Stop The Presses - Part Seven

Uncharacteristically, due to a change in editorial oversight, "Dining Due Diligence" happened to run twice this month in the Chicago Daily Law Bulletin. I'm looking forward to working with my new editor in the months to come, but for now, please enjoy the latest edition from today's paper:

Restaurateur Brendan Sodikoff is the culinary mastermind behind some of Chicago's hottest restaurants and stepping into the River North location of Bavette's Bar and Boeuf, his latest venture, it is easy to see why.

At Bavette's, Sodikoff captures the essence of a French brasserie, down to the dim lighting and luxurious oxblood leather booths, but without the claustrophobia that often accompanies the dining experience abroad. Tables are widely spaced, and unobtrusive jazz music wafts through the air, fostering conversation.

If it weren't for the obnoxious policy of refusing to seat diners until their party is complete, Bavette's would be a welcome haven for business-minded customers wishing to discuss  important matters or woo new clients. With that policy, however, Bavette's is better suited to an after-hours cocktail with coworkers who arrive together.

At 218 W. Kinzie St., Bavette's greets guests with a complimentary basket of house-made sourdough bread, served warm, instead of giving in to the burgeoning trend of charging extra for so-called "bread service."

For an appetizer, the shrimp de jonghe is rich and well-rounded, though a bit too zealously salted. The sauce perhaps outshone the crustaceans floating within it, leaving one longing for more of the marvelous bread to soak it up. For those seeking a lighter start, the apple and endive salad is bright and acidic, despite a heavy dose of salty Parmesan that adds an important umami element.

The entree course was inconsistent, succeeding wildly in some dishes and falling flat in others. The fried chicken was surprisingly succulent, but the crust so lacked in seasoning it drew unfavorable comparisons to Shake 'n Bake. Similarly, the short rib stroganoff offered a less heavy riff on the original, with remarkably tender beef, though the flavor did not translate to the bland noodles.

Boeuf is in Bavette's name for a reason, as even the most modest offering, the steak frites, was exceptional. The flatiron steak had incredible flavor and was perfectly cooked as requested, in addition to being tender in a way that cut is seldom experienced. Both components were accentuated and complemented by the lemony, tarragon-scented Béarnaise sauce, which magically added richness and much-needed acidity.

On the side, the chili-laced elote-style corn is a certain crowd-pleaser, while the almost absurdly crisp hash browns were unevenly seasoned, though this oversight was easily addressed by the addition of Bavette's custom steak salt.

Dessert was memorable largely for its grandiose scale. Chicago-style cheesecake towered over the table like the city skyline, and the airy cloud of meringue heaped on top of the lemon meringue pie was equally epic in proportion.

Go Nuts...

As I've slowly convalesced this week, along with my returning health has come a growing compulsion to bake. Maybe it has something to do with my desire to console myself over the loss of my trip to Berlin, but I've been longingly looking through the Momofuku Milk Bar book this week planning my next cookie experiment. Initially, I was drawn to the Funfetti-inspired cookies, but then I realized that I could never bake such a cookie without being able to share it with my cousin Trista, the biggest Funfetti fan I know. Then I considered the decadent looking chocolate cookies, before ruling them out in favor of a chocolate birthday cake in the weeks to come. That left me with the Milk Bar version of peanut butter cookies in terms of recipes I could make using ingredients that I had on hand.

Initially, I had ruled out the peanut butter cookies since I already have a perfect recipe for them, handed down to me by my mother, who learned how to bake them in her 4-H group as a girl. I figured that even Christina Tosi would not be able to improve upon them, but as I was perusing my usual assortment of food blogs and food blog aggregator sites, I happened to come across a post someone else had written about Tosi's recipe. The blogger proclaimed them the greatest peanut butter cookies she had ever eaten, let alone baked herself, and I felt a sudden obligation to give them a try, if only to make sure I wasn't missing anything.

As with most of the Momofuku Milk Bar creations, I had to work through at least one nested recipe before I could get to the cookies themselves. In this case, at least there was only one, and it was for "peanut brittle," though that's not really the correct descriptive term to use. Tosi's "brittle" consists of little more than sugar and nuts, creating something that can only be used when ground up into a near-powder in the food processor, as the glass-like shards are too sharp and too hard to eat on their own, like a conventional peanut brittle. The logic behind this step, I believe, is that the tiny fragments of caramel and nuts melt into the cookies, producing a chewier end result with caramelized flavor overtones.

Though I am fairly comfortable with caramelizing sugar at this point in my cooking career, this step still irked me somewhat, as the cookie recipe only called for half of the "brittle" I was required to make, leaving me with a surplus that I have no idea what to do with. I would have just made half as much "brittle," but it is notoriously difficult to caramelize small amounts of sugar evenly. I could maybe turn it into an ice cream mix-in, or else I'm going to have to make more cookies.

Not that that would be the worst thing in the world, mind you. The cookies, like the corn cookies, turned out very well. As promised, they were delightfully chewy in the center, whereas my usual go-to peanut butter cookie is more crumbly. They were also a huge hit at the office among my coworkers who have yet to sample the joys of my standard recipe. For me, however, these cookies just didn't quite measure up. I still prefer the texture, flavor, and the ease of preparation of my usual peanut butter cookies, even though I'm usually "team chewy" when it comes to cookies.

I'm glad I gave Tosi's cookies a shot, even if they didn't beat out my heirloom recipe, and I'm even more glad to have scratched another Milk Bar recipe off my to-do list so that Justin can get the book back to the library. I'm not sure why this book has captured my imagination in such a palpable way, but I simply can't rest until I've tried every delicious-looking cookie in there!

Hey Sexy Lady...

I did end up getting one day off today, though not because I was off jet-setting, but rather, because I we still too sick to head into the office. While I was kicking around the house today, I noticed this little gem in the mail:

It is a take-out menu for Panchito's, a new restaurant that has opened in the neighborhood. For better or worse, Roger's Park is one of the most diverse neighborhoods in the city, and as a result, the majority of the small business owners in the neighborhood are non-native English speakers. Many of the businesses circumvent the language barrier by offering no signage or advertising in English, so I guess you have to give Panchito's some credit for making an effort.

Still, this menu raises more questions than it answers: are the owners incredibly sexist, or just unaware of the meaning of saying that salad sandwiches are for "sexy ladies," and that the other sandwiches are for "hungry man?" As a woman, can I order something besides a salad sandwich? What is a salad sandwich anyway? Based on the descriptions, I think they just mean salads, but I can't really be sure.

Will I be checking out Panchito's? Probably not, but not just because of the unfortunate writing in their take-out menu -- the actual food just doesn't look that tempting. I'm thankful to them, however, for the laugh they gave me on this otherwise dull and icky day of illness.

You Can't Win 'Em All...

I was supposed to be writing this post from a hotel room in Berlin, but instead, I am writing it in my own bed, in my own apartment, in humble Rogers's Park. Dad and I were supposed to be off on our latest father-daughter adventure, planned around an invitation from the Chicago Chamber of Commerce (of which Dad is a board member) to check out Air Berlin, a new air carrier in our city offering non-stop flights to, you guessed it, Berlin. To promote the new service, they had offered chamber members a sweet deal on airfare and accommodations, and we had jumped at the opportunity.

I was excited and looking forward to the chance to get away, especially to one of my favorite cities, but then on Wednesday I started to feel an ominous tickle in the back of my throat. Praying that it was allergies was to no avail, and by Thursday night, I felt even worse and was running a fever. However, I couldn't take off work yesterday and get myself to a doctor because I had to be in the office for a half-day, critically important work meeting with a number of surgeons who were in from out of town. All I could do was leave early and get myself to an urgent care center by the late afternoon.

The doctor I saw diagnosed me with a respiratory tract infection, and advised against flying, given my history of asthma, wheezing in the office, and below average oxygen levels. She gave me a prescription for antibiotics, but it was already too late. I was crushed.

We made the decision this morning not to go, and while I know in my heart of hearts that I am in no shape to fly, and it was the right decision, it doesn't make me any less disappointed. I love Berlin, and now I have no idea when I will have the opportunity to make it back again. Nobody ever said life was fair, but knowing that doesn't make it any easier.

Pop It Like It's Hot...

For better or worse, I now share my home with a voracious snacker. I've actually never been much of a snacker; I usually consume snack foods in meal-size portions like half a bag of Doritos in one sitting, or a third of a package of Oreos at a time (though I'm doing better on that front than I did when I was in college). I never really snacked much growing up either, in fact, the after school snack enjoyed by so many kids was practically an unknown entity in our home, probably because we always ate dinner so early, usually around five o'clock.

However, my beloved is a constant grazer -- at times, I wonder if there is a black hole where his stomach should be. As a result, we keep more snack foods in the house than I ever did as a single person, and I find myself constantly on the hunt for new snack ideas that previously would have flown under my radar.

It was one of these ideas that Justin spotted when I finally managed to get him to look at my food-related Pinterest boards yesterday, to get his input on what he might be interested in making, now that he is doing more of the savory cooking around here. With laser-like focus, he honed in on a popcorn recipe I'd saved, that called for smoked paprika and Japanese snack crackers. You see, Justin already has a recipe in his repertoire for a popcorn and Japanese snack cracker blend, so I though he might like to try this variation just for the sake of trying something new. I was right.

Given our bountiful and well-stocked pantry, we actually had everything we needed to make this popcorn treat in our house already, despite the somewhat exotic ingredient list. Justin whipped up a batch today, almost the moment we walked in the door after work.

I wasn't even planning on eating it at all, since I'm sort of a popcorn traditionalist, and prefer to stick to butter and salt on mine. But as Justin rhapsodized over his new creation and proclaimed smoked paprika to be his new favorite spice, I decided to give it taste. I actually rather enjoyed the smoky/sweet combination that came from the paprika and a sprinkling of sugar. It was like a more complex version of kettle corn.

The rice crackers weren't doing it for me, but then again, I've never really been a fan. As it was, I just sort of picked around them, but in the future, if we were ever between visits to H-Mart and out of rice crackers, I would be more than happy to eat the popcorn with just salt, sugar, smoked paprika and butter. It may even turn me into snacker...

Smoky Popcorn

adapted from Food & Wine

1/4 c. vegetable oil

1/2 c. plus 2 tablespoons popping corn

1 teaspoon smoked hot Spanish paprika

1/2 tablespoon sugar

1/2 stick unsalted butter, melted and kept warm

1 tablespoon Japanese furikake mix*

2 c. Japanese mixed rice crackers

Kosher salt

1. In a large saucepan, combine the oil and popcorn, cover and cook over moderate heat until it starts to pop. Shake the pan and cook until the corn stops popping.

2. Transfer the hot popcorn to a large bowl. Sprinkle with the paprika and sugar and toss well. Drizzle with the butter and toss, adding the furikake and rice crackers. Season with salt, toss again and serve.

*Furikake is a seasoning mix that includes seaweed, sesame seeds, sugar, salt and dried bonito (dried fish flakes).

Spill The Beans...

I'll admit it -- I've fallen off the wagon with regard to my plan to clean out the freezer. I made some progress, and got rid of some of the items that had been lingering in there a questionably long time, but for everything that I removed and used, I found something new to take its place, and the freezer remains as full as ever.

In spite of this failure of will, one meal planning stratagem that remains enmeshed in my arsenal is making an effort to select chains of recipes that utilize the same ingredients, so that I waste less food. For example, I had to buy rosemary for Friday's ditalini with chickpeas, so I started looking for other recipes that also utilize the herb to get the most out of my purchase. This led me to the rosemary lemon white bean dip I made yesterday while I was home alone, and to request herbed baked eggs for breakfast from Justin this morning.

Tonight, it was on to Creamy White Bean Soup with Chorizo, for which we had all the ingredients on hand except the dried beans and the Mexican-style chorizo, which we were able to find at one of the Hispanic grocery stores in our neighborhood. We actually forgot to start soaking the beans the night before (I very rarely used dried beans; though everyone asserts their textural superiority, I prefer the convenience of the canned variety), so it turned out to be a rather late dinner by the time we had finished waiting for them to soak.

Contrary to the recipe, I decided to sauté the sausage first and cook the vegetables in it, as it seemed like a shame to waste the extra flavor, but the chorizo proved to be exceptionally, almost shockingly lean. I ended up having to supplement the meager drippings with olive oil anyway.

The most arduous part of the recipe proved to be chopping all the vegetables and herbs, as my trusty immersion blender made the puréeing process relatively painless. It was still more effort than I would want to expend on getting dinner on getting dinner on the table on a week night, but it was a worthy weekend project.

The chorizo definitely made this dish; without it, the soup would have been fairly bland and uninteresting. In fact, discovering the quality of the chorizo at our local bodega may have been the most significant thing to come out of this recipe experiment. I'm sure you can look forward to seeing more fresh-chorizo dishes around here in the weeks and months to come!

Creamy White Bean and Chorizo Soup

adapted from Bon Appétit

1 pound dried cannellini or Great Northern beans (generous 2 cups)

8 cups water

3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, divided

3 garlic cloves; 1 smashed, 2 chopped

1 large fresh rosemary sprig

1 bay leaf

1 large onion, coarsely chopped (about 2 cups)

1 large carrot, coarsely chopped (about 1 cup)

1 large celery stalk, coarsely chopped (about 3/4 cup)

2 1/2 teaspoons finely chopped fresh thyme, divided

4 c. chicken broth

1 pound fresh chorizo link sausages, casings removed

1/4 c. whipping cream

Place beans in heavy large saucepan. Add enough water to pan to cover beans by 4 inches. Let beans soak overnight at room temperature.

Drain and rinse beans; return to same saucepan. Add 8 cups water, 1 tablespoon oil, smashed garlic clove, rosemary, and bay leaf. Bring to boil. Reduce heat to medium-low, partially cover, and simmer until beans are just tender, 1 to 1 1/2 hours. Season to taste with salt.

Drain beans, reserving cooking liquid. Discard rosemary sprig and bay leaf.

Heat remaining 2 tablespoons oil in heavy large pot over medium heat. Add onion, carrot, and celery. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Sauté until vegetables are beginning to soften, about 10 minutes. Add chopped garlic and 1 teaspoon thyme; sauté 2 minutes. Add 2 cups reserved bean cooking liquid, 4 cups chicken broth, and beans. Bring to boil; reduce heat to medium and simmer uncovered until vegetables are tender, about 25 minutes. Cool soup 10 minutes.

Meanwhile, sauté chorizo in heavy large skillet over medium-high heat until cooked through, breaking up lumps with back of spoon, about 5 minutes. Transfer chorizo to paper towels to drain.

Using slotted spoon, remove 1 1/2 cups bean mixture from soup; reserve. Working in batches, puree remaining soup in blender until smooth. Return puree to pot. Stir in reserved whole-bean mixture, remaining 1 1/2 teaspoons thyme, chorizo, and cream. Season with salt and pepper to taste, and serve.

Dip It Low...

In the past, I have discussed how I have recently come to terms with being an extrovert, meaning that I draw energy from being around others, and do not enjoy being alone. This is why, though the rational half of my brain understands that it is good for Justin's career to pick up extra shifts on the weekends at a public library and keep up-to-date experience in that field on his résumé, I do not relish the fact that he takes the car with him and leaves me alone all day on the weekends.

To keep myself distracted and cut down on the feelings of despondency and boredom that accompany solitude for me, I try to stay as busy as possible on the unfortunate Saturdays when Justin is working,and I usually treat these days as an opportunity to scratch chores off my to-do list, catch up on the multitude of television shows that I TiVo but don't have time for during the week, and to tackle involved projects in the kitchen.

This week, however, our house was already relatively clean, we had leftovers we needed to eat, including enough leftover ice cream pie to make baking a wasteful option, and enough shows were on reruns that I had nothing to watch. I managed to talk Dad into having lunch with me as a pitstop on his way back to the burbs after picking up some papers downtown, but I was still desperate for something to keep my mind occupied.

Naturally, I turned once more to my Pinterest board, where I spotted a bean dip I could make using ingredients I already had on hand, including some of the rosemary leftover from last night's ditalini with chickpeas that wasn't going to stay good forever. Plus, given Justin's fondness for legumes, I figured I couldn't go wrong.

I ended up with only two complaints about this recipe: first, it was so quick and easy to make that it hardly helped me kill anytime at all, and second, it didn't make nearly enough dip. It was so good, that once Justin arrived home from work with the bag of pita chips I'd asked him to pick up, we polished off the dip much too quickly.

In the future, I would double this recipe if I were making it for just the two of us, and maybe even triple it if we were entertaining guests. (I've changed the recipe below to reflect this.) Lately, we've been making our quickly-becoming-legendary spicy Moroccan carrot dip whenever we have people over, but it will be nice to have something simpler in our arsenal, as that recipe is rather labor-intensive, even if people do love it.

I actually prefer this new bean dip, as the flavor profile is more in line with my palate. I'm glad we gave it a try, and I look forward to using it as a disposal mechanism for more leftover rosemary in our future.

Rosemary Lemon White Bean Dip

adapted from Serious Eats

2 15.5 oz cans cannellini beans, drained and rinsed

4 medium cloves garlic, peeled

1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon freshly squeezed lemon juice and 2 teaspoons finely grated lemon zest from 1 lemon

1/2 c. extra virgin olive oil

1 tablespoons plus 1 teaspoon finely minced fresh rosemary

Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

1. Place beans, garlic, and lemon juice in the workbowl of a food processor fitted with a steel blade. Pulse until beans are roughly chopped.

2. With motor running, slowly pour 1/2 cup of oil through feed tube. Process until mixture is smooth.

3. Transfer bean mixture to a small bowl. Stir in rosemary and lemon zest. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Serve immediately or store in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 3 days.