Finally, it's tomato season! (cue dull roar from crowd) And, I've been buying 5 pounds a week from the farmers market.
Any other time of year, I can't stand eating raw tomatoes... they're flavorless with a crunchy yet goopy texture that just doesn't do it for me. I always wondered why winter tomatoes didn't have the magic... according to U of I, tomato flesh degrades when stored below 54 degrees. Meaning: don't pop those suckers into the fridge! http://urbanext.illinois.edu/veggies/tomato.cfm
Have tried a few fresh tomato recipes & want to try a pasta with raw sauce that I found in this month's Bon Appetit. Last year, I made a few tomato salads with cheeses, bruchetta, and tomato pie. All were ok, but this one is my absolute favorite:
http://www.bonappetit.com/recipes/2012/07/charred-corn-salad-with-basil-and-tomatoes
The recipe is impossible to screw up, and it also happens to be corn & basil season too :) The only kicker is this salad tastes like complete crap if you make it outside of July & August. Eat up while you can, let me know what you think!
Do you have any other ideas for using fresh summer tomatoes?
Monday, July 30, 2012
Monday, July 23, 2012
Kick-N-Chicken
When I was a little kid, I used to spend 2 months every summer at my grandparents' house in upstate NY. Not the Westchester county version of Upstate NY... I'm talkin' about the back country road, old farmhouse, pig farm, corn field Upstate NY. And every Sunday was chicken day. What was chicken day, you ask? Chicken day was when smoked rotisserie chicken owned the kitchen- the smell alone was enough to attract every member of the family like flies to sugar water.
Every weekend during the summers, the chicken stand would light a wood smoker early in the morning. Imagine a massive pit with a 15 foot rotisserie spit spread across. On the spit were 20 perfect chickens, bound together with twine, seasoned with BBQ seasoning (Bucks), and gently rubbed in butter. The chickens would slow roast over the smoky embers for a couple hours, until the meat fell off the bone. *Fell off the bone* Imagine a slow roasted pork butt shredding between your fingers- that's what this chicken is like. This isn't a chicken with flavor reserved only for the skin, or the chicken that requires a heavy coating of sauce to be called barbeque. The meat itself is infused with smokey flavor, and the slow roasting melts the tendons to lock in moisture. Equally moist white and dark meat- impossible to achieve in the oven without dissecting the bird before it's fully cooked.
Yesterday, I encountered the infamous Upstate NY chicken for the first time in over 5 years. What the hell was I thinking, skipping all of those summer family visits? The chicken alone was worth the flight (and grandma too).
Here's a picture of Kick-N-Chicken in Palermo, NY. The pit has been replaced with a wagon. Clearly this ain't your Kroger dual chicken electric rotisserie.
Grandma with the birdies
Every weekend during the summers, the chicken stand would light a wood smoker early in the morning. Imagine a massive pit with a 15 foot rotisserie spit spread across. On the spit were 20 perfect chickens, bound together with twine, seasoned with BBQ seasoning (Bucks), and gently rubbed in butter. The chickens would slow roast over the smoky embers for a couple hours, until the meat fell off the bone. *Fell off the bone* Imagine a slow roasted pork butt shredding between your fingers- that's what this chicken is like. This isn't a chicken with flavor reserved only for the skin, or the chicken that requires a heavy coating of sauce to be called barbeque. The meat itself is infused with smokey flavor, and the slow roasting melts the tendons to lock in moisture. Equally moist white and dark meat- impossible to achieve in the oven without dissecting the bird before it's fully cooked.
Yesterday, I encountered the infamous Upstate NY chicken for the first time in over 5 years. What the hell was I thinking, skipping all of those summer family visits? The chicken alone was worth the flight (and grandma too).
Here's a picture of Kick-N-Chicken in Palermo, NY. The pit has been replaced with a wagon. Clearly this ain't your Kroger dual chicken electric rotisserie.
Grandma with the birdies
Dosa Back
Hey Becky-
I have three very awesome food months to catch up on (Korea! New York! Cupcakes! Blueberry smashes!) In the meantime though, I can't help but wax a little poetic on dosas.
I had my first dosa 4 years ago at a place called Dakshin in Louisville (http://www.mydakshin.com). Dakshin is probably the best Indian food I've had in a restaurant, and it's located in a veritable shithole of a shopping center. But the massive half moon, size-of-a-Carolina's-tortilla, crispy, delicately browned dosas with the mashed potato filling were worth transferring the hefty contents of my car into the trunk for safekeeping every time. I liked them so much that I bought rice flour thinking I might try to recreate them at home- no such luck so far.
Was the uttapam similar to a Korean pancake? Yet another unsatisfied reason for the rice flour purchase.
Dosa on Fillmore next year?
I have three very awesome food months to catch up on (Korea! New York! Cupcakes! Blueberry smashes!) In the meantime though, I can't help but wax a little poetic on dosas.
I had my first dosa 4 years ago at a place called Dakshin in Louisville (http://www.mydakshin.com). Dakshin is probably the best Indian food I've had in a restaurant, and it's located in a veritable shithole of a shopping center. But the massive half moon, size-of-a-Carolina's-tortilla, crispy, delicately browned dosas with the mashed potato filling were worth transferring the hefty contents of my car into the trunk for safekeeping every time. I liked them so much that I bought rice flour thinking I might try to recreate them at home- no such luck so far.
Was the uttapam similar to a Korean pancake? Yet another unsatisfied reason for the rice flour purchase.
Dosa on Fillmore next year?
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The Salted Lemon by Anna Fishman and Becky Ong is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
