was my lameness or the pan really makes a difference…so that’s the source of my suggestion on that) and turn the heat on med-high. Step away, let it get hot, then put a cookie top-down with the small slices of cheese on it in the pan.
Then add the ham.
Put the top of the cookie on and walk away. I’m serious, you need to be patient and let the cookie caramelize.
Let it cook for a few minutes, be patient! Then flip it over – it will look like this, and that’s cool. Plus, the cheese will melt, and let it get gooey!
Another couple minutes and then get it out the pan and eat it!!
Thanks for the photos, Sharon. Part of my last supper (the meal I would have before I die, if I knew it was coming, aka my death row meal) would have to include this. It’s an out of sight taste combination of sweet, creamy, and savory. You MUST make and eat these before you die.
Pg. 102 – Lucky Peach Issue #1
Are you ready? Get ready. This one’s a doozy. Recently, I looked up how to spell doozy, and there you have it.
This recipe comes from Mario Carbone, a great NYC chef who owns a spot in Little Italy in NYC called Parm. I checked it out last November, a few days after Sandy hit, literally on the night of that damn Nor’Easter. It was dumping snow, and first I had an awesome dinner at Torrisi next door and then went to Parm for some late night Hot Toddy’s. Torrisi and Parm are like brother restaurants that Mario and chef Rich Torrisi run together. I guess you could say Torrisi is a the more upscale dining experience (but still very cozy-neighborhoody) and Parm is like the cool sandwich/booze shop. Both spots have great service and the food is tha shit (that’s a good term, something I’ve even heard my Mom use lately, which makes me wonder why I let her in on it).
Okay, let’s get to it. You got some time on your hands? Because if you want to make this right, you need a few hours. There’s a lot of prep and we’re talking 2-3 hours to make the ragu, plus we’re making homemade pasta! And there’s a Jamaican spice mix scavenger hunt involved.
If I’m not growing it in my garden (seriously, and that’s why it’s cooler to live in L.A. than NYC, suckers!) then I go to my neighborhood herb/spice store. Not the medicinal marijuana joint, but the Silver Lake Spice Station. As you can see from the photo above, it’s a lovely small store with a ton of jars of aromatic taste heaven. I even threw in some hippies in this photo just to pay homage to the peeps that taught me to grow herbs. A woman named Kristy works there and she helped me get everything I needed, plus she ground it fresh right there, and combined it for me. (Although, I did my own black peppercorns, I’m obsessed and have a large stash at home already.)
Please ground the spices fresh the day you make this, it makes a huge difference – if you do it yourself, you can use a coffee bean grinder, and a handy kitchen scale. There is nothing like the smell of fresh coriander seeds getting ground up…so damn good.
Make the Jamaican spice mix first, you need it for everything. Make the Goatish Cheese mix later – we’ll get back to that. After you got the spice mix ready, start the prep for the ragu and then just get those onions on, they do take about 40 min solid to get nice and golden brown.
If anyone ever wants to come over and teach me how to cut things, I welcome the challenge. I am constantly google imaging julienne and even minced for some things because I’m such a dork. Julienne the onions – meaning cut them in longer, thick slices. Mince the jalapeno, garlic and ginger, which means finely chop it, but not that fine…I think. Dice up the tomatoes, which means, cut it chunky!
Keep it on med low for like awhile and get those onions golden brown, don’t walk off on them either, pay attention so you don’t burn them and know when they’re ready. Then add the garlic, ginger, and jalapeno. The habaneros are for a garnish we’ll do in a bit.
Okay, don’t talk shit about my onions. They’re good. Get everything in there, cook on med-low another 15 and the contents should be drying out. Essentially, we’re making like a crazy paste that we’ll add the meat too eventually.
Once it’s almost dry, add the tomatoes – use fresh tomatoes or you’re dumb. I used “organic tomatoes on the vine.” What variety is that really? Vons is dumb.
This cooks awhile. Again, we want it dry and like a big dense pasty substance. Then add the Jamaican spice mix and cook for another 5 minutes. At some point in all this, you need to get the ground beef going in another pan – it only takes like 10 minutes really.
I love that photo. It’s disgusting and awesome.
Get the pan hot, add the beef and some salt and cook it, but don’t brown it all crazy. Then add it to the tomato paste concoction (below, on the left – notice how dry and pasty it is now), add the chicken stock, and put a lid slightly ajar on it and leave it alone for 2 hrs (well, maybe just stir every 30 min or so, and taste it and add some salt if you think it needs it). Also, I was sneaky and started the habenero garnish too. I put the sliced peppers in a small saucepan, covered it with some olive oil and put it on low for 20 minutes. My stove got real crazy quick.
Okay, let’s make the pasta! I’m half Sicilian. Every December, I’m voluntarily forced to make homemade ravioli with my Mom, Aunt Bernice and sister Lisa. Sometimes Kris, a good family friend, is there too. It looks like this, but there’s a lot of arguing over things like what a pinch of salt really is. That’s how Sicilians work, if you’re not familiar.
So, my Aunt Bernice, the one on the far left, also likes to make what we’ve been calling gnocchi for years. So, I know what gnocchi looks like everywhere else but for some damn reason, my Aunt has been making cavatelli forever and calling it gnocchi. When I saw this recipe, I was like ‘where the hell am I getting a cavatelli maker’ – then I looked closer and was like ‘shit, that’s gnocchi, I got that.’ When really, it’s not, my Aunt just happens to have a cavatelli maker. I have no idea where to get one. Google it, ask your crazy Sicilian friends if their Aunt Bernice has one.
I can’t explain why, but I swear she’s been calling it gnocchi forever. I think everyone eats it so fast that no one cares to discuss the difference. By the way, she’s 70 plus and runs the athletic dept at St. Finbar Catholic school in Burbank. Arguing (any discussion really) with her is like asking for a migraine.
Cavatelli is clearly not gnocchi. Cavatelli is like a small hot dog bun shape that this little machine cranks out quite nicely. This recipe makes a lot, but you can freeze any you don’t use for later.
Making the dough was stressful. It should have been easy, since I borrowed my Mom’s stand-up mixer (how old am I? seriously). First, I put all the ingredients in at once.
It’s only supposed to stir for like 2 minutes and come together, but it totally did not. I ended up adding like almost 1/2 cup more hot water. My neighbor Sharon was helping – taking photos and counseling me because she has restaurant experience that is always a bonus. This time, as I was panicking, she called her friend Eric who is the sous chef at No. 7 but used to make fresh pasta everyday when he was the head chef at Le Gamin. This is their conversation:
She meant 1 cup hot water – but regardless, shit was super dry. Maybe Lucky Peach meant 3 cups? I added at least 1/2 cup – probably a little more actually. That helped and the dough formed. I knead it a bit more out of the bowl and set it aside for like 30 minutes, then it was a lot happier when it came to actually dealing with it to make the cavatelli. Beautiful dough, by the way – the Jamaican spice mix goes in it and gives it a pretty color and you can see all the spices. Mouth-watering stuff.
Knead it out into a flat disk, little less than a 1/2 inch and then make long strips. I actually took these and then rolled them a little to make them even longer.
Feed the machine!
If your ragu is still cooking, put this pasta in the fridge. When you’re ready to go, get a huge pan of boiling water going and drop the gnocchi – I mean cavatelli in and let it cook!
While it cooks, whip up that Goatish cheese mix. I went to the Silver Cheese Store again to get my dairy. They don’t usually carry a goat-milk ricotta so I did the 50-50 mix of cow-milk ricotta to a nice chevre. Mix it together and set it aside.
The pasta will rise to the top when it’s ready. Add it to the ragu and let it mix together.
At this point, our mouths are watering – let’s face it, we’re drooling.
Plate it up and add a dollup (what is that word, really?) of the goatish cheese mix to the top and some of the habanero garnish.
Sharon and Stu are expecting any day now. I secretly hoped the dish would bring on labor immediately, but alas we’re still waiting…
This was SO FUCKING GOOD. Start thinking about leftovers and the potential of adding an egg on top…
So, make the time, make Cavatelli P.S. 46 (dropped the mic).
Eat a Lucky Peach 