Naan!

I love Indian food (and naan especially) almost as much as I love re-enacting the water ballet scenes from Esther Williams movies and probably as much as I love a rodgering, which is my way of saying that I eat a fucking shit-ton of Indian food. Making naan is a little intimidating the first time, but mastering is like having a superpower. You will make it for people, they will eat it, and then they will do anything to get you to make it again.

Pros: It's delicious. It goes with everything. It's like a plate and a napkin and a wonderful, savory, scrumptious bread thing all in one.

Cons: It takes a veritable fuck-ton of time to make. Flour is a bitch to clean up, but dough is worse. Much worse.

This recipe makes about 15-18 individual naan. You can be a fat shit and eat it all in one go (this happens) or cooked naan can be frozen on stored in an airtight container in the fridge (no one does this).

Ingredients:
1 package dry yeast
1 cup warm water (bathwater warm- it its too hot it will kill the yeast and you're dough won't rise)
1/4 cup white sugar
1 egg, beaten
3 tablespoons milk
2 teaspoons salt
4 cups flour (buy King Arthur Bread Flour- it responds the most consistently. You might not use all 4 cups, you might need a bit more, it's all in how firmly you pack the flour in.)
2 teaspoons minced garlic (the pre-chopped stuff in jars works fantastic. You live in california- I think that stuff was invented there for lazy, gourmet hippies, or something).
1/4 cup melted butter


In a large bowl, proof your yeast. What? You aren't familiar with yeast proofing? Take your yeast packet, 1 tablespoon of sugar for the 1/4 cup you already have and about 1/4 cup of the warm water. Mix together with a whisk and wait about 15 minutes. You mixture will become opaque, foamy and smelly yeasty. In other words it will look and smell like drinks awful, heathen people use to get stoned. (Go Kava!)Once the yeast is proofed (activated), add the sugar, milk, egg, and the rest of the water. Whisk this until well incorporated. Now start to add your flour, about a cup at a time. You can continue to whisk until the dough gets too thick and sticky (usually the 2 cup mark). At this point you want to the add the flour with one hand and use the other hand to work it into the dough.

A word on kneading the dough- naan has two rising and two kneading stages, which, quite frankly seems excessive for a, ah, flatbread, but they're pretty easy going kneads. This not Little House on the Prairie bread here where Ma with make a bitch knead a loaf for hours or until news makes it back to the homestead that Pa's run off with a gang of calico loving homos). So anyway- first knead can be done in the bowl. Just fold the dough in half, punch it back down to its original size and then fold in half again, punch down, repeat. If the dough feels too sticky, add a little bit of flour with each fold. Try to do this with one hand. If you use both hands clean up gets tricky and you may have to come to accept old dough covered faucet knobs as part of your modern man aesthetic.

Get a big, non-stick mixing bowl (seriously, I mean non-stick. Don't go with some rustic earthen wear bowl because you've got Irish music playing and you are feeling natural and in-touch with your roots and have this perfect rustic bowl. There's a reason the rest of the world has moved on to the metal mixing bowl. Spray the inside of the mixing bowl with cook spray. Shape your dough into a rough circle and drop it into the lubed bowl. (The cook spray will allow to actually remove your dough later). Cover loosely with plastic wrap. Allow to rise someplace warm and dark. If you don't have a special dark bread-rising room than just throw a towel over the bowl. You want to let the dough to rise to about double its size. This takes 1-3 hours depending on how active your yeast was, the temperature where the bowl was and probably other shit you don't care about.

Once the dough has risen, dump it out onto a floured surface. Punch the dough down. Now its time to add the garlic. Take the dough and roll it into a cylinder- spread garlic along the surface of the cylinder and then repeat the fold-punch knead style until the garlic seems well incorporated. It the dough sticks to your fingers while doing this- add more flour. Break off golf ball sections, roll into a ball and set on a sheet for another rise. Be careful to space out the naan balls- they will ride, grow into each other and leave to grumpy and sticky-fingered as your try to pull them apart later. Let rise another 1 hour or so.

Melt the butter and set aside. Heat a large flat pan (frying pan, griddle or these can also be done on a grill proper, so long as it's hot). Spray your pan with cooking spray. While the pan heats up, take one of the naan balls, smash it flat with you hand and then use a rolling pin to flatten into a rough circle. If it seems like the edges are too thick, pick up the naan and hold it by the outside edge, pinching it between the index and thumb finger of both hands and allowing gravity to pull the bread down. Delicately stretch the area between your two fingers and then rotate the bread slightly, do this until you have stretched out the entire circle.
Toss the flattened naan onto your hot pan. Brush the upside with butter. After about 2 minutes the underside of the naan will be cooked and you may see bubbles forming the dough. Once this happens, flip naan over and immediately brush that side with melted butter. This side needs much less time to cook, usually 30 seconds or so. Transfer cooked naan to a dish that can be covered, to prevent them from getting cold and stiff.

Lasagna The Labor of Love

Hungry? You will be by the time you're done cooking.
Did I mention this recipe takes about 4 hours?
It does. It's worth it.

If you're going to make lasagna from scratch it better be for a damn good cause, because lasagna is terribly time consuming. I make lasagna to say, "All snark aside, I kinda like you." Which is why, every so often, I make it for the boy. I like to remind him that my whole purpose in his life is not just to amaze him with the destruction I can wreak on the kitchen or to frustrate him with my life philosophy of "Fuck it. I'm just going to wing it." No, some time I feed him and sometimes that food is lasagna.

To make this, you're going to need about 4 hours. A lot of that time you'll be able to spend doing something else (for instance, I use it to drink wine and read- all while pretending to be slaving away in a hot kitchen- I find that the apparent amount of suffering I put into a meal seems to really up everyone's enjoyment of it). Bolonase sauce needs time, but not a whole lot of attention.

Some thoughts on lasagna noodles: Lasagna noodles come in three kinds: dried that you have to boil, no cook dried and fresh. The no cook dried are tempting, but avoid them like you would avoid Paris Hilton's vagina. No cook noodles taste like shit and they just ruined the 4 hours of love and devotion that you just spent making a lasagna. You're about to spend 4 fucking hours making something you could by frozen, throw in the over and forget about- don't suddenly act like boiling noodles is over the inconvenience line for you. I prefer to use the fresh- if you live near a Whole Foods they almost always carry fresh lasagna sheets. Fresh noodles are usually large rectangles (about 2 to a layer in a 9x13 pan) and need about 1 min of boiling time. If you can't find fresh, go with the traditional long rectangular noodles and cook them 1-2 minutes less than the recommended al dente time on the package. The noodles will continue to cook once the whole thing goes in the over. Having your noodles a little underdone ensures that they don't get soggy and the whole infrastructure of your lasagna is not compromised.

For the Bolonase sauce:

1 medium yellow onion, diced
1 leek, thinly sliced
1 carrot, diced
1 celery stalk, diced
1/4 lb bacon
6 oz ground pork
6 oz ground veal
6 oz ground lean beef (often these three can be found together in a "meatball" mixture in the ground meats section)
1 cup white wine
1 cup beef stock (not broth)
1 28 oz can San Marzano diced tomatoes (the purple label) + 1 12 oz can of the same
1 cup heavy cream
Olive oil
Salt and pepper

For the ricotta:

3 15 oz tubs of ricotta cheese (2 full-fat and 1 part-skim)
1/2 cup of the Bolonase sauce taken at the 1 hour mark
2 tbs of a dried Mediterranean herb blend (cheating? Kind of . . . )

To assemble:

Cooked and drained lasagna noodles
16 oz shredded mozzarella
8 oz shredded Parmesan, Romano, or asiago cheese

To make the Bolonase sauce:

Put a large pot (and I mean really big, probably the biggest pot you own would not be too large for this) over medium heat. Add a couple of tablespoons of olive oil to the bottom and let it heat. Once the oil is hot add the onion, leek, carrot and celery. Stir until the onion starts to soften (about 3-5 minutes). Then add the bacon. You want the raw bacon cut into small pieces. Raw bacon is a terribly inconvenient bitch of a food to slice, so I recommend using scissors to snip it into little pieces.  The bacon is not going to get crispy. Its there to add a velvety pork-ness to the veggies.  Continue to stir until the bacon is pink and the carrots have started to soften.  Now add the ground meat. Crumble a little bit in a time and then mix well with the vegetables.  Continue until all the meat has been added.  Stir regularly to ensure that all the meat clumps are broken up. Once the pink is gone from the meat add 1/2 of a cup of the white wine and the smaller can of diced tomatoes. Raise the heat and cook for an additional 5 minutes- the liquid should start to reduce a bit. Turn the heat down to low- just enough so that your mixture is simmering. Add the stock and the large can of tomatoes and simmer for an hour, occasionally stirring. After the first hour is up remove around 1/2 of the liquid from the sauce and set aside for the ricotta mixture. Now add the send 1/2 of the wine and salt and pepper to taste. Allow to simmer for another hour, stirring occasionally. At the end of the second hour of simmering add the heavy cream and cook for another 15-30 minutes depending on the thickness of the sauce. You want something in the neighborhood of chili in terms of consistency.

For the ricotta:

Start the ricotta mixture about the time you add the cream to the Bolonase sauce. This is also a good time to start boiling a pot of salted water for the noodles (your pasta water should be about as salty as the ocean- without salt your noodles will be bland). Add a little olive oil to the pasta water to keep it from boiling over.

In a large mixing bowl, add the three packages of ricotta and mix well. Then add the BolonaseBolonase sauce to thin it out.

More notes on the noodles:

Lasagna noodles are large and a pain in the ass to cook. Only cook a few at a time (3-4 at max). Have a tray with a damp paper towel beside your pasta water. As soon as a noodle is done, fish it out and place it on the paper towel, If the tray becomes full, lay down another damp paper towel on top of the cooked pasta and repeat. If you're using fresh pasta, each noodle only needs about 45-60 seconds of cooking time and I usually cook them while I'm assembling the lasagna. If you're using dried, start cooking your noodles during the final 30 minutes of your sauce.

Assembly:

Pre-heat your oven to 350.

Take a 9x13 in pan and spray the bottom with cooking spray. Put down a layer of noodles. Put down a layer of the ricotta mixture (about 1/3 of the mixture). Spread the ricotta evenly over the noodles (kind of frustrating to do, actually). Put down a layer of the meat sauce (about a cup to a cup and a half ). Top the meat sauce with about a cup of mozzarella cheese. Top that with 1/2 cup of Parmesan cheese. Add another layer of noodles. Repeat. On the final layer (and how many layers you can make depends on how deep you pan in and how much filling you have left- usually 2-3 complete layers is what this recipe will make), omit the ricotta and top the noodles directly with meat sauce. Top the meat sauce with the mozzarella and Parmesan. Bake uncovered for 20-30 minutes, until the whole thing is bubbly. Allow to cool at least 15 minutes. If you don't let it cool long enough, you will have total structural breakdown. It will still be delicious, but it'll look like seven kinds of hell (and its tricky to plate like that).

Chicken Pot Pie

             
           Life is full of disappointments. This isn't one of them.

  

This is one of those dinners that is ludicrously easy to make, but looks very impressive and June Cleaver-ish. The boy has been known to treat this as a single serving and retire to a dark corner with the pie plate and a fork, prepared to defend it from other diners if required.

I'm not a huge fan of using frozen veggies; however, they work a lot better in this recipe than their fresh counterparts and all your veggies will come out cooked to the same degree. You can substitute really anything in the place of the peas and carrots, this is just my very traditional take.

Pre-made pie crust (get the dough sheet kind, not the already formed to the pie plate kind. That kind sucks).
2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
2 leeks, thinly sliced
1 package frozen peas with pearl onions
1 package frozen sliced carrots.
2 tbs flour (you might need more, but start with two tablespoons)
Butter/Olive Oil for sauteing
1/2 light cream (like the flour, you might wind up needing more. This is just a starting point.)
1/2 Chicken stock (stock, not broth)
Salt and Pepper
1 beaten egg

Pre-heat your oven to 350 F

Season and cook the chicken breasts. I brown them in a saute pan and then add chicken stock and cook with a lid on to keep moisture in. However, grilled would work, as would using left over chicken breasts or a rotisserie chicken. Once the chicken is cooked let it cool and then shred it and set it aside.

In a big frying pan, (seriously, use the biggest fucker you have- you are going to be cramming all kinds of crap in there by the end of the recipe) bring your butter or oil up to a medium sizzle. Add the chopped leeks and saute until they start to turn translucent. Once the leeks are soft and translucent, add the frozen peas and carrots. Continue cooking until thawed. You might need to add a little bit more butter at this point. Now sprinkle the flour over the vegetable mixture and stir in until the vegetables are coated with the butter-flour mixture. Add the cream and the chicken stock. Stir so that everything is well incorporated. Continue to stir until is comes to a slow boil. Don't let the boil get out of hand, just an occasional bubble is hot enough. The cream and the stock should start to thicken at this point. If your mixture is too thin add more flour, a teaspoon at a time. If its too thick and appears pasty, add more cream. Take your shredded chicken and add it to the vegetables and cream mixture. Again, you may need to add more cream at this point. It should look like a very thick stew at this point.

There are two way to use the pie crust. You can make a pot pie with a top and bottom crust or just a top crust, totally a matter of personal preference. I make a two-crust pie because I like crust. So there.

For a two crust pie- line a deep pie plate with one sheet of pie dough. Pour the chicken and vegetable mixture into the pie dish. Make sure that the chicken and the veggies are fairly evenly distributed in the mixture. No one wants a serving of chicken pot pie that is all veg and no meat.  Drape the second sheet of pie dough over the mixture and crimp the crust edges together. Cut four vents in the top crust and brush it with the beaten egg.

For a one crust pie- Pour the chicken and vegetable mixture directly into a deep pie plate. Drape a sheet of pie dough over the top of the mixture. Crimp the pie dough to the pie plate. Cut four vents in the top of the crust. Brush with beaten egg.

Place the pie on a center rack in your pre-heated over. You might want to put a baking sheet or tinfoil under it because it tends to bubble out the side a little and no one likes burned pie drippings fouling up your oven. Bake until the crust is golden. Everything inside the pie was cooked before it ever went into the oven, so this is strictly a crust issue. It will probably take 40-50 minutes, but start checking on it at around 30 min into baking.

If Puttanesca is Whore's Sauce, then I guess this is . . . Slut's Sauce? Yeah, let's go with Slut's Sauce

This will all make sense. I promise. 


Us sluts get hungry. Romping burns calories and those calories need to be replaced by something other than alcohol calories (which are totally cool, by the way, let no one say I don't support a healthy alcohol intake) if one is to continue romping. Carbs are a good place to start. You could order a pizza, but then someone is going to have to put their pants on to answer the door for the delivery guy. Unless you are in a porn, then, by all means, feel free to answer pantless. Sans pantaloons, if you're fancy. So pasta it is then, because everyone has dried pasta in some form in the cupboard. However, red sauce from a jar screams one of two things, "I am still in college and we are fucking in my dorm/on-campus apartment" or "payday is Friday and I'm broke, bitch." But homemade red sauce is an entirely different beast. Homemade red sauce indicates that you are a multi-talented slut, one with hidden depths, a slut who makes mutherfuckin' red sauce from scratch. As an added bonus, you can make this sauce in the time it takes the water to boil and the noodles to cook and it will be better than any damn store sauce out there. It might even be better than yo' momma's red sauce. Just sayin'

Slut's Sauce

1 small yellow onion
2 table spoons minced garlic (buy pre-minced stuff in a jar, no one wants a garlic-scented hand job later).
1 can San Marzano crushed tomatoes (Stick with this brand- it's easy to find and tastes the best of widely available canned tomatoes).
6-8 large fresh Basil leaves (dried leaves are for losers).
Olive oil
Salt and Pepper

Heat olive oil in a heavy bottom skillet over medium heat. Dice the onion and saute the onion in the olive oil until it becomes translucent. Add the garlic. Once the garlic starts to brown (about a minute to a minute and a half), add the crushed tomatoes. Stir to incorporate the tomatoes, onion and garlic. Chiffonade the basil leaves. (To chiffonade the basil leaves stack the leaves on top of each other and roll them tightly- should look like a basil joint. Make narrow horizontal cuts. You'll wind up with what looks like narrow ribbons of basil). Stir the basil leaves into the tomato mixture. Salt and pepper to taste.  Mix with the pasta and top with Parm or Asiago cheese. Congrats you are now full of delicious energy-providing carbs. Fuck away.

                                                                                       Hopefully your partner feels this way.

My Current Food Obsession: Roasted Corn and Avocado Salsa

So I do a lot of cooking for the boy, mainly because it makes him think I am some sort of amazing super woman who manages to find time to work, sex him up and cook, but also because it allows me to cater to whatever food whim I am currently enslaved to.  The avocado is probably my favorite single food item (I would eat the shit out of them every single day if I could have a consistently ripe supply- hard avocados ruin everything.) My love for avocados means I am pretty easily enslaved by avocado recipes, but this one in particular also seems to work its magic on non-avocado fanatics just as acutely. I have seen the boy scrape the leftovers out of the bowl and stuff it into a pita and eat it like a sandwich. He does this before I even have a chance to do the dishes. This shit is powerful.  The key is the roasted corn- its sweet and crunchy and blends so nicely with the creaminess of avocado. 

Roasted Corn and Avocado Salsa

For the roasted corn:

2 cups corn kernels (you can use frozen or cut them off fresh cobs- it'll take about 4 cobs)

2 tablespoons olive oil

Coarse salt 

Fresh ground pepper

Pre-heat your oven to 400 F. Put the corn in a bowl, add the olive oil and toss with your hands until the kernels feel well coated. Put more salt that you think you'll need and add pepper to taste. Re-toss to ensure the salt and pepper are well distributed. 

Take a baking sheet (you might want to cover it in tinfoil first- easier clean-up) and dump the corn out on  it. Make sure you spread the corn out in a flat layer. Pop in the over for at least 20 minutes. As it bakes, some of the kernels are going to turn black and burned looking- you want this. These kernels are indescribably delicious. Do not deprive yourself of delicious, crunchy burned corn because you think 20 minutes is an awfully long time to bake corn kernels. 

For the avocado salsa:

2 ripe (slightly soft under pressure) avocados

1/2 red onion- diced

1/2 jalapeno pepper- seeded and diced very very small

1/2 red bell pepper- diced

Limes or lime juice

Cut the avocados into 1/2 inch chunks. Combine the avocados with the diced onion and peppers. Gently stir the ingredients together. Add the juice of 1/2 of a lime. Don't salt or pepper the avocado mixture yet- the corn is going to be salty and it usually adds all you need (this was learned through trial and error). Let the avocado mixture sit at room temperature while the corn roasts. This gives the flavors a chance to mellow and come together a bit. 

When the corn is done (most kernels should be browned and crunchy). You may need more than 20 minutes, depending on your oven. You want brown and crunchy with some blackened kernels in the mix and some yellow still showing through. Add the hot corn to the avocado mixture and stir gently to mix everything together. Let it sit for about 5-10 minutes and then sample the mixture. This is the point where you may want to add a little more salt, but if you used enough when you made the corn you should be good.

You now have a huge bowl of deliciousness. What you can do with this stuff is pretty endless. It goes great as a topping on any kind meat (its awesome over Thai peanut chicken, grilled steaks, BBQ pork or grilled tuna). Its also awesome with wild rice. Or you can be like the boy and just stuff it into a pita and enjoy as a sandwich. 

Winter Warmers: Snowpocolypse Edition

The great 2010 Snowpocolypse has hit Philadelphia, dumping almost 30 inches of snow on the city and generally making it difficult to get a cab. Many bars, with little consideration to the well-being of local alcoholics, are closed and the specter of the delirium tremens is breathing down our necks (or at least boredom is). As service to my fellow man, here are some of my favorite cold weather drinks:


Foggy Bottom


2 parts spiced rum
2 parts ginger beer
3 parts apple cider

Pour everything in a doubles glass and drink. Feel your soul thaw.

Manzana Cider

1 oz reposado tequila
1/4 oz creme de cassis
1 oz  apple cider
1/4 oz lemon juice

Combine ingredients in a mixing glass with ice, strain into a collins glass and garnish with an apple slice.

The Tom Bomb 

This drink was made up by Tom (also known as "The Bartender"). If drinking this floods you with joy or helps you get laid, thank Tom. He can be found being surly to customers at Philly's Moriarty's Bar most nights.

3/4 full pint glass of Guinness 250 year edition
1 shot Patron coffee-flavored tequila with a Bailey's floater

Drop the shot in the Guinness and quaff.  Give it a minute to catch up with you.

Alexander the Great

1 oz creme de cacao
1 oz coffee liquor
1 oz heavy cream
3 oz vodka

Shake everything with ice and strain into a highball glass.  This is a one and done drink. (Theoretically. I mean,  if you're really a proper drunk, it might be a three and done drink). Its potent. It goes down easy. Really easy. Good luck finding your panties in the morning.

WTF Australia?

Ladies, you if have small bosoms put them away. Australia does not want to see them. The Australian Censor Board (ACB) has banned the depiction of women with A-cup breasts in porn because it promotes child pornography. That's right ladies, if you have small tits you are not a proper woman. And if you like small tits you are apparently a closeted kiddy-toucher. Thank you Australia from protecting us all from the scourge of itty bitty titties. No word yet on the ACB's feeling about about shaved snatch, because there is absolutely nothing pre-pubescent about that at all.

Australian Censor Board Demands Large-Breasted Porn Stars (BoingBoing)