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Young & HungryIf you can't take the heat, get outta the kitchen! |
| 3 February |
Just when I had come to terms with the fact that I was not getting a callback, there it came! A call from an unknown number in LA mid-wine tasting. On a side note, I would like to give kudos to the Tasting Room in Sandy Springs for hosting one of the best and most informative wine tastings I’ve ever attended. Back to the phone call. Not having yet realized the importance of the mysterious number in my call log, I thoughtlessly dialed voice mail while perusing the isles of the wine shop next door with my girl friends. Stop. Drop. Squeal! They called and are wondering if I’m still interested! Duh, of course I am. Roll camera!
It all started with leftover nuts. Hazelnuts, to be exact. I have quite an assortment of nuts lingering in my pantry from Christmas just begging to live up to their full potential. Who am I to deny a lonely hazelnut their proper fate? And so I thought, hazelnuts and…..orange….and….fish! Yes it sounds like a bizarre combination, but upon my required due diligence I found that many a chef has gone there before. And so I had my main course, orange scented hazelnut encrusted halibut or err…salmon. With sides still TBD, I kept thinking until I came up with a more complimentary rendition on a braised fennel I learned in a cooking class in Italy and, last but not least, the curious potato risotto from this month’s Bon Appétit!
| 2 September |
Now as my Mother will verify, I am no good when it comes to writing recipes. I don’t measure, I substitute ingredients and then I wait days or weeks before even attempting to log my actions which inevitably means that I don’t remember what they were in the first place. Perhaps I am a distant relative of the Cuban that regurgitated this recipe onto the back of a receipt for us, simply listing the components, circling a handful and then mentioning in a legend that those few should be sautéed for 15-20 minutes. What about the other 10 ingredients? Where do they go? Are they optional? Chopped liver? Alas, I think this might be my favorite recipe ever. Lacking all the basic components that recipes usually contain, steps, measurements, temperatures, etcetera, really leaves room for creative license. So in trying to recreate this unbelievably tender and flavorful dish from one of our favorite downtown Honolulu lunch spots, we improvised. And you know what? It was pretty darn close to perfect.
So Mom, looks like recipes can be merely suggestions to guide your kitchen experiments. And, no, I did not measure any of these ingredients in the act, but, after some research, I am pretty sure that this will yield similar results. If you are like me and prefer to use my recipe as a template for your own creation, other common ingredients include potatoes, peas and carrots and a number of recipes call for red wine instead of white. Additionally, the majority of Fricases out there do not contain nearly as many spices so do not make haste in the opposite direction if you’re missing one or two. Taste and change as you go and definitely feel free to send modifications!
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