I made contact with the endive on the shelf and wanted it in a salad instantly. Here is what I came up with.
A warm endive and blackberry salad with minneola zest and supremes
Ingredients:
- Extra virgin olive oil for sauteing
- 1/4 Cup diced white onions
- Two medium sized endives, diagonal cut (half inch slices)
- Half a cup of black berries
- One tablespoon of balsamic vinegar
- Zest of one minneola
- Supremes of one minneola
- Two tablespoons of toasted charoli nuts (use cracked almonds or pine nuts as a substitute)
- Chopped chives and baby spinach leaves for garnish
Directions:
- In one tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil sweat your onions
- Add the endives and the vinegar. Saute for three minutes on low heat stirring occasionally without bruising
- Add blackberries and mineola zest and warm for one minute; stir to combine without bruising
- Plate, garnish with nuts, chives, and minneola supremes
Notes:
- The zest of the mineola is very mild and sweet. It makes the dish while still allowing for the endives to be the star.
- This salad would work extremely well with a strong chevre. That is how I will serve it next time I make it.
- Charoli nuts are endemic to South Asia. When raw the flavor is similar to that of almonds but the texture is delicate like that of pine nuts. When toasted the nut is very similar to sunflower seeds. This is one of the few ingredients that I brought back from India. I think it has the potential to be a substitute for the very expensive pine nuts.
Achatz and team have figured out a way to infuse dishes with the aroma of fragrant spring flowers. A bowl within a bowl is the gist of it. Here is the dish. I wanted to see if the same worked for two of my favorite flowers. Mimosas and jasmine.
I boiled some water and poured over. The quanitity needs to be managed with jasmine as the aroma that emanates can be very strong. Mimosas are less obtrusive even in large quantities.
Spring has sprung in Istanbul this week and it’s mimosa season. My favorite flower. The fragrance is elegant and very distinct. The branches are strong and the flowers are delicate. It’s ephemeral. The season lasts only a couple weeks.
Melisas are probably my third favorite flower but I have too much of a history with Melisas.
That’s how masala dosa is made. You spread a thin layer of the urad dal / rice batter. You top it with some seasoning. Then comes the masala with potatoes, herbs and spices. It is topped with raw cabbage for extra texture. And in two-three minutes it is folded into crispy perfection.
Near Crawford Market, Mumbai
In the absence of ovens, Thai cooks and street food vendors have become masters of slow cooking over coals. Scales-on, salt-crusted, lemongrass and chili stuffed fish; catfish with a sweet glaze!
The fish stays delicate without overcooking and the flavors infuse through the meat.
Sala Daeng, Suam Phlu and Yaowarat, Bangkok, Thailand
Snugly packed into banana leaves or plastic envelopes, pork meat, fat and skin fermenting with garlic, salt, and sugar
Khlong Toey, Bangkok, Thailand
Chapati made fresh in Mumbai, India
Street food stand stocked up for the evening rush at Juhu Beach!
You know how you look forward to the bottom of the bowl when eating a stew or a braise? Imagine food made just for the dipping
Pav bhaji with with bread toasted with garlic, butter and cilantro
See how it is made — right here!
Pork loin stuffed with pine nuts and currants — wrapped with bacon
Served with truffled mashed potatoes and pearl onions
Roll-cut pork loin to a sheet (1”); season; saute 1/4 c of diced shallots and 1/2 tbsp of diced garlic with two tbsp of pine nuts and two tbsp of dried black currants; blanch swiss chard, combine with saute mixture; spread over the sheet of pork loin; wrap tight;
Lay out bacon into snug strips; lay the loin on top; place fresh herbs (e.g. sage) in the bacon and wrap tight; tie with kitchen string;
Sear on four sides for two minutes each; finish in 350 °F oven for 40-50 minutes (depending on thickness).
Wild boar kapusta stew with Greek yogurt and fresh dill
Taste notes:
This is a hearty stew that warms you to the bone and gives you the strength and volition to overcome any cold winter day. The umami of the boar meat, the mushroom broth, the pepper paste, and the wine is followed with a kick of the habanero paste. The tangy Greek yogurt and the fresh dill round the flavors to a balanced embrace of the cold weather outside. Continue reading.
Oyster mushroom risotto with tarragon and roasted garlic
Food has overtaken art in expressing the symbolic values and absorbing the spiritual energies of the elite.
“Just as aestheticism, the religion of art, inherited the position of Christianity among the progressive classes around the turn of the 20th century, so has foodism taken over from aestheticism around the turn of the 21st. Now we read the gospel according, not to Joyce or Proust, but to Michael Pollan and Alice Waters.”
The author of this opinion piece argues the love for art and salvation through food can and should coexist, and that a great appreciation for food is not necessarily a replacement for the place art occupied in the lives of the elite before the advent of the 21st century.
Source 
Roasted guinea fowl with olives, fennel, sage, garlic and oregano
Served with garlic Swiss chard mashed potatoes
The Guinea fowl’s taste and texture stand somewhere between that of a turkey and a chicken. My bird was about the same size as a small broiler. Continue reading.
10/16 NYT article juxtaposes Stanford’s methodology aggregating and parsing out metadata on organic goods research to that of Newcastle University’s. The message of NYT’s article does not go far beyond pointing out that aggregating individual study’s (Stanford), rather than the samples within the studies (Newcastle) will produce different results. Chang, the author of the article, also produces opinion from scholars favoring the Newcastle methodology.
I like Bittman’s take on the issue from the beginning of October.
Deep fried egg and goat cheese on a quinoa cake with a cream of spinach
The quinoa cake is crispy on the outside and fluffy on the inside. The subtle nuttiness of the quinoa and the piquant nuttiness of the parmigiano complement and contrast each other. The peppers lightly, roasted on the outside of the cake and steamed on the inside, add layers of crisp pepper flavors. The cream of spinach contrasts all other textural elements on the plate, except for the egg yolk. Cracking open the deep fried egg and combining the yolk with the spinach as it oozes out of its panko coating, and breaking the mixture into the crispy quinoa shell is an amazing sensation. Bring in the deep fried goat cheese and you have a party in your mouth!
Read more for recipes!
