STL Eats, Pt. 3: A Day of STL Specialties

by EP

On my last day in St. Louis, Annie and I packed in a lot of activities, including stopping by the Taste of St. Louis and walking around Lafayette Park. We also happened to pack three St. Louis food specialties into the day (and, well, our mouths): gooey butter cake, toasted ravioli, and Ted Drewes frozen custard.

Specialty #1: Gooey Butter Cake

Gooey Butter Cake may not be the most appealing name ever created, but people in STL are crazy for this stuff. It's a yellow cake made with butter, sugar, and cream cheese, then different ingredients/flavorings are mixed in. Annie and I went to Park Avenue Coffee near Soulard, a bakery that boasts 73 flavors of GBC! We ordered coffees and heard about the dozen or so flavors they had in the shop that morning (the flavors rotate daily; for any of the other 60 flavors, you need to order online).

Cook to Live, Live to Cook

by Xani


So, I managed to spend another entire weekend cooking.  What has happened to me??  I guess I'm figuring out that the challenge, excitement, and sense of accomplishment that comes with successfully preparing food, then sharing that food with my friend and family, is not such a bad way to spend one's time.  Plus, we got to eat like kings without leaving the house or shelling out tons of money at restaurants.  All good things.


Like last week, I want to share with you some of the things I cooked and what I learned.  I took more pictures this time!

STL Eats, Pt. 2: What's...Pappy's, precious?

by EP

My second day in STL was chilly and drizzly and I was glad to start the day with a trip to an old college haunt, Kaldi's coffee. After a nice cup o' joe and a piece of pumpkin bread, Annie and I were off to the downtown area to check out Pappy's Smokehouse. Yes, immediately following breakfast, we found ourselves waiting in line for lunch at Pappy's at approximately 10:45am. The rule around there is they make what they make, and when they run out, they're out - get there too late and you're out of luck.

I just made this...

And it has totally blown. my. mind. Stay tuned to see what I do with it!!

X

Taking Stock, Making Stock

by Xani

Let me not waste time explaining why I haven't blogged in so long. Yes, I've eaten at wonderful restaurants and cooked fabulous foods, yet the blogging hasn't happened. I wish it had, but let's not dwell on the ancient past, let's look to the recent past/future! This weekend I cooked up a storm and I want to tell you all about it! This post will be light on the pics, but let's not let that keep me from blogging. Here we go!

The first thing I want to share with you is the awesome technique for making chicken stock that I discovered this weekend. I was feeling the need for a freezer-full of stock as so many cozy fall recipes for soups, stews, etc require stock or broth. While BCD mom raised us on a diet of College Inn chicken broth, hoarding dozens of cans in the pantry at all times, I've become sufficiently brainwashed to think that only homemade stock will do. But, we haven't been eating that much chicken at home lately, and we didn't have a stockpile of bones to make the base of the stock. So, I remembered this recipe for chicken stock which starts with three whole chickens, and after reading the comments, decided I could modify this technique to serve my purposes. Here's how it went:

Ingredients
2 (5-pound) roasting chickens
2 large yellow onions, unpeeled and quartered
4 carrots, unpeeled and halved
3 stalks celery with leaves, cut into thirds
3 parsnips, unpeeled and cut in half
15 sprigs fresh parsley
10 sprigs fresh thyme
10 sprigs fresh dill
1 head garlic, unpeeled and cut in 1/2 crosswise
2 tablespoons kosher salt
2 teaspoons whole black peppercorns

Method:
1. Wash chickens and remove and discard/find another use for the packet or innards. Put chickens in LARGE pot, cover with cold water. Bring to boil, reduce to a very slow simmer, simmer for 1 hour, skim scum/impurities off the surface periodically.
2. Carefully remove chickens from water. Let cool until they can be handled, then carefully pick the meat from the carcass (after 1 hour the meat should be mostly cooked, but not over-cooked. I harvested almost 3 pounds of meat from the chickens, which I separated into white and dark, and packaged and froze for later use such as chicken soup, enchiladas, or chicken pot pie).
3. Put all bones, skin, carcasses, etc back into the pot as you pick the meat (also pour back in any liquid that came out with the chickens). Continue to barely simmer (just a small bubble coming up here and there- if you cook too aggressively your stock will get cloudy) for another 2 hours.
4. Now it's time to add the veggies, herbs and seasonings. Many stock recipes have you add everything at the very beginning, but Michael Ruhlman recommends adding them only for the last hour of cooking, and for good reason-- too much cooking and the veggies break down/get soggy. This can cloud your stock, plus the water-logged veggies soak up so much of your precious stock! So just add them for the last hour, and keep the pot at that bare simmer...
5. It's been four hours, the stock is (almost) done!. Remove all solids, using tongs and a slotted spoon/strainer, pressing the veggies gently on the side of the pot to press out absorbed stock. At this point, I chose to keep simmering my stock for a while to reduce and concentrate the flavor a bit. When it reaches your desired intensity, let cool a bit and strain through cheesecloth.
6. Put stock in the fridge for several hours or overnight. Any fat will congeal on the top and can be skimmed off easily (mine had almost no fat even though I started with whole chicken).
7. Now you should be left with a large quantity of rich, flavorful chicken stock! This can easily be frozen for future use.

So there it is, my best stock yet! Mine came out a beautiful brown color, completely clear, with a nice roasted flavor (even though i started with all raw ingredients), and good sweetness and aroma from the veggies. I have already used some for risotto and chicken pot pie, and I'm so excited to have all that "poached" meat reserved for later. This is a lot more cost effective than just throwing the meat away after stock-making, too.

I cooked up a bunch of other recipes this weekend, too. No time to blog about each in detail, but here are some links and notes, and I'm happy to discuss with you in the comments, if you have questions.

New Year's Eve eggnog: Why am I making eggnog for a party on December 31 in mid-October?? Because this aged eggnog is supposed to be a revelation, and needs weeks or months in the fridge to mature. We'll break it out to ring in the new year, and hopefully not give our guests food poisoning.

Angel Food cake: I had 12 egg whites leftover from the nog-making, and a brand new tube pan that just arrived in the mail this week. I HAD to attempt my first angel food cake-- and I think it came out pretty good!

Lobster-ish Risotto with shrimp: I had a bit of frozen lobster stock in the freezer (made from the remnants of one of BCD Dad's big lobster gorge-fests) and decided to supplement it with some of my freshly made chicken stock and make risotto. I served it with some large pan-seared shrimp on top, and Mom's Caesar salad on the side. While I thought the risotto texture was good, the lobster flavor was very mild.

Buttermilk Waffles with apple topping: We had 2 cups of buttermilk hanging out in the fridge, so we tried this recipe on Sunday morning. It was just ok, I think next time I'll go to the trouble of separating the eggs and whipping the egg whites, to try and achieve a lighter, fluffier waffle. I also made a warm cinnamon apple topping from some of the apples still lingering from our apple-picking trip 2 weeks ago. Cooked the sliced apples with a little water, brown sugar, and cinnamon until apples were soft and the liquid had mostly evaporated. Finished with some lemon juice, butter, and a touch of cream. So much better than plain old syrup!

Chicken pot pie: Perhaps the pièce de résistance of the entire weekend, I made this for Sunday dinner. I used Ina Garten's recipe for the filling, but used a baking powder biscuit recipe from Martha Stewart's Baking Book as the topping (instead of doing a pastry topping). The filling was AMAZING-- loaded with veggies, and yes, delicious, moist meat from the stock-making. The sauce (which used 5 cups of my fab new stock) was SO rich, flavorful, and velvety. The biscuits were very simple, I added a bit of chopped thyme to the dough and also laminated the dough (folding it into thirds and rolling out, repeating, as in puff pastry) to make it extra flaky. I baked them right on top of the pot pie filling in my Le Crueset dutch oven. Perfect hearty fall dinner fare, with plenty of leftovers.

...And would you look at that, it's lunchtime, and I've got some of those leftovers waiting for me in the fridge! Hope you enjoyed my return to blogging, even though it was light on pictures. Now that I'm back in to the swing of things, it's time to dust off my camera again!

Happy cooking,

X

Calling All Baltimore Foodie Friends!

Have YOU ever wanted to be a food critic? Well here's your chance! Baltimore Magazine is having it's first ever dining-review contest. The contest is to find three restaurant critics to help Suzanne Loudermilk, senior food editor, review restaurants for the magazine’s annual Best Restaurants issue. The contest goes until Oct. 27. CLICK HERE for more info and to enter!

A few details:
To be selected as one of three winners, contest participants should write a review of their favorite Baltimore area restaurant in 150 words or less. The entries will be judged by Suzanne based on creativity, writing style, and food knowledge. The only rules are as follows:

• You must be 21 years or older to participate.
• Only ONE entry is allowed per person.
• Your work must be original and not more than 150 words.
• Baltimore magazine staff and family members, professional chefs and restaurateurs, food bloggers (we are not allowed to enter-- major bummer!!), and paid and published reviewers are not eligible to participate.

Hope one of our clever, funny, and discriminating readers ends up winning this thing. Will you tell us what its like to be FAMOUS??

More posts coming soon (pick your jaw up off the floor, thanks),
X

STL Eats: Gateway to Deliciousness, Pt. 1

by EP



As some of you may know, I spent four great years in St. Louis for college, and really loved my time there. Granted, I spent much of it on campus or in the immediate vicinity. There may or may not have been a few adventures to Illinois for some country line dancing (hello, Wild Country!) our senior year, but otherwise we lived in what was known as the “Wash U bubble.”
I revisited St. Louis in 2006 but that was pre-blog so I have no idea what we ate (except I do remember going to Jimmy John’s TWICE for some reason). A few weeks ago, I made my triumphant return with camera and a LONG list of places to eat in hand.

Summertime eats at B&O

by Erin

Last week we were invited to try some of the new summer menu items at B&O American Brasserie, one of our most favorite spots in Charm City. The evening was a bit more special since it was the night before my birthday and it really kicked off the slew of celebrations we had planned (one of which may result in a new BCD banner but that's still under wraps for now!).

We enjoyed some celebratory champagne while waiting for the other ladies in our party to arrive. We sat at a nice big table in the corner (right next to a mini-kitchen where the charming pastry chef was busily piping marshmallow onto butterscotch tartlets...but I'm getting ahead of myself!) and perused the cocktail menu for our second round -- hey, we were celebrating!

Our first course included the Heirloom Tomato Salad, which had compressed watermelon, parmesan, cherries, and basil from the Chef's rooftop garden. Very refreshing on the sticky July night. We also had two other new summer menu items during this course: the Jumbo Lump Crab on a bed of quinoa with sweet potato, salmon roe, and sea urchin aioli, and the Snapper Ceviche, with avocado carpaccio, puffed grains, and red pepper sorbet. Such interesting flavors and textures - like a feature film happening in your mouth! And what evil genius thinks of uni aioli??

Snapper Ceviche with avocado carpaccio
(picture obviously not taken by the BCD girls)

Jumbo lumb crab on quinoa with sweet potatoes and uni aioli

Second course was the flatbread course, and these are TDF. We seriously had to smack each others' hands away from going for seconds since we knew more food was coming. So. Irresistable. We had the Market Flatbread (which we've had before but it warrants mentioning again) with potatoes, smoked ricotta, baby arugula, and an egg on top. We also enjoyed the Smoked Crab Flatbread and the Confit Duck Flatbread with foie gras and cherries. Seriously drooling as I type this.

Next course we had the Braised Veal Cheek with a very interesting sous vide potato, mache greens, and creamed corn. Holy moly, this was great creamed corn.

We also got to try a bunch of their new mains, including some local Maryland Rockfish with crispy skin, avocado-oxtail risotto, and baby tomatoes; Bacon-Wrapped Amberjack, served with cherry-corn succotash, string beans, and a beer-foie gras vinaigrette. Also meat-wrapped was the "Surf & Turf" - a serrano-wrapped quail (also stuffed with duck I think?) and a perfectly cooked, huge scallop, atop a bed of pea puree and a side of cherry jam. Wow.

Crispy-skin Rockfish

"Surf & Turf" with quail and scallop

We loved the rockfish the best of those fish dishes, but one of the biggest hits of the night was a sneak attack from a Buffalo Duck! Yes, this was a deliciously cooked duck coated in a "buffalo" sauce (but much more sophisticated than that of Hooters just a few blocks away), topped with a lightly dressed coleslaw of napa cabbage and red onion and -- get this -- homemade tater tots. Unlike regular tater tots, they tasted like (gasp!) potatoes and were crispy and crunchy on the outside. Delish.

Quick note about B&O - they have daily specials Tuesday-Saturday, and Tuesday was "chicken fried steak" night, which both of us were eyeing. Unfortunately we didn't get it but it just gives us an excuse to go back, right? Other dailys include housemade sausage and champ potatoes, butter poached Maine lobstah, and sous vide lamb loin.

Finally it was time for a sweet treat -- or 3. The pastry chef came out and presented us with 3 beautiful plates: first we had the butterscotch tart with a bruleed marshmallow topping; we also had a "banana split" with chocolate ice cream, peanut butter tuile cookies, and caramelized bananas, and last we had a sweet corn cake with cherries and some other deliciousness I can't remember because I was slipping into a diabetic coma. All of the desserts were incredible; we loved the banana split and we both love a corn cake, be it sweet or savory.

At the end we were lucky enough to have a few minutes of Chef Reidt's time, so nice of him to stop by. We're looking forward to seeing him at the Crab Bash on Tuesday, 8/3 at 5:30! Did you get your tickets?? Rumor is they're sold out but there might be more at the door...hope to see you there!

Thanks to Amy and Chef Reidt for welcoming us again into B&O for really outstanding summer foods. I can't wait to see what Chef will do with all the cozy fall produce!


Here's to birthday banana splits -

EP