Avocado


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Top 10 New Foods We Ate in 2010

With another year gone it’s time to look back and reflect on all the deliciousness that was. Here are the top ten new dishes the Endless Simmer team was lucky enough to stuff in our mouths over the past 12 months.

10. Fried Peanut Butter, Banana and Bourbon Sandwich

breslin peanut butter and banana

Breakfast at The Breslin in New York is about as ridiculously delectable as it gets. In their modern update on The Elvis sandwich, peanut butter, banana, bourbon and vanilla are all goo-ily encased in a fried-til-crispy puffed skin. (Photo: gsz)

9. Sustainable Sushi

sustainable sushi

Sushi is the modern foodie’s last major guilt trip — a dish that just can’t be done locally, sustainably, or ethically. Or is it? At Miya’s Sushi in New Haven, Connecticut chef Bun Lai is turning the sushi CW on its head, proving it can be just as tasty and exciting when overfished species like unagi and bluefin are replaced with sustainable, North American fish. If there’s one new food idea that turns into a 2011 trend, we hope it’s this.

8. Burrata Everywhere

burrata

This revelatory cheese wasn’t invented in 2010 (try 1920) but this was the year we saw the Italian delicacy pop up on menus all across America. Fresh curds of buffalo milk mozzarella are stirred into salted cream and kneaded and pulled until they take on a gloriously goopy texture that makes all other mozz look like lifeless balls of nothing. Burrata is such a perfect cheese that only a sliver of bread and a touch of olive oil are needed to make it a meal. The quality varies place to place, but we sampled particularly tasty versions at Roman’s in Brooklyn and The Lake Chalet in Oakland. You? (Photo: Chiara Lorè)

7. The Mighty Cone

the mighty cone

The Austin, Texas food truck scene is one of the most heralded in the nation, and this local ready-to-eat-on-the-street treat is the one we’re most hoping to see go national. At this year-old trailer, a tortilla cone is filled with cornflake-almond-chili-crusted chicken tenders, fried avocado, mango-jalapeno slaw and ancho sauce. The ice cream cone is dead. Long live the chicken cone.
(Photo: The Mighty Cone)

6. Malaysian BBQ

fatty cue

Usually by the time a budding chef-lebrity opens their third restaurant, they’re churning out a watered down, assembly line version of what made them famous. Not so for Zak Pelaccio, who branched out this year with Fatty Cue, a Brooklyn restaurant that ingeniously fuses traditional southeast Asian flavors into classic BBQ dishes. The never gimmicky menu ranges from heritage pork ribs in smoked fish-palm syrup and Indonesian long pepper to Manila claims swimming in bone broth with barbecued bacon and chili. (Photo: Fatty Cue)

Next: Top 5 New Foods We Ate in 2010

in Bacon / Cheese / Fowl / Lists / Sandwich 2 comments

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The New Butter

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Last week when I was sick as shit, I ate about six meals in a row that were simply pumpernickel toast with butter (with a side of potato chips and ginger ale).

Toast and butter. The simplest, most straight-forward meal. It’s all I could take. My sense of smell disintegrated with my stuffed-up nose. I needed sustenance, not outrageous taste.

But this week, as I regained taste, I moved away from butter. My slather of choice: avocado.

Gently mashed avocado can pretty much sub in for any slather. I fucking dare you to tell me otherwise.

in Personal 4 comments
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I’ll Take that as a Condiment….

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Salsa! Like any good condiment — ketchup, mustard, soy sauce, sriracha, horseradish, kimchi, hot sauce, chutney, etc… — we’ve all got a jarred version in the cupboard that we turn to when needed to cover up a dish that would otherwise be a mistake. But a good condiment shouldn’t just enhance our food, it should also be good enough to stand alone.

Salsa, of course, just means sauce, and can come in many varieties. At their best, they’re straight-forward to make, but their beauty is in the abundance of fresh local ingredients available this time of year. Here are my four favorite recipes using the season’s great tomatoes, tomatillos, avocados, corn and more…

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in Recipe / Veggie 7 comments
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Guacamole and Fish, Together at Last

aja- hamachi guacamole

No, really — it works. I swear.

On a recent trip to Chicago, the best meal I ate was at aja, an inventive find in the otherwise bland River North neighborhood downtown. Joshua Linton is a 30-year-old chef who has worked under a whole bunch of notable names, including our boy Jose Andres in D.C., so you know he’s got some tricks up his sleeve.

Before I dined at Aja, several Chicagoans all told me the same thing — be sure to try the hamachi guacamole. Um…what? That does not sound right. Clearly, I had to taste it.

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in Fish 1 comments
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Top 9 Foods Found Only at SoCal Farmers’ Markets (and Not in DC)

While I didn’t catch a glimpse of an avocado orchard, or even an avocado tree, I did find a farmers market, Local Harvest at Marine Stadium, on my last day in Long Beach, California. The first stall displayed all fruits and vegetables that I easily find at my neighborhood far mar: zucchini and onions and peaches.

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Jujube

But then I looked to my left and saw jujubes. The vendor had a sign proclaiming unattainable health benefits (cancer prevention, Zen-filled life). I bought a half pound. Frankly, though, jujubes may grant me 109 years on earth, but they still taste like blah. Total blah. At first I thought they were dried chilies but then I thought, hey, a sickly sweet candy is named after the dried fruit so it must be sweet. ERRRR. <buzzer sounds> It tastes like absolutely nothing.

Lime

What a radical notion. Citrus fruit is not only in white cartons marked with styles of “some pulp,” but apparently grow on trees. In California.

photo (13)-2 photo (14)

Dragon Fruit

Total alien fruit. Was this the punk rock cousin of an artichoke with its round shape and spiky leaves? No. It’s a beautiful fuchsia-fleshed fruit. The color, however, is more exciting than the taste.

Almond

There are some edibles out there that I have zero concept of how they grow. Nuts are one of them. Fresh almonds from the farmers market are particularly nutty and do have more flavor than their encased-in-bulk-bins selves.

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in Lists / Veggie 14 comments
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Continued: I’m Not Eating Ice Cream Every 15 Minutes

Summer 2010 2 (500 x 332)

When I first started working virtually I was nervous I would eat ice cream all day, which you can read about in my post aptly titled, “How Not to Eat Ice Cream Every 15 Minutes.” I got some wonderful suggestions, such as Summer‘s guidance to eat away from my desk and to drink coffee, a natural appetite suppressant. (I’m looking at you, red-headed Olsen with the Starbucks taped to your palm like you’re playing Edward 40Hands.)

So I usually drink tea or coffee in the morning, as I’m not a normal breakfast eater. And actually, the binge eating hasn’t been so bad, especially with the abundance of fresh fruit this time of year. Although there have been some ups and downs in this whole work from home thing, I’m actually loving it.

My favorite part—besides no commuting, no dressing, no showering—is cooking lunch. I look forward to it all morning, if not the second I’ve finished dinner the night before.

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in Cheese / Eggs / Recipe / Veggie 6 comments
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Raw Is All the Rage

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Tom Colicchio was seriously mean last week when he pounded Jacqueline about how she didn’t know the recipe of her (failed) chicken liver mousse after preparing it hundreds of times. Jackie – I feel your pain. I have simmered enough bulgur wheat over the years that I should remember the proportions of water to grain and its cooking time. In fact, the first recipe I ever shared on Endless Simmer was for a salad with bulgur wheat.

But I still googled for a recipe. And this is when I found an awesome idea: cook bulgur with chickpeas. Because I never muster the forethought of soaking and boiling dried beans days ahead of when I would consume them, I always turn to canned beans. I don’t think to prep them very much. But now, I will think different. The Second Lunch provided guidance to cook a big batch of this bulgur wheat and chickpea combo and save it throughout the week for a few different meals. It took her up on it. Her timing was right on. But more, the chickpeas became ultra tender and not chalky as they sometimes can be coming right out of the can. So thank you, The Second Lunch. I dedicate this salad to you.

Raw Kale Salad with Bulgur, Chickpeas and Avocado in a Cottage Cheese-Red Wine Vinegar Dressing

Sorry, I had to name everything in the title of this salad. All of the ingredients are too important not to mention. Amongst my friends raw kale salad is becoming a major topic of conversation. Raw kale is not bitter like some greens and can take a huge smacking of an aggressively flavored dressing; the green just won’t wilt under its weight.

I decided to jump on the trend. On top of raw kale add cooked (like this) bulgur wheat and chickpeas, chunks of avocado, scallions and salt and pepper. In a small bowl mix two spoonfuls of cottage cheese with salt, pepper and red wine vinegar and pour over salad. (I asked, it’s okay to add cottage cheese to salad.)

in Cheese / Recipe / Veggie 9 comments
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