GOOD EATS IS BACK AND ALTON MADE SHAKSHUKA
Also: Garfield-bait*, The Great Socialist Bake Off, and the funniest food related video I've seen in 2019
I’d love to give you a much, much longer The83K piece about Alton Brown and the return of the greatest cooking program of all time.
But this newsletter is already late, and I have some important work to do tonight, so we’re just gonna talk about that tomato, pepper, seasoning and egg extravaganza shakshuka, briefly, because I spend a lot of time in Andersonville now, and there’s a few places to get really exceptional Lebanese pita, and the thought of toasting up a few rounds of that stuff and dipping it into some warm, just barely fiery shakshuka makes me happy and hungry.
If you were one of the many happy millions of folks who basically went shakshuka crazy after the release of Ottolenghi’s Jerusalem*, you know why I’m mentioning Chef Yotam — he’s basically the reason we’re having this conversation in the first place. It seemed like, every night in the year after the book broke big internationally, someone you knew was cooking from it — and most often, it was the dish that seemed delicious and daring enough to make for friends and family, yet not too fussy…a showstopper, within reach.
I’m reasonably sure Instagram was 9% shakshuka for about two months, there.
But now it’s 2019, and as Ottolenghi’s publishing empire continues to grow — so must we. The appeal of a burbling, fragrant pan of peppers, ‘maters and eggs is indisputable — but the way to get to optimal shakshukahood is not.
Enter the Alton, with a paean to Casablanca (his and chef Alex Guarnaschelli’s favorite film, and the namesake for the area in which Brown believes Shakshuka originated.)
You should watch this episode, not just for the clear affection both chefs have for the movie and each other but for a Good Eats episode that contains all the hallmarks of what’s made the show so beloved: occasionally awful costumes, a wry inside joke, some mild scolding when it comes to poor kitchen practices and a metric ton of cheese and good information — as well as fantastic filmmaking.
THEN you should go shopping, and prepare the urfa biber harissa and the preserved lemons, which, unless you live inside Epic Spices, you’ll need to make ahead of shakshuka time. The urfa biber looks delicious but pretty hardcore (you can’t store it in plastic since it will stain just about anything.)
And then get yourself a high-walled saute pan or a big ol’ skillet and get down to business.
Alton is back, and shakshuka — one of the truly great egg dishes in the world — is a thing in America.
Not EVERYTHING in 2019 sucks.
*one of those cookbooks you start seeing all the time — so often you often ponder the coolness and rareness of the name “Yotam” in America
The best bowl of pho in Chicago is nowhere near Argyle or Chinatown — it’s on faaaaar West Lawrence Avenue.
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Things you should make:
It’s still pleasantly warm here in Chicago, but the calendar says it’s time to start thinking about making lasagna — one of the few dishes where this lactose-intolerant person insists on using the fresh cheeses prescribed by the recipe. And this recipe looks like a winner.
On another night, when your oven isn’t filled with delicious Garfield-bait*, maybe make some roast tahini glazed roast carrots to go with some pan-seared trout?
Sweet and Spicy Ribs With Cilantro and Cucumber:
These ribs are a treat to put together, since everything cooks in one pan until the sauce becomes a sticky glaze and the ribs turn soft and tender. Some roasted potatoes or a potato salad would do well here if you’re serving this as part of a larger spread. Not to be confused with mango chutney, hot mango pickle is a traditional jarred condiment made by preserving mangoes and a variety of hot spices. It’s used most commonly in South Asia, and provides the sour and spicy qualities that give these ribs that special oomph of flavor. You can find it in the international section of many supermarkets or in other specialty markets.
*I wouldn’t try to catch Garfield for any nefarious purposes — I believe Jon is emotionally unavailable and simultaneously an enabler of Garfield’s worst habits. That cat needs a new, more nurturing environment.
Links:
The definitive dim sum guide to Chicago, with Louisa Chu.
There are certain ingredients some chefs just don’t like working with:
Coconut milk in a curry I can deal with, but I can’t understand why anyone eats flavourless, sawdust-like desiccated coconut – or fresh coconut, for that matter. Chefs have to risk their limbs to smash open this big, horrible, hairy nut, and it’s not like the flesh is softly juicy. It’s watery, rock hard and brittle and gets stuck in your teeth. If I was on a desert island, I’d starve.
Tyler Kord wrote this useful and funny book about sandwiches and now has turned his attention to everyone’s favorite dinosaur.
THE GREAT SOCIALIST BAKE OFF: Jacobin Magazine (yes, that magazine) has published a love letter to a certain British baking competition.
Bake Off contestants are almost impossibly ordinary. All of the contestants are amateur bakers. Their hobbies run the gamut from spending time with family to walking their dogs. None of the bakers were raised by wolves or suffer from a rare form of cancer whose only cure is baking a Victoria sponge. As Alex Clark writes in the Guardian, “Bake Off’s charm has always lain in its refusal to conform to the rampant back-story prurience of other reality television shows, the high-definition equivalent of curtain-twitching combined with a vapid belief in personal journeys.”
There are no ninjas, only nurses or teachers or college students — people who struggle to find time to practice their baking because they are grading papers or working a second job to make ends meet. (Even an appearance on television cannot excuse them from day-to-day economic exploitation.)
Yet these amateur contestants are not just baking run-of-the mill cakes — they are creating impressive, unique, edible works of art. Bake Off is a celebration of the average worker, of the man or woman on the street. Contra the trickle-down ideology of neoliberal capitalism, Bake Off reminds us that ordinary individuals are capable of extraordinary creativity. Excessive, pernicious competition not only fails to incentivize regular individuals, it diminishes their spirit. And while the white tent is a far cry from a worker’s paradise, the attitude the bakers express is reminiscent of Orwell’s description of his 1936 visit to leftist-run Barcelona: “Human beings were trying to behave as human beings and not as cogs in the capitalist machine.”
Things you should watch:
The inimitable Brad Leone and Matty Matheson head to Oklahoma and go noodling for catfish. Hee hee. It is hands down the best thing I have seen all week. (There’s some language and some pretty wild fishing scenes — but holy forking shirt, if you think your kids can handle it, maybe sit down and watch this one with ‘em.)
Learn about some of the more popular kinds of rice, why they taste the way they do, and some of the best ways to cook them.
Munchies/Vice moved this episode of Chef’s Night Out back to their main YouTube channel from wherever it was hiding. Gawd, I miss Anthony Bourdain.