• 07Jul

    Who’s The Best Date? I’m The Best Date.

    In blatant ritualization of my amazing narcissism, I frequently have ‘date nights’ at home with myself: I cook an elaborate meal, drink good wine, and watch terrible reality TV. My most recent such evening, I was also feeling a bit lazy, so I went for something simple and unplanned, but which turned out to be awesome, and I want to remember it for the next time I cook for an actual date.
    http://www.flickr.com/photos/jennifrog/5138834425/

    The recipes below are more or less in the order I made them, but that has more to do with making it all up as I went than any intention. What I ate, in order: salad, soup, fish and veggies, cheese, chocolate. I drank a Malbec from Catena, but cooked with one from a box.

    Stock/soup

    1 carrot, sliced thin
    1 red onion, diced
    About 1/2 cup of diced celery hearts
    3 sun dried tomato halves
    3 cloves garlic (peeled, whole)
    Handful tellicherry peppercorns
    1 whole star anise pod (about 6 seeds)
    1 bay leaf
    3 cloves
    Vegeta
    Sherry vinegar
    3/4 cup red wine
    5 cups water
    Olive Oil
    Sesame Oil

    I tossed the celery, onions, carrots and garlic into a large pot over medium-high heat, and let them start to caramelize. Once they start sticking to the bottom (but not quite charring yet), I added a small splash of sesame oil and a good dose of olive oil, let that get hot, and then deglaze with 1/2 cup of the wine.

    I then added the water and the rest of the wine, plus sun dried tomatoes, dry spices and Vegeta (I used about 1/5 tbs…adjust to your taste). I brought to a boil and then back down to simmer, uncovered, for about 40 minutes. I added a splash or two of the vinegar about 3/4 of the way through.

    While the stock was bubbling away, I made my salad by putting some raddicchio, baby spinach, frssé, and fresh dill into a bowl and topping it with finely diced yellow squash and some grape tomatoes.

    I also prepped the fish, using:

    1 mahi mahi fillet, either fresh or flash-frozen but fully thawed, rinsed and patted dry.
    1/4 yellow squash (sliced into half-moons about 1/4 inch think)
    1/4 zucchini (sliced into half-moons about 1/4 inch think)
    1/3 red onion (diced)
    Herbs de Provence
    Olive Oil
    Vegetable stock

    I sauteed the onion in the oil until they start to get translucent, about 2 minutes, then added the squash and zucchini, sprinkled with the herbs, and sauteed another couple minutes. I turned the heat down to medium-low and put the fish on top of the bed of sauteed veggies in the pan. Sprinkled with some more herbs. Next, I poured about 1/2-2/3 of a cup of stock into the pan, making sure to baste the top of the fish with it, and brought it all to a boil (it helps if you’ve just made the stock and it’s already hot).

    Again, back the heat to low-medium-low, covered and cooked about 6-8 minutes, until the fish was done. I plated the fish and strained the veggies out of the remaining broth (which you can return to your stock pot for extra flavor, if you don’t mind a little fish in your veggie stock). I served them immediately.

    Now, I actually ate my salad (dressed with olive oil and seasoned rice vinegar) while the fish was cooking, because I was hungry and dammit it was my date.

    I plated the fish, veggies, and soup at the same time. The soup was really just all the veggies that cooked in the stock removed to a bowl with a slotted spoon and then the bowl filled with the stock and finished with some fresh garlic croutons. Bloody delicious I tell you!

    So, after salad and soup, I ate my fish, which was really, REALLY good. I have to say I feel pretty smug about that – tender, moist, and so rich with steamed/poached-in flavor. The veggies were fantastic too.

    It being a date, I wanted to make the best impression, so I had also pulled from my fridge a couple of awesome cheeses (a stinky blue one and a hard, nutty tomme of some kind, both from the Eastern Market cheese lady), so I had those on baguette next. And then, for dessert, I went with simple-is-best (because at this point I was getting lazy), and had Mexican table chocolate shaved over a scoop of vanilla ice cream.

    At the end of the day, I would totally give me a second date…and all told, there is now a ton of awesome veggie-with-a-hint-of-fish stock in my freezer, ready for such an occasion.

    -MAW

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  • 20Apr

    Black & Orange: A Distressingly Pretentious First Look

    Normally, I would take a heavy editing hand to such prose, but my dear fellow native Washingtonian AJ is not only not wrong in her assessments, I think her admittedly ridiculous over-style is somehow appropriate for the inflated self-worth of ‘fancy’ fast food joints.

    -MAW

    —–
    AJ Says:

    I’m an admitted burger fiend. I grew up eating the things by the truckload at home and out (visits to the old Hamburger Hamlet were ever a demand foisted upon my parents’ weekends). But mostly, we ate them at home. Our burger consumption transcended all the various food and diet fads of the 80’s and 90’s – my mother, and later I, tried every one – through low fat to mid-fat to inexplicably 99% fat free beef, through turkey, through lamb, through veal and through chicken, our patties endured white buns and wheat buns, no buns and potato rolls, were eaten plain and smothered in ketchup, mustard, organic ketchup, mayo, Tabasco, Cholula and Marie Sharp’s, dipped in Kraft BBQ and home-made barbeque sauces, and mixed with onion soup mix, blue cheese, and whatever else – one thing, however, remained constant: each patty was grilled over open fire, just shy of medium-rare, with a nice charred crust all around. We ate a lot of burgers, and I’ll even cop to loving McDonalds’ through about age 14, when I discovered that my anti-corporatist streak could be more reasonably supported by liking a proper hamburger containing neither carrageenan, soy byproduct, nor griddle grease. My love of meat did (thank heaven!) stop me short of any teenage-girl notions about dieting or vegetarianism.

    This brings me to the relatively recent revival of burger joints in DC and elsewhere, and how much they piss me off. Five Guys was the first I noticed – bland, grey patties cooked on soggy white buns, served aside admittedly delicious fries and momentarily entertaining peanut shells to throw at people. The Shake Shack craze I understand even less. Blah on both counts, and I never understood why people get so excited about them, but at least they admit it’s fast food. But now we come to Black & Orange, formerly Rogue States. Intrigued by the concept (and gleefully in support of just about any attempt to push DC into a better late-night town), I decided to stop in the other day on my way home from work.

    To be as fair as possible, I eschewed the fancily dressed-up versions – as you may guess, I do love me some toppings – and went for the “Square One,” dressed simply with sea salt and black pepper, and topped with the ever-traditional lettuce, onion, tomato, and pickle. I excitedly dug in. And there, my excitement came to an abrupt and unsightly death.

    Which isn’t to say the burger wasn’t pretty: it was really picturesque as a whole, with the right proportions, for me, of mean, topping, and bun. But, upon taking a bite, I found the bun was sweet but otherwise insipid, and the patty itself bland and mushy in texture. It was, at least, properly pink inside, and the toppings were fresh (and the lettuce not iceburg!), giving it a leg up on the above-mentioned fast-fad burgers.

    I understand the limitations of indoor kitchens and the need for grill pans instead of grills, but seriously people: this is not a “gourmet” burger. This is a better-than-average fast-food burger. While again I do love the idea that the place is open till 5 AM, and I’ll probably stop in for some sweet potato fries and maybe even another burger after later shows at the Black Cat, by that point I’ll have had eleventeen vodka-cranberries and won’t care about much beyond “Foooooooood…nowwwwww.” For random I-need-dinner-on-the-way-home nights, however, I’ll stick to Fast Gourmet sandwiches, and just do burgers myself.

    – A guest post by AJ

    Black & Orange
    1931 14th St. NW,
    Washington, DC 20009
    202-450-5365

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