Who Cooked It Better? -

by gansie

Who Cooked It Better: Name That Gazpacho

With tomato season in full effect — well, except for DAD GANSIE’s garden because he doesn’t start his planting until very late witch means his yard yields vegetables until November — it means gazpacho time. And that run-on sentence was dedicated to DAD GANSIE.

Embarrassingly, I’ve never thrown together this classic summertime soup. I grew to love it during my summer in Barcelona where the women in my dorm would throw together this cooling, super fresh dish every day. It was really the only thing that would make me leave the beach and head to afternoon class.

Now, I’m not exactly sure what makes something a gazpacho, but I can tell you, these bloggers are not following any rules I’ve ever seen on the subject.

Top Left: Golden Gazpacho [Vegan for the People]
We love our vegan friends, even though BS can never shut the fuck up about bacon. This recipe is actually not as revolutionary as some other vegan dishes that have been featured on ES (I’m looking at you Hezbollah Tofu) and I say that as a compliment. Everyone always thinks that when something is vegetarian or vegan, it’s going to be some bastard child of what it should be. Vegan for the People chooses a beautiful yellow tomato, topped with a cilantro garnish to create his spin on this light meal.

Top Right: Greek Gazpacho [Kalofagas]
This Greek version starts off normal: red tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, vegetable cocktail (cheating?) and then goes freaking berserk when it calls for the use of a shot glass. Now I was excited when I saw those iceberg size cubes of feta, but just try to guess what that greenish globe in the middle is. It’s frozen olive oil! An olive oil ice cube! OMG! Kalofagas suggests either using a shot glass (filled halfway) or an ice cube tray to create these solid masses of oil, which will keep your soup flavorful and cold.

Bottom Left: Gazpacho Salad [Smitten Kitchen]
Okay, I can’t even pretend that I’m sure this belongs in today’s edition of WCiB. But, hey, if Smitten is going to put “gazpacho” in the recipe name, then I think it’s fair game. The gazpacho salad is more or less made up of the same ingredients as regular gazpacho, but not blended. The addition of homemade croutons makes this akin to panzanella, but not quite drinkable.

Bottom Right: Avocado-Sesame Gazpacho with Cilantro and Sauteed Shrimp [Croque-Camille]
Avocado! Now, there are no tomatoes in this recipe whatsoever, so I’m uncertain how this Camille girl can get away with calling it a gazpacho. However, she seduced me with her use of avocado. With an immersion blender, Camille combines avocado, tahini and fish stock among other ingredients to lay a base for her sauteed shrimp. Sprinkled with toasted sesame seeds, this is surely a slap in the face to the flourishing tomato crop.

Who Cooked [Gazpacho] Better?

[poll id=”21″]

in Veggie 9 comments

by BS

Who Cooked It Better? National Goat Cheese Month

First of all, many apologies for slacking on the Who Cooked It Better front. I was off eating in the Holy Land for awhile (much more on that to come), and was then distracted by Olympic foods, and I let our weekly feature fall by the wayside. Well, August is National Goat Cheese Month, as I’m sure you all knew. So what better time to celebrate one of the best ingredients there is?

Unfortunately, goat cheese tends to get an un-versatile rap. Sure, we all know by now that it goes great with fig jam, can be mixed in with pasta, or baked in a tart with onions. But as the most malleable type of cheese, we sometimes forget that goat cheese can do anything! Seriously people, name something I wouldn’t put goat cheese on/in – I challenge you.

So in honor of National Goat Cheese Month, I scoured the Internet for the most creative uses of goat cheese – recipes that really push the boundaries. Now it’s up to you all to pick the best of the best.

The goat cheese salad on the top left is from Chriesi at Almond Corner. Now, I know what you’re thinking: goat cheese in a salad is hardly original. But wait ’til you hear the total mockery AC makes of salad. It’s goat cheese, wrapped in prosciutto, fried, and then served in a salad. Full details and more pictures over at Almond Corner.

Next up is a video recipe from Chris at realmeals.tv, who adopts a similar wrapped-in-pig motif but ditches the green stuff. Chris first covers his goat cheese in bread crumbs that are cut with — be still my heart — pine nuts, then rolls the whole thing up in bacon and deep fries it. He looses a point for calling the dish bacon goat cheese nuggets (nuggets is on my bottom five least appetizing menu words list), but other than that, these babies are pretty close to heaven. Full recipe and video instructions at realmeals.tv.

Plenty of people have discovered the art of stuffing chicken with goat cheese, but I’ve got to hand it to the Beantown Baker for having the guts to stuff it in fish. Her goat cheese stuffed salmon steaks are on the bottom left, and while I never would have thought of this, how could it go wrong? Goat cheese strikes again. Recipe at Beantown Baker.

Lastly, here’s one for you veggie goat cheese lovers. Joe at foodie nyc offers up this fresh and original appetizer. Joe juices some fennel fronds (woooah, wha?!?), then whips it up with lemon juice and extra virgin to create the sauce the goat cheese is wading in. The goat cheese is then topped with fried leeks for an extra onion-y bite. Directions: “Simply slice off a bit of your goat cheese, bath it gently in the fennel juice vinaigrette, and smear it onto a cracker or piece of toasted crostini.” The “simply” part is a lie, but way to go, Joe. Full instructions at foodie nyc.

Your votes, por favor.

[poll id=”20″]

by BS

Who Cooked It Better? Dorkiest Cake-Off Ever

For this week’s Who Cooked It Better we’re looking at two of the most impressive cakes I’ve seen on the Interwebs in a long time.

On the left, representing Star Wars, is the R2D2 cake from Mark Joseph Cakes Baker/Best Dad Ever Mark Randazzo. The bulk of R2 is made up of a mere 12 red velvet cakes, layered on top of each other and spaced out with white chocolate ganache and chocolate hazelnut buttercream frosting. The legs, meanwhile, are solid blocks of rice krispie treats and the whole thing is covered in more edible frosting. There’s a full photographic rundown of the process over at B-Side Blog.

On the right is an impressively detailed Star Trek cake, constructed by Duff Goldman of Charm City Cakes, who you probably know from the Food Network show Ace of Cakes. While there’s no recipe given, you can check out more pics, as well as a detailed debate about how Duff could possibly be so clueless as to seat Scotty in the navigator’s chair, over at TrekMovie.com

But which cake will rule them all?

[poll id=”19″]

Photos: B-Side Blog, TrekMovie.com

in Desserts / TV 9 comments

by BS

Who Cooked It Better? The Bacon Cocktail

Anyone can eat bacon for breakfast, but it takes a real man to drink bacon for breakfast. No, we’re not talking about licking bacon grease from the pan (actually, you might want to reserve some of that to rim the edge of the glass with). No kidding, folks–it’s the bacon cocktail.

This whole crazy thing started, as many crazy things do, in Vegas, at the Double Down Saloon. They claim to have invented the bacon martini: Bacon-infused vodka, Tabasco, olive juice, a lil bacon grease for the edge, and of course, a slice of bacon.

If you like your drunk breakfast more on the sweet side, head to the Capitol Club in Seattle. The vodka here is infused with candied bacon and mixed with Godiva chocolate liquor and splash of cream. Intense.

Over in New York, ultra-hip bar PDT whips up some bacon-infused bourbon, and mixes it with maple syrup, bitters, and a twist of orange to make their Benton’s Old Fashioned. Confused? Grub Street has a video of how it’s done.

Photos: CHOW, sparktography, dansays

Find more cocktail ideas in Endless Cocktails

More Bacon: Recipes, raves and other bacon bits in Endless Bacon.

in Bacon / Drinks / Endless Bacon / Endless Cocktails / Trends 12 comments

by BS

Who Cooked It Craziest? Top Chef All-Star Plates

So Top Chef Season 4 is over, and America has our first female commander-in-chef. Richard may have shot himself in the foot, but I think it’s pretty clear that Stephanie won because of her brilliant tactics on one specific dish. Her roasted lamb medallions, cooked with mushrooms, braised pistachios, olives and blackberries, were so over-the-top, so utterly batshit insane that the judges had no choice but to give her the win. I mean, whoever heard of a braised pistachio? And blackberries with olives? On lamb? All flavored up in miso, butter, red wine, balsamic, and chicken stock?

Stephanie really pulled a fast one on the judges here. If you put that dish on a menu in a fine restaurant you would have zero people order it. But they put her all the way into the final, so they couldn’t very well admit that she had made something fit for service at the looney bin, so they had only one choice: proclaim her a genius.

This is my favorite part of Top Chef. The just plain insane things that the cheftestants make in an effort to appear “avant garde.” I love that Bravo puts all the recipes on their web site, as if any human would actually make these. Like one day you’re just gonna say, oh ho-hum, I happen to have some leftover braised beef tips in my fridge, perhaps I’ll batter them in crumbled frosted flakes, quickly sear them on each side and serve them up with a pomegranate-truffle foam. Yeah, that sounds nice.

So for this week’s Who Cooked It Better, we’re looking at the craziest, most nutso things that the Top Cheftestants have ever put before us.

America’s Real Best Ballpark Food

We’re talkin’ ballpark food for this week’s Who Cooked It Better, inspired by the New York Times’ Travel Section. Food writer Peter Meehan had the enviable assignment of traveling to all 30 Major League Baseball stadiums and sampling their many edible offerings. Of course, this being the New York Times, the baseball food they cover is less beer and pretzels, more Champagne and edamame. Call me old-fashioned, but I’d rather not sample the eel nigiri while sitting in the bleacher seats. In fact, I’m pretty sure that half the things on the Times list would get you a bloody nose if you’re sitting anywhere outside the executive suites. I’m not saying you have to always go for that slimy boiled hot dog that’s been sitting in warm water for god knows how long, or the “nachos” that are served in a plastic bag. But if we’re going to call it America’s pastime, it must surely be consumed with some sort of food smothered in cheese, grease, and other glorious fatness.

So while the Times writes for the black AMEX crowd, we’ve been scouring the Times online commenters, who are weighing in on the less fancy eats that the story chose to ignore.

Here’s our alternative list (with many thanks to all the angry NYT commenters) of America’s greasiest, cheesiest, most heart-stoppingly amazing ballpark food. Read through to the end to cast your vote for the best.

Washington Nationals – Ben’s Chili Bowl Fully Loaded Half Smoke

Photo: This is Gonna Be Good

It’s unclear how the Times got through a visit to the new Nationals Park without smelling out the offerings from DC’s legendary Ben’s Chili Bowl. I’m still not sure exactly what half-smoke means, but hotdamn it is some kinda tasty sausage. Ben’s fully loaded version is topped with chili, chopped onions, grated cheddar and yellow mustard. Don’t even think about not siding this with some of the world’s best cheese fries.

Baltimore Orioles – Boog’s BBQ Sandwich

Photo: malliavale

Times commenters are up in arms that the article missed the pit smoked pulled pork sandwich offered at Camden Yards. You won’t find a brioche or baguette slice here – the plain old doughy roll is only along for soaking up the gooey Jack Daniels BBQ sauce. Bonus: It’s served up by former Orioles first baseman Boog Powell.

Who Cooked It Better? Washington Post vs. Today Show

Miranda ruled the roost in last week’s SatC-themed Who Cooked It Better, taking home a winning 36 percent of the vote for her pomatini. We promise not to mention this over-saturated media event any further, and this week have returned to a much manlier theme.

As pre-summertime kicks into full gear, everyone is taking it to the grills, so we weren’t surprised to see two of our favorite MSM food sources cover the same topic this week: grilled pizza. As an added bonus, both of ’em went interactive, offering up a video and slideshow, so we couldn’t resist giving this to you as a Who Cooked It Better?

Over at WaPo, Tony Rosenfeld put together this handy slide show, with audio instructions on how to grill that perfect pie. Tony gives a great explanation about how to make a perfectly crispy dough that won’t fall apart on the grill (hint: restraint with the toppings, while difficult, is crucial). He tops it up with crumbled fontina, chicken, asparagus and red peppers over a pesto base. Certainly a little healthier than us NYCers are used to seeing our pizza come out, but hey, this is grilling, so it’s a whole new ballgame.

Over on NBC’s Today Show, Elizabeth Karmel brings us the below video, which really is worth a watch.

Elizabeth starts out in the minus zone with her decision to use a gas(p!) grill and suggestion to cheat your way through the crust process, because “grilling the dough makes all dough taste great.” She quickly wins me back with her polenta and olive oil base, and then it gets interesting. Elizabeth tops her pizza “whimsically,” and this is not an understatement. Among her suggested combinations: ‘cheeseburger pizza’ with ground beef and american cheese, a dessert pizza with ricotta and berries, even a cream cheese, lox and chives pizza. Holy crap!

[poll id=”15″]

in Cheese / Desserts / Fish 3 comments

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