The Food Maven Diary
[Archives]

[Previous Entry] [Diary Home] [Next Entry]

05/24/1999 Archived Entry: "Sorry for the delay"

Various computer excuses have kept me from posting last Friday's diary entry until this morning. So read the following as if it were then.

(Friday, by the way, I spent recovering from Thursday, which when you read the following you will understand. Saturday I made Rozanne Gold's fabulous three-ingredient recipe for skirt steak (marinated in salsa verde and garlic, (see May 18) and a big mound of roasted asparagus (see Frequently Requested Recipes) (I am so predictable.)

May 21

Boy, did I have an astounding eating day yesterday.

It started with Pam Anderson, author of The Perfect Recipe: Getting It Right Every Time. She was my guest on Food Talk. She brought me a tray of the brownies from her book. They were only the best brownies ever. I thought "The Perfect Recipe" was an audacious title, but after having made a few of the recipes, and after having eaten those brownies, I'd say it was an accurate title. Pam used to be the executive editor of Cook's Illustrated and she's one sharp cook in the test kitchen.

Pam's Fudgy, Chewy, Cakey Brownie recipe is at the end of this diary.

Then, early evening, I went to a party in honor of Ruth Reichl, the new editor in chief of Gourmet magazine, at Nobu, the astounding Japanese restaurant, originally of Los Angeles and now in London as well as New York. (Other Nobus may be coming, too.) Ruth has been the restaurant critic of the New York Times for the last ... what is it, five years now ... and she says, as much as she loved her old job, she's relieved to be a civilian again. She can order what she wants to eat and not share it, and she's not required to taste everything on the table. People think being a restaurant critic is all fun and glory, but actually it can be rather frustrating and tedious -- if what you really like to do is eat for the sensual pleasure of it, not for analysis.

The food at the Nobu party was astounding, as it always is at Nobu, but it was so free-flowing, too. That was the big treat. I had my fill of the famous Dungeness crab casserole -- huge hunks of sweet crab in this rather un-Japanese orange-pink cream sauce with flying fish roe. I ate more than I should have of shrimp tempura-filled sushi, smoked eel sushi, and many of the other kinds of sushi that were set out on the sushi bar in gorgeous array.

And there were several of the restaurant's other signature dishes, including slices of yellowtail dressed with a round of jalapeno pepper and fresh cilantro; quivering, barely cooked black cod, which is marinated for several days in sweet miso, broiled, then place in a buttery lettuce leaf and topped with something called "potato frisee," strands of fried crunch to counterpoint the unctuous texture of the fish. Great finger food. I popped a few too many of those in my mouth, too.

There was so much food that I didn't even miss the hot buffet which was so far back in the room I didn't even know it was there until the party had half cleared out.

Unbelievable and gluttonous as it sounds, I then went to dinner at Chanterelle, one of New York's premier luxury restaurants. To my taste (and for my money), it's as good as it gets. It was my assistant, Iris Carulli's birthday celebration (see my intro of Iris in my diary item of two days ago) and it was just Iris' nearest and dearest at the table, just five of us.

Before I go into any details, I have to say that every time a course came to the table, everyone at the table, after their first bites of whatever it was in front of them, swooned and said "This is the best thing I have ever eaten."

First there were a couple of appetizers sent out by the chef, David Waltuck, who is also the owner with his wife, Karen, who is your hostess. One of them was foie gras mousse rolled into a spiral of prosciutto. With just a dab of fig at the center. What a great pairing of flavors -- the prosciutto and foie gras -- and how simple -- also luxurious. The fig is a classic coupling with either prosciutto or foie gras, so it was the perfect bridge.

One bite of David's breaded and fried Maine shrimp and I was reminded of the appetizer once sent out at Le Bernardin -- fried calamari. I looked at the shrimp and thought: "What is David doing serving popcorn shrimp." I ate a shrimp and said, "Ah-hah. Now I remember what shrimp are supposed to taste like." They were as sweet as can be, tender, juicy and perfectly fried. As a result, we didn't eat these mindlessly, as one would popcorn shrimp, but savored every chew.

Among the other knockout dishes were zucchini flowers stuffed with a shrimp and lobster forcemeat, then steamed. Zucchini flowers have a very subtle flavor, but here they tasted as pronounced as I've ever had them and inside was this astounding seafood quenelle. Of course, they were gorgeous to look at: the orange and green of the flower, the pink of the seafood filling, the creamy seafood sauce. David Waltuck presents his plates they way I love to look at them, too: The food is so beautiful on its own, it needs (and gets) no goo-gaw garnishes.
I mean, what could be more stunning (and seasonally correct) than salmon quenelles in a creamy sauce streaked with the green of ramps, spinach and nettles.

Then there was this carpaccio (slices of raw beef) with the most fragrant summer truffles I've ever had. Summer truffles are the orphan, off-season truffles -- not as headily fragrant as white (except in this case) and not as hauntingly flavorful as black truffles. In a addition to the few slices of truffle, the carpaccio was drizzled with a truffle mayonnaise.

Our entrees included crisply fried sweetbreads in a sweet and bitter orange glaze (caramelized leeks and orange); turbot grilled with a coulis of Chinese chives and young ginger; braised loin of rabbit with mustard and tarragon (actually a little too much tarragon -- it was the only dish out of balance), and roast wild stripped bass in a wild mushroom broth. This last was a true tour de force. I know fish and wild mushrooms have lately become a popular combination among chefs, but to me it rarely works. The woodsy mushrooms mask the delicacy of the fish and often even give it a musty taste. Somehow, David Waltuck carried it off. More than carried it off. He made the combo seem like a natural.

Need I say that the bill was as much a knockout as the food? Figure an easy $125 a person, with a modest amount of a modest wine, tax and 20 percent tip. That should be your tip in a restaurant with service at as high a level as Chanterelle's.

If you are among the Big Spenders, you'd probably like to know that Chanterelle will be having a 10-course dinner for New Year's 2000. It includes 10 wines, one from each decade of the century and including such big names and vintages as Chateau Mouton 1961, which is considered the number one Bordeaux vintage of the century, plus entertainment by the fabulous song stylist Ann Hampton Callaway. The price? At least $3,000 a person, possibly more, says Karen Waltuck.


Fudgy, Chewy, Cakey Brownies
from "The Perfect Recipe," by Pam Anderson (Houghton Mifflin, 1998)
Makes 16 Brownies

If you're interested in purchasing "The Perfect Recipe", or any cookbook for that matter, you can order by clicking on the Amazon.com icon on my home page.

2/3 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
Vegetable cooking spray
2 ounces unsweetened chocolate
4 ounces bittersweet or semisweet chocolate
10 tablespoons (1 stick plus 2 tablespoons) unsalted butter
1 1/4 cups sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
3 large eggs
3/4 cup toasted walnuts, pecans, macadamia nuts or peanuts (optional)

1. Adjust oven rack to lower-middle position and preheat oven to 325 degrees.

2. Whisk flour, salt and baking powder in a small bowl; set aside. Spray an 8-inch baking pan with vegetable cooking spray. Fit a 16- by 8-inch sheet of foil in pan and up 2 sides, so you can use foil overhang as a handle to pull cooked brownies from pan. Spray sheet of foil with vegetable cooking spray.

3. Melt chocolates and butter in a medium bowl over a pan of simmering water. Remove from heat; whisk in sugar and vanilla. Whisk in eggs, one at a time, fully incorporating each one before adding the next. Continue to whisk until mixture is completely smooth and glossy. Add dry ingredients; whisk until just incorporated. Stir in nuts, if desired.

4. Pour batter into prepared pan; bake until a toothpick or cake tester inserted into center comes out with wet crumbs, 35 to 45 minutes.

5. Cool brownies in pan on a wire rack for 5 minutes. Use foil handles to pull brownies from pan. Completely cool brownies on rack, at least 3 hours. Cut into squares and serve. If not serving immediately, do not cut brownies. (Whole brownie cake can be wrapped in plastic wrap, then foil, and refrigerated for up to 5 days.)