Shakshuka? I Hardly Know Ya!

Wow -- what a terrible title. Consider it a working title until I can come up with something better. Nope, I'm keeping it.

A long time ago, in a kitchen about eight feet away, I made a delicious dish called Shakshuka. For the sadly uninitiated, Shakshuka looks a lot like this:

Actually it looks exactly like that! Shakshuka is an Israeli breakfast dish in which eggs are essentially poached in a thick, spicy tomato-based sauce, often with a little cheese melted in, and served with pita. Much like any stew or sauce, there are myriad combinations and tweaks that a chef might bring to shakshuka to make it his or her own, but for a change of pace and because this constituted a first attempt, I stuck to a recipe. I didn't even know I could still DO that.

Except for using baguette instead of pita.

Now, for anyone who thinks Smitten Kitchen has blogging monopoly on shakshuka -- you're right. So, I worked off her recipe! It's quite easy; in fact, shakshuka falls into an excellent category of recipes I call "Looks impressive, tastes awesome, costs nothing and is super easy."

This is a super dish for brunches, because although it requires that the chef pay some attention, it's unique and will leave a lasting impression on your guests. It's heavily spiced but not overly spicy; there's rich, smoky depth of flavor, and the texture of the silky homemade sauce jives well with the egg and cheese and is perfectly complemented by crusty bread or pita. 

All you need is:
olive oil
3 jalapeños, stemmed and seeded
1 small onion, chopped
5 cloves garlic, halved
1 t. ground cumin
1 T. paprika
1 28-ounce can whole peeled tomatoes, undrained
6 eggs
1/2 cup feta cheese, crumbled
1 tablespoon chopped flat-leaf parsley

To start, dice up the onion and jalapenos (wash your hands and don't touch your eyes, people). In a heavy-bottomed pot or deep pan, cook the veggies over medium-high in a few tablespoons of olive oil until the onions turn golden, about 5 minutes. Don't cook 'em too long; you don't want them to totally break down in the sauce.

Then, add the spices and halved garlic cloves and cook another two minutes or so, being sure to coat everything in the paprika and cumin.

As a quick aside, I know some people stress about ensuring absolutely correct measurements for spices. DON'T. Unless you go totally nuts and dump in handfuls of cumin or something, you can't screw it up. If you add too much, you've just created a new version; shakshuka a la YOU.

Ok, now here's the fun part -- it's the cooking equivalent of finger painting. Dump the tomatoes out from the can, with their juices into a bowl then SQUISH THEM ALL UP WITH YOUR HANDS. That's right. With your HANDS.

"But Hungry Sam, I don't wanna use my hands," someone might say. "Isn't there an alternative?"

"NO," I say. Go big or go home, right folks?

Anyways, throw the hand-crushed tomatoes in with the onions et al, and reduce heat to medium. Simmer 12-15 minutes, stirring every few minutes and adding up to a 1/2 cup of water if things start getting dry.

Looks like the shining orb of a star!

Once things are getting kind of saucy (wink wink nudge nudge), gently -- gently! -- add your eggs, trying to get as much distance as possible between them, like so:

I'd cover the pot at this point, if you can; I feel the eggs cook more cleanly that way. After about five minutes, the yolks will be semi-firm and good to go. At this point, turn off the stove, and carefully mix in the crumbled feta. Top with chopped parsley and dig in with some sliced bread!

The Russians Love Hungry Sam; and Stacked Heirloom Caprese Salad

Behold! A tasty tower of tantalizing tomato!

First, the delicious stacked heirloom tomato Caprese salad.

Most of the dishes I make, though tasty and creative in their own right, are reasonably straightforward -- I don't generally do postmodernist deconstruction of recipes as you might find in a small plates/microdining gastropub (or whatever the kids are calling 'em these days). However, after a long bicycle ride out at Antietam battlefield with Jim and the BMC, we stopped en route home at a Mennonite farm stand which had a truly beautiful array of mottled, firm, heirloom tomatoes* for sale.

Click to read more ...

Learning to Love Black Coffee Again

I'm drinking a cup of coffee right now, and it's really, really, really good.

It's black; I've added neither milk nor sugar. It barely tastes like coffee -- it's closer to a very intense black Darjeeling tea. This is coffee a coffee-hater might enjoy.

Ephemeral! and cool reflection.

This cup of coffee has nothing of the oily, dirt-like bitterness of a Starbucks coffee. (I say this as a person who will quite contentedly drink Starbucks coffee, though I tend to drown it in milk). Instead, this cup tastes light and floral, almost effervescent. There's even some citrus and lemongrass -- I'm not full of it; there really is so much more complexity here than I generally taste in any coffee except very good espresso. So much so, in fact, that I refrained from my normal splash of 2% milk. I like this cup of coffee.

How did this coffee come to be in my cup? Why is this morning unlike most mornings?

Well, for starters, I cleaned my coffee maker -- for the first time in the six months I've had it. Like, really cleaned it, by running a vinegar-water mixture through twice then rinsing. I have no idea whether or not cleaning the maker has a net positive impact, but it really can't hurt.

Oh, also, I stopped at Peregrine Espresso on 14th St. on the way home last night and purchased some SUPERB Ethiopian coffee. I asked the fellow working the counter for something light and interesting, and this is what he gave me. I should have photographed the beans, I suppose. Oops.

Now, I regularly buy decent coffee, but I'm often a little lazy and careless -- I'll keep extra beans in the freezer (a no-no), grind more than I'm using in a given pot (nope), and kinda eyeball measurements (like most of my cooking). But armed with very good, fresh beans and a clean coffee maker, I ground fresh this morning and carefully aimed for one level-ish tablespoon for every 5.5 ounce "cup" delineated on my machine. What a difference these tweaks made.

That's right, I've got a Magic Bullet As Seen On TV.

The questions remain: Will I change my ways? Will I clean the pot, grind fresh, and always buy in small quantities? Will I make that extra effort in the morning to elevate my coffee from pleasurable to phenomenal?

Stand by for a hostile takeover of Hungry Sam by Religion-Major Sam (Who is Also Hungry).

I think I will. My morning already possesses its ritual elements. I make the coffee, the omelet, and I prepare lunch, then I sit and watch TV or read or write. I relax into my day, rather than rush to meet it. Ritual imbues routine with a sense of intentionality and of transcendent reality; it can make my coffee into a hierophany (in Eliade's The Sacred and the Profane: the breakthrough of the sacred into the World) -- though that might be the caffeine speaking. Adding the morning coffee grind to my coffee-making procedure has already, in just one instance, improved not only the cup in my hands, but also grown my morning ritual in a new direction. And the best rituals seem to arrive from creative experimentation and combination -- just look at Christmas or Passover.

Anyways, it was a REALLY good cup of coffee. Washingtonians, definitely check out Peregrine. Those among you who brew in the morning, give a fresh grind of a new coffee a chance, and try it black. You may find, as I did, that a morning habit can become a morning treat.

My New Fig Tree, Or How My Life Keeps Getting Weirder.

I was feeling lousy yesterday, so I went to Whole Foods even though I didn't need to. I bought a fig tree, which made me feel pretty good. Here he is:

At the recommendation of my boss, his name is Figaro. Which seems apt, though I can't quite put my finger on why...

Fruit Salad Haiku

A morning brunch bash

Means an awesome fruit salad.

Mango-melons-peach.

Planned Parenthood Birth Control Cookie

Does this really need any more explanation? Or does it raise a few questions? Like: Is it safe for me to eat this? Will I go to Hell?

I think we can agree, though, that if I eat this cookie, I will not get pregnant.

Custom Brewcrafters: Beer, to Order

Just a few of Custom Brewcrafter's 30-odd beer choices.

Once in a while, you come across a company with a truly brilliant business model, an enterprise that contributes a wonderful product in an innovative way. Custom Brewcrafters is one such, a brewery that taps into the creativity of its clients while drawing on age-old recipes and techniques to make its suds.

Clearly I'm a fan. But before I delve into my visit, let me explain what makes CB so special.

Micro- and craft-brewing has taken off in the last few decades. In fact, during the recession, sales of craft beers have remained strong and actually increased. My uneducated theory is that it's a testament to growing American interest in products that were grown, crafted, or brewed with some level of attention and care, even love. Sort of a "mass-produced=evil, small-batch=sustainable" attitude that may or may not be at all rational. Another reasonable explanation for the trend may simply be that making beer in small quantities is a better reflection of how beer's been made for the last 11,000 years -- we're returning to our roots, in a way.

Whatever it is, most people I know tend to prefer these craft brews, or at least certain varieties (such as my personal favorite beer, Allagash White). BUT.

Let's say you own a restaurant and you already have an excellent beer list, with German Pilseners, Trappist ales, double-dark coffee stouts, and Vermont-made organic beers. But let's say you want to provide your clientele something special. You want to serve you OWN brew, one that perfectly complements your menu. But you don't have the know-how or wherewithal (or the capacity to make it profitable).

So you call up CB. You talk to their master brewers and you go over your menu and your specialties. You talk about the sort of beer you want to drink and sell, and you know what they do?

CB's stills.

They Custom Brewcraft it.

So, my visit to CB: It's come up that I went to the the University of Rochester in New York, home of garbage plates and awesome wings. My mom actually grew up in Rochester, and her parents are still in town, so we swung up through town last weekend for the Fourth. I'd only been to CB once while in school, but a weekend back in Rochester seemed like an opportune moment to return.




My Dad, Granddad, and one of our family's oldest friends, Joel, visited on Saturday afternoon, excited for a walk through the brewing facilities and hoping for a full-fledged tasting. With a few minutes to kill before our walkthrough began, we explored a few of the non-beer samples available -- the Bhut Jolokia chile (or "Ghost" chile; over one million Scoville heat units) sauce on a meatball was...painful.

So. Spicy. You can even see the chile-induced sweat.

Afterwards, a very knowledgable fellow named Steve walked us through the whole facility.

We tasted the grist and some of the roasted barleys as well as the hops (bitter!), and he answered our questions about everything from the water CB uses (Monroe city water; some of the freshest in America) to the filtration process.

We must have spent an hour wandering through the brewing area before returning to the tasting bar. I'm not going to go into detail about every beer we tasted (I tried about 12 of the 30-odd brews CB makes, both under its own brand and for numerous area restaurants), but my favorite was the double dark cream porter, which overflowed with the rich, earthiness I'd expect from dark roasted barley and a hoppy but not overly bitter finish.

Some dude at the bar. There are more taps around either corner.

After three hours, I came away better educated about the beer making process, better enlightened as to more than a dozen qualities brews native to upstate New York, and, I'll freely admit, a little tipsy.

My Granddad mostly liked the beers; this may, however, have been the one he declared "shit."

Custom Brewcrafters has a fantastic approach to brewing beer, and clearly hires men and women who know and love their ales and lagers. Despite their relatively small capacity, they create a broad range of interesting and unique beers, from IPAs to Pilsener styles to red ales. The tour was the best I've been on, and is a must-do for anyone in or visiting Rochester with an eye to learn something more about beer.