Ultimate Chocolate Cake. Really.

Everyone has recipes that are personal to them. It's either a specific flavor combination of a carrot cake that hits all your buttons just right, or an imperfect cookie texture that's exactly like grandma used to make. The more I read cookbooks, the more I realize that everyone's trying to reinterpret recipes to fit their personal taste. As much as Jamie Oliver tries to tell me that he's made the 'Ultimate' cheeseburger, roast chicken, Bakewell tart, etc., I'm not buying it - it's just one that he's really into.

So it is rare that I consider a recipe the quintessential for that food. Having said all that, here is the Archetype of Chocolate Cake.

This is the chocolate cake you've been thinking of since you read the title. This is the cake from Roald Dahl's Matilda. It's the granddaddy of every chocolate cake, ever.  

Of course, such a cake is no secret. It's apparently the most-reviewed recipe on epicurious.com and it's just a matter of time before the commenters join together, apply for tax exempt status and form a religion wherein melted chocolate plays a crucial role. I'd join them.

The dough is gorgeously glossy and looks like a thick chocolate pudding. It bakes up into a dense, intensely dark and not too sweet cake. It's moist, but not fragile and one of the best things about it is that it freezes well, so you can attempt tricky multi-layered cakes with it, you know, those tiered affairs that take a few days to assemble. 

There's no reason to make this cake now, dangerous hings happen when this baby is made without the appropriate number of guests to feed. Don't even bookmark this page. Someday, in the not too far future, when you need a chocolate cake recipe, you will find it. It's that big of a deal.

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My Panna Cotta Journey

What follows is a condensed, fictionalized stream of thought in regards to making a dairy-based gelatin dessert:

Panna Cotta - it's fun to say! It's also easy to make. Except for the small detail that it separates on me. There's the super smooth top portion where all the cream has risen to and a gelatinous, clear section at the bottom. No matter, because it's still delicious. It's delicious and it's easy to make. Yum. With fresh summer fruits. Double yum.

Hm, wait. Since it's easy to make, I'll likely be making it a lot, so is there a way to fix the layer issue?

Out comes Nigel Slater (or rather his remarkable book - Kitchen Diaries - I believe the man himself has been happily out for a while now) - I've made his rosewater yoghurt panna cotta previously and it was perfectly smooth. Let's add yoghurt into the mix!

Harumph. Adding the yoghurt cured my panna cotta of its separation anxiety, but it now has a grainy texture for some reason. What happened?

Scientist nr.1 (my mother) walks by, warily eyes the ever present panna cotta pots in front of me and offhandedly mentions that the yoghurt is curdling from the heat of the milk I am adding it to.
You just bought yourself another batch of panna cotta, Scientist nr.1! (My father will be Scientist nr. 2, I call him for math advice.)

Yes!! Letting the milk/cream/vanilla mix cool before adding the yoghurt, works! But in the course of all the tinkering my gelatin proportions are all off and my dessert is either runny or a Jell-o consistency. Argh!!!!

Grumble. Tinker. Wait. Taste.

Mmmm... Smooth, creamy, tangy from the yoghurt Panna Cotta! With some fruit on top. Yum.

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Fun With Cans - Pea and Shrimp Risotto

So here's a risotto recipe, just in time, while New York is still enjoying some glorious spring weather. In a few weeks summer will be here and the city will become the hellhole I know it to be in July through August.  Standing in front of a pot of something boiling will be inconceivable. For now though, a bowl of something warm and filling is still appreciated on some evenings.

Even though I grew up eating plenty of fish, I've never been very confident cooking it. It sees that fresh fish always requires a more delicate hand than I am willing to extend. Preserved seafood however- smoked mackarel, salted roe, canned salmon and tuna, etc, while often not really in need of cooking, is something I love incorporating into meals.

It can be as simple as having some anchovy filets to add to Pasta Puttanesca. My mother made an awesome, Russian-style, mayo-heavy rice salad with canned salmon. I loved Alton Brown's ode to the sardine with his sardine-avocado sandwich. Once I got sick of that, I simply started breaking up the fish and using it as a sort of sauce with past (just add some red onion or capers, something to brighten up the lot).

Now, stinky, oily fish might not be for everyone (everyone is missing out!). Did you know though, that for just one easy payment of a couple of bucks, you too can be the proud owner of a can of wild small shrimp. These little buggers are minuscule, apparently caught in the Pacific Northwest, and are a really nice, low fat protein boost. Not at all oily, but rather packed up in water, they're a great intro to canned, preserved fish and a nice change up from your regular ol' can of tuna.

In this risotto, I paired the shrimp with frozen peas, and even though we're talking about ingredients that are preserved (the good kind - canned and frozen), their sweetness gives the risotto a fresh, spring-like quality. The hit of wine in the beginning and the Parmesan at the end add some acidity and grounding saltiness to balance things out.

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Red Hot Cauliflower and Some Admissions to Debauchery

 Many moons ago, and more specifically, last September, I returned home from a month long trip to Asia. It was an absolutely amazing trip to countries I'd never been before and with good friends I hadn't seen in years. Traveling with people you trust, who know the country that's beyond foreign to you, is magical, most importantly because they take you to all the good food spots.

In fact, they had so many good food spots on their 'must do' lists that at one point we were having four full meals a day. So when I returned to New York, sun-blistered, extra chubby and exhilarated, I vowed to go vegetarian for a month and to stop smoking. The idea was to detox from all of the meat-heavy dishes I'd been eating for a month and to clear my lungs. (Vietnamese cigarettes are cheap y'all!)

This resolution failed on many levels, but most notably on one evening when after a long, stressful day of moving my work's offices uptown, I went for celebratory drinks with our IT guy. These are snippets of the ordering from that night: "Bacon Bloody Mary, good sir!" I said to the barman, because I can't resist a Bloody Mary on a menu, bacon in a cocktail isn't really meat, right? "Pack of Marlboro Lights, please!" I said to the bodega owner, because willpower and I parted ways amicably earlier in the evening. "Order of Buffalo wings with the next beer!" I said to the next barman, because I love Buffalo wings, and by this point I had either forgotten that chicken was meat, or that I was a vegetarian.

There are a few lessons that I take away from that night. Make friends with the IT guys, they're good peeps. Bacon Bloody Marys are a good idea at any time of day. Smoking is very, very bad for you. Stop it. And most notably for this post, Buffalo wings are usually part of a messy night and an unpleasant morning hangover.

This is shame, since I love Buffalo wings and am currently on a bit of a hot sauce reconnaissance mission. I bought a bottle of Frank's Red Hot Sauce as an impulse buy the other day and had an internal dialogue on whether I was really going to attempt making wings at home. I really don't trust myself with a pot of hot oil, but what else could I bathe in hot sauce just the same way?

Answer: Cauliflower substitution.

Substituting cauliflower for starch, dairy and other things that are good and holy in this life, has been making the rounds. There's cauliflower fried rice, cauliflower mashed potatoes, and cauliflower Alfredo sauce. Some of my friends have been experimenting with cauliflower recipes, but I just never felt the need. If I wanted cauliflower, I had that, and if I wanted a cream sauce I used heavy cream and cheese.

This particular experiment really arose from my absolute craving for the Buffalo wing taste without risk of any questionable decisions that precluded or followed wing consumption. I'm no longer pretending to be a vegetarian, so while I could make Buffalo wings at home, it seems much more labor intensive than I was willing to attempt.

This is a very good solution. Super easy to make with just three (3!!!) ingredients and a hot oven. You really get the vinegary kick of the sauce, and really, that's half the appeal of wings. Cauliflower works here because its florets hold on to the sauce really well and it roasts beautifully. I ate my first batch with some quinoa and avocado. My friend Angie sprinkled some blue cheese on hers and called it a day. You can dress it all up with blue cheese sauce and celery sticks, but then, when you're pretending that much, just go to the bar.

On to the recipe!

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