We bake cakes whenever a staff member at The Restaurant has a birthday. (Except mine, which fell on a closed day, but I bring it up all the time that I am offended I didn’t get my creme brulee cake in the shape of buttocks.) So last week it was one of the servers birthdays and he mentioned that he wanted a chocolate bacon cake. And I was to bake it. So my chefs brought in some cookbooks and I selected the World War II Chocolate Mayo Cake from America’s Test Kitchen: America’s Best Lost Recipes.

It sounds pretty gross, but makes sense when you think about it–mayo is made up of egg yolks and oil (plus a shitload of stablizing chemicals and preservatives if you use the store bought kind) . The advantage of using mayo in a cake? Super moisture. Moist like whoa. So moist that you don’t need milk with it. And no, it doesn’t taste like mayo.
Below you will find the recipe, which I fucked with a little.

Crap you need:

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/4 cup Dutch-processed cocoa powder (I’m not quite sure what this means as I don’t really like chocoalte and I don’t bake – I used whatever we had at The Restaurant)
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 cup mayonnaise (I used Hellman’s Real Mayo)
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract (please use real bourbon vanilla extract so your cake doesn’t taste like fake ass)
• 1 cup water

How we do:

1. Adjust oven rack to the middle position and heat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour a 9-inch baking pan (they recommend square, I used round). Sift flour, cocoa, baking powder, and baking soda in medium bowl.

2. Stir the mayonnaise, granulated sugar, and vanilla together in a large bowl until smooth. Add the water and stir until combined. Whisk in the flour mixture until incorporated. (I used the Kitchen Aid for this.) Scrape the batter into the prepared pan and bake until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, 30 to 35 minutes. Cool completely in the pan, at least 45 minutes.

The frosting we used was a sour cream and sugar mix that I wasn’t too crazy about. We smoke our own bacon, so we took a hunk of it, sliced it, cooked it down and then candied it with some sugar and decorated the cake with it.

If I had to make it again, I’d reserve the fat rendered from the bacon and make the icing with that. Or even add it to the cake batter.

Maybe you like your cake a la mode? Here’s a recipe for candied bacon ice cream.

I didn’t have time to take a photo of it, so here’s a photo of someone else’s bacon cake:

I dub thee The Cartman Cake.

It’s been awhile I’ve cooked out of a book. I almost forgot how fun it is to go to the market with a list and try to find ingredients or make adequate substitutions on the fly. This recipe is from Tyler Florence’s “Eat This Book”. Tyler is a guilty pleasure. I don’t know if the recipes are even his. He’s not respectable as a restaurant chef. And friends have told me that he’s a cokehead and a womanizer. But I don’t care because I like the simple, fresh shit he does on the television and he doesn’t have a personality to distract me.

Continue reading…

It’s been a few months since I posted a recipe. Mainly because the internet is already chock fulla recipes. Plus it’s kinda hard to be funny when writing a recipe. So why pickled eggs? Because most of you probably have never eaten them and this is to encourage you to try this delicious, nutritious snack. Perfect for autumn and winter cookin’.

I’m kinda frowny face that I missed the pickle fest in Manhattan yesterday. So I made pickled eggs today. There are as many recipes for ‘em as there are BBQ sauce recipes out there. Here’s a good one I like that’s kung-powerful, but feel free to play around with it.

• Two dozen large hard boiled eggs, peeled and pierced with a fork a few times (it’s best to use old eggs as they peel easier, but you can use fresh eggs if you follow Julia Child’s recipe for perfect hard boiled eggs)
• Three cups white vinegar
• One cup cider vinegar
• Three cups purified water
• Three tablespoons pickling spice (I like the ones with the dried chilies in it)
• Two tablespoons black peppercorns
• Six cloves of garlic, peeled
• Two bay leaves
• One bottle good ale, lager, pilsner or dry cider (I used Brooklyn Brewery’s Oktoberfest)

As you are prepping your eggs, put all the other ingredients except for the beer in a non-reactive pot (stainless steel, glass or enameled cast iron) and bring to a boil over medium heat. This takes a while, but it allows all the dried spices and herbs to simmer and release their super flavors. This will also make your kitchen smell fucking awesome so you might as well make mulled cider and/or mulled wine while you are at it.

Place eggs in a large airtight container. Poor hot vinegar mix over the eggs and poor in the beer. Make sure the eggs are completely submerged - you may have to add more water and/or vinegar. Wait for carbonation to subside and cover. I like to give them a gentle shake once a day. Place in fridge for at least a week. The longer they marinate, the more deliciousness they absorb - I give two weeks before stuffing my foodhole.

Also, I suggest buying an egg slicer ($1-$3).

Enjoy with a big effin’ sammich full of meat and mustard and a good pint of beer. Bring ‘em to the bar to make friends.

Let the pickling tips commence!

You can pickle lots of other things like carrots, beets, onions, garlic, green beans and baby hobbits.

My problem with Starbucks is that they do not have simple syrup out on their little fixin’s bar. I see people order ice coffees and put white or raw sugar in it. I cringe at the thought of getting a mouthful of grainy, sweet sugar while trying to chillax and enjoy a refreshing iced coffee on a hot day. Especially since you just paid $4 for it. You have to ask for their “classic flavored” syrup when ordering, I’m pretty sure they charge you for it, and you don’t even get to control the amount they put in. Big mistake, Starbucks. You’ve made The List.

The place around the corner from me, The Coffee Den, is where I get my iced coffees from. They are kinda expensive ($3 for a large) and the coffee isn’t the best. However, they have simple syrup out which I greatly appreciate.

Simple syrup is so named because it’s really effing simple. Sugar + water + heat = deliciousness. You can make it during a commercial break of Hell’s Kitchen and it’s extremely hard to eff up. And because of this newfangled thing called “science”, the syrup is actually about 20% sweeter than the OG sugar.

Take equal parts sugar and water and heat in a sauce pan over medium heat, stirring occasionally until the sugar dissolves. You can add more sugar if you want it thicker. Store at room temperature or in the fridge for several months. (I use raw sugar, which I just found out isn’t actually better for you.)

Make flavored simple syrup by throwing in a cinnamon stick, a vanilla pod, some lemongrass or a few citrus rinds. Put it in iced beverages, adult beverages, over fruit or whatever else Google tells you you can do with it.

R. Kelly is currently working on a song about sex and simple syrup.

I have something against calling a recipe “the best”. Last week I ate at little cafe on Long Island that had on the menu “perfect mashed potatoes and gravy”. Of course I had to get it because that is a huge claim. Was it perfect? Far from it. I had to add extra butter and salt to get to mediocre. And the gravy? From a can. I think calling a dish “the best” or “perfect” can get ones expectations and hopes up.

So here’s a recipe for a really really great pasta salad, which can also be called “whatever you got in the pantry and fridge pasta salad” (see below). It’s a more flavorful take on a pasta salad recipe I’ve been using for years out of Cooking Light Magazine. Maybe I’ll call it “the bhest” and that little “h” in there will be my loophole if anyone contests its quality.

Ingredients:

• Pasta in a cute shape. (I used brown rice vegetable pasta in the photo which was delicious and tasted just like wheat pasta.)
• Large handful of whatever tomato you got, diced and deseeded if you want
• Large handful of fresh basil, chopped however you like
• Few handful of green beans, chopped into one inch pieces
• Kalamata olives, pitted and chopped
• One red bell pepper
• Few cloves of garlic, chopped
• One shallot, halved and sliced (you can use a 1/4 of an onion if you want)
• Few glugs of good sherry vinegar*
• Extra virgin olive oil
• Grated hard cheese of your choice

Get a big pot of heavily salted water going for you pasta and cook according to the directions. Throw the green beans in during the last two or three minutes of cooking. Drain pasta and green beans and run under cold water until cool.

While you are making the pasta, you can prep everything else. Put about 1/3 cup of the olive oil in a small pan over low heat. Prep your garlic and shallots and put in pan with olive oil. You want them soft and translucent, but not browned. It will take about five minutes on the stove. Turn off heat and allow it to cool.

Halve and deseed your pepper. Push down and crush each half so they are flat. Put under broiler, skin side up for five to ten minutes or until the skin is black. Remove and allow to cool for a few minutes. Once cool enough to handle, remove the charred skin and dice the peppers.

Throw pasta, green beans, tomatoes, red pepper, basil and olives into a large bowl. Add a few glugs of sherry vinegar to taste (three tablespoons or more, depending on the quality of your vinegar). Add salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste. Add your olive oil mixture and toss. Plate and sprinkle grated cheese on. Enjoy!

Some other variations of this can include kidney beans, diced fresh mozzarella, broccoli, julienned carrots, diced salami (or other hard phallic Italian meat), sauteed dark greens and whatever else you got around.

*Sherry vinegar, like basalmic vinegar, can get really expensive and is sold by age. Of course, the older it is, the more costly and more delicious it is. I use an affordable twenty year old. For the average home cook, I don’t think you need anything too aged or too pricey unless you want to impress people.

Pokey says, “Pasta salad is for pansies and women.”

I found some purple sticky rice in the bulk section of the Jericho Whole Foods a few months back. I’ve been meaning to make it, but it requires soaking before cooking and I have no patience for things that need to be prepped way in advance. That’s why I’ve only used my ice cream maker twice in a year and half.

Purple sticky rice, also known as black sticky rice, yields a glutonious texture without gluten. It’s commonly used a dessert rice. If you do not enjoy rice pudding or coconut, then I suggest you stop reading this and go watch those young teens hump ottomans or something instead.

It’s extremely easy to make. It’s hard to eff up and I didn’t measure anything while making it.

Ingredients:

• purple sticky rice
• water
• coconut milk
• a few pinches of brown sugar or raw sugar
• dollop of coconut cream (optional)
• mango or banana chunks (optional)

Soak rice in water for at least eight hours - this will greatly cut down on your cooking time. Drain water and place rice in a pot and add water to about half to one inch above the rice. (If you happen to have a rice steamer, I’d suggest using that.) Bring to a boil and reduce to a simmer. Add a pinch of sugar and stir and taste the water to see if the sweetness level is adequate for you. Cook uncovered for at least half an hour, stirring occasionally. Taste the rice, it should be soft, but have a little bite to it but not be chewy. You may have to add more water, but you want it thick and not too soupy and you don’t want it dry. Think runny risotto consistency. Turn off the heat and stir in small amounts of the coconut milk until you like the taste. Add more sugar if you need to. Top with coconut cream and/or fruit chunks if you want. Can be enjoyed hot or cold. Check out your feces afterwards.

Moderation is key.

I’m getting into organ meats and I hope I don’t get gout like that adorable Bobby Hill.

Organ meats. Usually known in most of our culture as the crap bits. That shit you throw out can be extremely tasty if prepared right (read: prepared Frenchilly).

I’ve been hording the livers that come with my whole chickens. I’m going to compare it to those little Japanese or Kid Robot toys that I occasionally buy: Little boxes for $3-5 and contained inside is a mystery from a limited edition series. I buy my whole chickens and hope for double livers. Lately I’ve been coming up with only necks. Rats!

I decided to make my own pate-type dealie. Because for some reason, buying it is expensive. And it’s actually really cheap to make. So before you “ooh-la-la” me, hear me out.

I am using Jacques Pepin’s recipe for chicken liver custard (smoother and silkier than pate). If you are on a diet, then I suggest you do not read on. For it is a delicious, godforsaken tale of eggs and heavy cream and butter.

Continue reading…

Lately, brunch has been a big bummer. Don’t get me wrong, I believe it should be one of the most revered meals of the week. You can choose breakfast food, lunch food, or something in between, plus, drinking is actually encouraged. It is more or less a perfect meal.

But lately, restaurants have had a massive amount of suck-age when it comes to this fantastic meal. If waiting 45 minutes for a meal with a blinding hangover headache doesn’t deter you, the fact that once seated, you’ll be given the check before you’re half way through you meal might. I thought at first it was just the trendy neighborhood I live in, where the combination of youth, drinking and disposable incomes translated into long lines and rushed service. Even with a rather large variety of restaurants to choose from, it was a mostly unpleasant experience. Recent forays into the city and and other parts of Brooklyn have unfortunately let me to believe that this is a prevalent phenomenon.

Once you finally get a seat, coffee, and alcoholic beverage of choice, looking at the brunch menu has become a little disappointing as well. It seems like most places are catering to the lower common taste denominator. Biscuits and gravy are good, but should they be so ubiquitous that even the Mexican joint serves them at brunch? And I’m a big fan of eggs Benedict, and admire creativity with the choice of “toppings” served with a poached egg, but how come this often translates into stinginess. Last Sunday I tried a French place in Carroll Gardens, and I won’t go into details, but calling what I had “eggs Benedict” was certainly a misnomer.

A few months ago, I started getting wise. Most brunch items are easy to make at home, and you can linger over your meal, without having someone hovering over you waiting to collect the check. Here are some tips to enjoy a brunch at home.

DRINKS: Of course, bloody Mary’s are the way to go, and most people are really partial to their favorite preparation, so I won’t go into how I prefer mine. Mimosa are also easy to make, as are Screwdrivers. But if you want to switch it up a bit, here are some ideas to try:

• White Port and Seltzer
• Lillet, Seltzer and a splash of Citron
• Faux Sangria, red wine and oj
• White wine, seltzer and a splash of pom juice

THE OVEN: Use the oven, the rule of thumb should be, the more people you serve, the more you should use your oven. Tray pans of potatoes (chunks tossed in spices and roasted are easy and delicious), bacon, sausage evenly cook decent amounts for a crowd. Eggs cooked in toast (or a large hollowed out foccocia), Swedish oven pancakes and french toast “casserole” are other ways that keep you from having to do made-to-order of these brunch staples.

LUNCH ITEMS: I usually like to make at least one lunch salad, sometimes two. A nice green salad with lots of herbs (parsley, mint, tarragon) cut into it. Cantaloupe with green onions, rice vinegar and slivered pepperoni. Non-mayonnaise macaroni salad works too.

The more options the merrier. And the best part about it is that you get to spend quality time with the people you’re brunching with, truly worth the effort.

Every time my mother comes to visit, she brings me whatever is currently in her kitchen that she is not using. The fact that she cooks pretty much every meal and I cook about four times a week is lost on her. Any utensil, gadget or ingredient that isn’t currently getting work in her house gets shipped off to Brooklyn. Although its a sweet gesture, its pretty amusing that I own a salad spinner, a potato ricer, a fish spatula and a pizza cutter. *

This is why I happen to have a random collection of vegetables I would not typically buy for myself in my kitchen this morning. Two red peppers, four over-ripe tomatoes and a bunch of rosemary. I am typically not a fan of red or green peppers and had kept them for a week not really knowing what to do with them. Since I am a big fan of soup, I decided to use my most valuable kitchen implement - the great immersion blender - and make them into a soup.

This was simple, quick, and delicious. It made just enough soup for two people and can be seasoned in a variety of ways.

Red Pepper and Tomato Soup

Ingredients:

• 2 red peppers
• 4 medium tomatoes
• 1/2 yellow onion
• 2 cloves garlic
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 1/2 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 1/2 cups chicken broth
• 2 tablespoons tomato paste
• spices (more on this)
• 2 splashes Tabasco,
• 3 tablespoons heavy cream,
• salt and pepper to taste

Method: Coarsely chop the peppers, tomatoes, onion and garlic. Melt 1 tablespoon of butter and oil in a large pot. Add vegetables and cook, stirring frequently so not to burn. When tomatoes and peppers start to “melt” and express juices, add chicken broth, tomato paste and spices.{SPICES - you can use a bunch of different spices with these flavors. Today I used 1 teaspoon of sweet paprika and a few sprigs of rosemary. But fennel pollen/fennel seeds, tarragon or hot paprika would work too. Whatever you have in the house, just try and keep it to one note.}

Bring to a boil and then lower hear. Let simmer for about 10 minutes.

{FLAVOR CUBES - Often you get weird leftover ingredients. Like mashed potatoes or in this case tomato paste. There is a reason I bring up these two particular ingredients. Usually recipes (annoyingly) call for only a tablespoon of tomato paste, and it typically comes in 6 ounce cans. Take an ice cube try and line it plastic wrap. Fill as many “cubes” as you can with tomato paste. Freeze, and when frozen, store in a ziplock bag. When another recipes call for just a tablespoon of tomato paste you can use a tomato paste cube from the freezer. In this recipe I used two mashed potato cubes I had in the freezer for some added texture. Flavor cubes work with just about any puree or liquid.}

Once simmered, add salt and pepper to taste and use an immersion blender to puree the ingredients together. I like my soups to have a little body so don’t puree them completely smooth. If you don’t have an immersion blender, too bad for you. You’re going to have to suck it up and move the soup in small batches to a regular blender, which is tricky with hot soup. Next time you’re out splurge and buy a damn immersion blender. You could get a cheap one for under $20. Once blended, stir in heavy cream and the other tablespoon of butter.

Often finishing a dish with cream and butter is a crutch for poor cooks, but in this case I think it really adds to the soup.

Enjoy!

*It should be noted that I buy my own useless kitchen gadgets as well, like the pocket-pie/ravioli/pirogi/calzone makers I purchased almost a year ago and still have yet to use, especially when I know if I actually wanted to make any of those things I could just seal them closed with a common fork. So maybe that’s why she assumes I want the other barely useful items…

Mushroom soup! And I’m not talking about that shitty Campbell’s Cream of Mushroom Soup that tastes like flour and water mixed together with one rotten mushroom thrown in. This is mushroom-action packed!

When Matt and I were in Brussels, we lunched at La Roue d’Or, an uber-Belgian Restaurant where well-t0-do business men like to eat. It was not a vegetarian friendly place: they served pig trotters, lamb’s tongue, rabbit and bone marrow. We got the prix fixe lunch that included cream of mushroom soup and boullaibase - it was the best cream of mushroom soup I had ever eaten. This is a pretty good copy of it, but with less cream.

Continue reading…