Out of the Archives: "Toasts & Roasts" (2013)

This post documented our 2013 holiday bash, which, as you will read below, did NOT take place at AEB HQ. It had to be moved at the last minute due to an unexpected crisis. Luckily, a dear friend stepped in to help us out. We changed the location and sent out revised invites, and the party ended up being a hit. (TY, RD! I’m still blown away by your generosity.) Anyway, it’s a nice story and it contains a great go-to recipe: Off-Oven Roast Beef. That recipe is the reason we decided to revisit this post. It will be the centrepiece of our Christmas Eve dinner this year. Can’t wait! It always works like a charm!

fig. a: holidaze 2013

We hold these truths to be self-evident:

1.  The holiday season is upon us.

2.  Good God, there's nothing like a perfectly seasoned, perfectly rosé slab of roast beef--preferably one that's then sliced extra-thin, and served with horseradish.*

Okay.  Yes, the holidays are here.  And that means it was time for our annual "...an endless banquet" Christmas spectacular.

fig. b: all aboard!

But, the thing is, sometimes LIFE confronts you with an unexpected storm, and, suddenly, you have to chart a new course.

That's kind of what happened this year.  Everything's fine now, there's no need to worry, but something came up that forced us to make a last-minute adjustment.  What it meant was that the Christmas spectacular didn't actually take place at our place this year.  Consequently, we toned things down a bit, scaled things back, and got "back to the basics."

The holiday bash that resulted might not have been quite as wide open as it had been in the past, it might not have been quite as extravagant, but it was still pretty spectacular, and it was much more of a collaborative effort--and all the better for it.  For all these things, we owe our undying gratitude to our hostess.  (TY, RD!)  Such a lovely apartment, such a wonderful atmosphere, such a great time!!

fig. c: Shamrock!

Originally, we'd come up with this vague Lake Champlain "holiday steamship" theme.  The "point of departure" was meant to be our apartment.  I guess we ended up docking just a little ways up the coast.  And we exchanged the S.S. Champlain for the S.S. Shamrock.

Did I mention that there was a pretty significant snowstorm the day of the party?  No big deal.  We're Montrealers, we know how to deal with such situations.

Anyway, "back to basics" meant simpler preparations.  It also meant fewer last-minute preparations.  But it was still pretty plentiful.  The spread:

fig. d: rye!

1 spiral-cut, cob-smoked, maple-glazed Vermont ham with mostarda cherries
1 roast beef with horseradish
nordic shrimp salad
smoked trout & smoked sturgeon platter with cream cheese
crudités & herb dip
baked artichoke dip & corn chips
cheese platter (featuring 1 Jasper Hill Moses Sleeper + 1 Shelburne Farms cloth-bound cheddar)
freshly baked Danish rye & corn rye loaves 

Spanish clementines
gingerbread cookies
festive fudge 

AEB rum punch
aged egg nog

fig. e: festive fudge!

And, yes, getting back to that point #2:  a perfectly executed roast beef is a thing of beauty.  It also seemed like just the kind of thing that would have been served in the dining room of an elegant steamship back in the day.

We discovered a method for a simple roast beef that we really love--and that's proven to be foolproof--earlier this year in the pages of The New York Times.  The recipe accompanied an article on Louisville's enigmatic Henry Bain sauce.  Though the sauce was designed to be served as a condiment with everything from steaks to game, it's a stone-cold natural with roast beef.  In fact, Sam Sifton claimed that this may be the sauce's "highest use" in his article, so he turned to Tyler Kord, the sandwich master at New York's No. 7 Sub, for a killer roast beef recipe to go along with his recipe for Henry Bain.  And that's exactly what he got.  I liked the recipe for Henry Bain--it was definitely unlike anything I'd ever tasted before, and, it's true, it made for a tasty accompaniment--but I absolutely loved the recipe for that roast beef.

As many of your probably know already, getting perfect results with roast beef can be a little tricky.  Nobody likes a roast that's extremely undercooked, and overcooking a roast is all too easy.  This recipe relies primarily on ambient heat to gently warm the roast all the way to its centre, resulting in that ideal rosy hue, not to mention an extremely savoury crust, optimal juiciness, and some outrageous pan juices.

I've been impressed with Kord's recipe since the first time I tried it, but recently I made an adjustment to it that's even more to my liking:  I added ground caraway seeds to its spicy-garlicky rub, giving it a finish that was very much in tune with the nordic characteristics of our Christmas party spread.

Off-Oven Roast Beef  

1 beef roast, like top, eye or bottom round, approximately 3 lbs
1 tbsp kosher salt
1 tbsp freshly ground black pepper
1/2 tbsp freshly ground caraway seeds
3 cloves garlic, peeled and minced
1 tbsp olive oil
red pepper flakes to taste

prepared horseradish or horseradish cream

Remove the roast from the refrigerator.  

fig. f: raw!

In a small bowl, mix together the salt, pepper, caraway seeds, garlic, olive oil and red pepper flakes to create a paste.  Rub this all over the roast.  

fig. g: rubbed!

Place the roast in a cast-iron skillet or roasting pan, fat side up, and allow the roast to come to room temperature, about 1 to 2 hours.

About 15 minutes before you want to begin roasting, preheat your oven to 500º F.

Place the roast in the oven.  Cook, undisturbed, for 5 minutes per pound.  [I tend to go a little over this recommendation:  e.g. 15 minutes for a 2.6-lb roast, and 30 minutes for 5.25-lb roast.]

Turn off the oven.  Do not open the oven door.  Leave roast to continue cooking, completely undisturbed, for two hours.

After the two hours is up, remove the roast from the oven.  Slice as thinly as possible.  

fig. h: roasted!

Serve with pan juices and prepared horseradish.  Or use to make whatever your preferred kind of roast beef sandwich is. 

[recipe based very closely on Tyler Kord's Off-Oven Roast Beef recipe, as featured in The New York Times, January 17, 2013] 

Just how good is this roast beef?  Well, the photos above are of the 2 3/4-lb roast we madethe day afterwe made a 5 1/2-lb roast for our party--a 5 1/2-lb roast that completely disappeared (as tasty things often do).  You see, the next day we found ourselves still having major roast beef cravings, so I went out and picked up another roast and we whipped up another batch--this one served with roasted broccoli and a mixed greens salad.  And horseradish, of course.

The point is:  this recipe is a keeper any time of year, but it's great for the holidays.  Great for a party spread. Great for pleasing a crowd.  Great for making sandwiches.

Happy holidaze 2013!  Eat well!  Drink well!  Be well!

aj

*Actually, roast beef's a pretty lovely thing to serve with radishes à la crème, too.  In fact, the two combined would make for a pretty amazing open-faced roast beef sandwich.  Just a thought...

Out of the Archives: "Uppuma: it's what's for breakfast." (updated edition)

fig. a: uppuma: that was then

This post first appeared in 2009. The photograph above is how the dish in question—uppuma—was pictured at the time, in the pre-Instagram era.

This post has been updated. If you would like to see the original, you can find it here.

I first discovered uppuma sometime way back in the 1990s through my friend Carolyn. She'd gotten way deep into vegetarian Indian cuisine. Many of us admired Yamuna Devi's Lord Krishna's Cuisine: The Art of Vegetarian Indian Cuisine (1987) back then, but I'm pretty sure Carolyn was the only person I knew who owned it. And I'm positive she was the only one I knew who had the guts to actually use Yamuna Devi's Lord Krishna's Cuisine. I, on the other hand, distinctly remember looking at those long lists of ingredients and getting totally overwhelmed. I made Devi's carrot pickle once, but that was as deep as I ever got into her 800+ page tome.

Anyway, I also remember the first time I had uppuma for breakfast. Carolyn and I were visiting her parents at the beach, and she just whipped it up one morning. Just like that. I wasn't 100% sure what it was--I just knew it was South Indian and that it involved a long list of ingredients--but it was a revelation. As much as I loved spicy food at the time, I still had trouble coming to terms with spicy breakfasts--huevos rancheros and New Mexican chile verde breakfasts were about as far as I was willing to roam. Spicy/sweet breakfasts that were egg-free were the height of exotica to me.

The sad thing is, I never watched Carolyn's prep closely enough to figure out how uppuma was made, and therefore it never became a part of my repertoire. I'd think about those uppuma breakfasts longingly from time to time, but it never really went much farther than that. And within a few years I'd lost touch with Carolyn and had totally forgotten the name of her oh-so-exotic South Indian breakfast specialty.

Skip ahead about a decade. Michelle and I had just picked up a copy of Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid's Mangoes & Curry Leaves (2005). The first time I leafed through it I knew--I just knew--I'd find the recipe I'd been looking for.

fig. b: Alford & Duguid’s Mangoes & Curry Leaves

Sure enough, there it was on pages 92-3--"Semolina Uppuma"*--with a nice little anecdote about Mr. Alford's affection for the dish, and the daily ritual he had while in Kerala: a swim in the ocean, a walk, and uppuma and coffee every day for breakfast.

Since getting reacquainted with uppuma,** it's become one of my favourite breakfasts, especially at this time of year—late spring—when the choice mangoes start arriving from India. There’s this magical period of time—usually no more than 4 weeks—when Alphonso and Kesar mangoes are flown in to Eastern Canada. In Montreal, there’s this whole mango underground that involves making arrangements with Indian and Sri Lankan grocers. If you get to be a part of the network, you’ll sometimes get calls late at night alerting you to the fact that a shipment has just arrived. In Ontario, you can sometimes find small cases of six mangoes at your local supermarket, especially if it’s a chain like FreshCo that frequently caters to recent immigrants. Having moved to Ontario from Montreal, the first time we did we were shocked to find what are surely among the world’s best mangoes just sitting there on display in plain sight—no waiting lists or late-night telephone assignations necessary. Anyway, I love uppuma at any time of year, but it’s a particular favourite if I can dress it with fresh Alphonso or Kesar mangoes—an already bewitching dish becomes positively intoxicating. Also, truth be told, it's not just for breakfast anymore. Uppuma can often tilt in a more savoury direction. Carolyn was fond of putting cabbage in one of her versions back in the day. I always make it this exact way—savoury/sweet and fruit-forward—but I’ve been known to have uppuma for brunch, lunch, and dinner, too—and I'm quite sure I'm not the only one.

Don’t be intimidated by the list of ingredients. Many of them are toppings, and therefore optional, and if you have the basics, uppuma is actually very easy to make. The primary ingredient, as Alford & Duguid suggest, is semolina, the same substance that's the basis of Cream of Wheat. As much as I love Cream of Wheat, uppuma is something altogether different. For one thing, you start off by dry roasting the semolina. Then you transform it into the most heady concoction of spicy and sweet. You'll never look at hot cereal the same way again. In fact, you should be forewarned: uppuma might very well change your life.

fig. c: uppuma: before

fig. d: uppuma: after (a.k.a., all-dressed)

Semolina Uppuma

2 cups coarse semolina flour (if you live in Montreal, look for "semolina #2" in local stores)
3-4 tbsp vegetable oil
1 tbsp butter or ghee (if you choose to omit this, use the extra tbsp vegetable oil listed above)
1 tsp black mustard seeds
10 roasted and lightly salted jumbo cashews, whole or coarsely chopped [Alford & Duguid’s original recipe calls for unsalted cashews, but I prefer the lightly salted, beautifully roasted ones I get from my local nut vendor]
2 dried red chilies, stemmed and coarsely chopped
pinch of asafoetida powder (optional, but highly recommended)
1 tbsp minced ginger
2-3 green chiles, such as cayenne or even jalapeño
3 cups hot water
1 tsp salt, or to taste

suggested accompaniments:
1 lime, cut into wedges
plain yogurt
1 ripe mango, preferably an Alphonso or Kesar mango from India
1 ripe banana
handful of cashews, lightly fried in a little butter, ghee, or oil until golden
candied dates and their syrup
honey

Place a skillet, preferably a wide and heavy one, over medium-high heat and add the semolina. Dry roast the semolina, stirring it frequently with a wooden spatula or spoon to prevent burning. The grains at the center, underneath, will start to turn brown first, even when it might seem as though nothing is happening yet, so every minute or so, run your spatula under the center and move the golden grains to the side to let the others take their place and become golden. After 2-3 minutes, lower the heat to medium, and continue to cook for another 4 minutes or so, until all the semolina grains are lightly touched with gold. Pour into a bowl and set aside.

Place a wide heavy pot over high heat and add the oil with the ghee or butter (if using). When the oil is hot, add the mustard seeds. Once they sputter, lower the heat to medium, add the cashews, dried chilies, and asafoetida and stir-fry briefly. Add the ginger and green chilies and stir-fry briefly, then add 3 cups of hot water.

Bring to a boil, add the salt, then add the semolina slowly in a trickle. Keep stirring with a wooden spoon as you add the grain to get it all properly mixed and to prevent lumps from forming, just as you would with porridge or polenta. Continue stirring and turning for another minute to break up lumps and moisten all the semolina. It will absorb the water quickly and if the mixture seems dry (if there are lumps of semolina that have not been fully moistened), add a little more hot water and stir. The semolina should be tender and all the water should be absorbed. Remove from heat and serve with the accompaniments of your choosing.

Our favorite combo is freshly squeezed lime juice, yogurt, fresh mango, toasted cashews, a candied date, and some of the candied date syrup.

Note: traditional uppuma recipes call for a smidgen of urad dal (Alford and Duguid's calls for 2 teaspoons), as well as some curry leaves, both of which can be hard to find if you don't live near any South Asian specialty food stores. We've found that our uppuma is still tremendously satisfying without them.

[based very closely on a recipe from Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid's Mangoes and Curry Leaves]

aj

*Why "semolina uppuma"? Well, as Alford explains "uppuma" is also a term for a method of cooking involving "flavored oil and hot water."

**I've also gotten reacquainted with Carolyn, I'm happy to report, thanks to the miracle of social media.

Out of the Archives 4: Eat Your Greens, pt. 2

Here's another must-read/must-see/must-try from the archives.  It first appeared 5 years ago to the day, on November 13, 2010.  As was the case in 2010, now's the time--there are plenty of green tomatoes around, and you can often get them for a song.

fig. a:  time to fry

There are still some real green tomatoes kicking around. In fact, depending on where you live, there might still be loads of them. And, along with making your own chowchow, frying them is a pretty great way to make use of the last of the tomato harvest. But even if you find that the green tomatoes in your area have already disappeared, all is not lost. As the Lee Bros. point out, your standard supermarket tomato is effectively a green tomato--it certainly was picked green (generally, very green). So you may need to add a bit of lemon juice and some salt to your sliced supermarket tomatoes to coax out a little flavor and approximate the wonderful, citrusy tartness of a true green tomato, but fried green tomatoes are a classic Southern side that you can make pretty much all year long. If you want to make the real deal, however, and I strongly advise giving them a try, local green tomatoes were still available here in Montreal this week. And their bright, tangy flavor this late in the year made it feel like we were cheating the approach of winter somehow. If only for a moment.

Note: you also need some decent cornmeal to make these fried green tomatoes, and good cornmeal can be hard to find in the Montreal region. The best brand we've been able to locate around here is Indian Head Stone Ground Yellow from Maryland, available at Aubut. 

fig. b:  B Bros.

Even better is Beattie Bros., which is owned by the same parent company, but produced in North Carolina. Though, as far as we know, you can only get Beattie Bros. in the States.

Fried Green Tomatoes

3 lbs green tomatoes
3 large eggs, beaten
3/4 cup whole milk
3-4 cups peanut oil
3 batches fry dredge (recipe follows)
kosher salt, if needed
lemon juice, if needed

Core the stem ends of the tomatoes and slice them in 1/4-inch slices. Set aside. Whisk the eggs and milk together in a broad, shallow bowl.

Pour the oil in a 12-inch or 14-inch skillet (3 cups of oil will suffice for the 12-inch skillet; 4 cups should do for the 14-inch skillet, and the 14-inch skillet will make the task of frying 3 lbs of tomatoes much, much faster--ultimately, whatever size skillet you use, you need an oil depth of about 1/3 of an inch). Heat the oil over medium-high heat until the temperature on a candy thermometer reaches 350º-365º.

Heat the oven to 225 degrees. Set a baker's rack on a cookie sheet on the top rack.

Divide the dredge between two small bowls or shallow baking pans. Taste the tomatoes. "They should have a bright tartness like citrus fruit." If they don't, sprinkle the slices with salt and lemon juice (if you're using supermarket tomatoes, this additional lemon and salt will be necessary). Press 1 tomato slice into the first bowl of dredge on each side, shaking any excess loose. Dunk in the egg mixture, then place in the second bowl of dredge, coating both sides, and shaking any excess loose, before placing the slice on a clean plate. Repeat with more slices until you've dredged enough for a batch (roughly 8-10, if you're using the 14-inch skillet). With a spatula, gently transfer the first batch of slices into the hot oil, taking care not to create splatter, and making sure your temperature continues to hover between 350º-365º.

As the first batch cooks, dredge the second batch according to the directions above, while keeping a watchful eye on the first. Once the slices have fried to a rich golden brown on one side, roughly 2 minutes, flip them carefully and fry for another 2 minutes or so, or until golden brown. Transfer the fried tomatoes to a plate lined with a double thickness of paper towels and leave them to drain for 1 minute.

Transfer the slices to the baker's rack in the oven, arranging them in a single layer, so they remain warm and crisp. Repeat with the remaining slices until all the green tomatoes have been fried. Serve hot with Buttermilk-Lime Dressing (recipe follows).

All-Purpose Dredge

1/2 cup all-purpose flour
3 tbsp stone-ground cornmeal
2 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper

In a medium bowl, sift the flour, cornmeal, salt, and pepper together twice. Stir. Use as directed.

This is a great all-around frying dredge. The Lee Bros. use this very recipe for everything from chicken, to fish, to fried green tomatoes.

Buttermilk-Lime Dressing

3/4 cups whole or lowfat buttermilk (preferably the former)
5 tbsp freshly squeeze lime juice
2 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
1 tbsp honey
1/2 cup finely minced basil
1/4 cup finely minced green onions
1/4 cup finely minced parsley
1/2 tsp salt, plus more to taste

In a small bowl, whisk the ingredients together until thoroughly combined. Cover tightly and store in the refrigerator not more than 2 days.

[these recipes are based very, very closely on ones that appeared in The Lee Bros. Southern Cookbook]

These fried tomatoes make for a fantastic side with any number of dishes, Southern or otherwise. We love 'em with seafood, but then we've been known to have them with barbecue too, and I could easily imagine having them as part of a Thanksgiving dinner. Leftover fried green tomatoes taste pretty outrageous on top of a leftover pulled pork sandwich, too. Especially if you drizzle a little of that Buttermilk-Lime Dressing on top. Just take a look:

fig. c:  deluxe pulled pork sandwich

Oh, and speaking of Thanksgiving and the Lee Bros.: if you haven't had the pleasure of reading Matt and Ted's New York Times exposé on Marilyn Monroe's stuffing recipe from 1955-6 (as it appears in Fragments, a just-published collection of previously unreleased Monroe ephemera), you really should. Not only is it a great read, but Marilyn's recipe is both mysterious (ground beef? Parmesan? City Title Insurance Co.?) and tantalizing. Just look at that picture. Just look at that recipe. 

aj

p.s. Looking for "eat your greens 1"? You can find it here.

Out of the Archives 1: Keep It Simple (June 2008)

Editor's note:  Thus begins a new series called Out of the Archives.  The idea is to regularly dig deep into our vaults, sift through over 10 years' worth of "...an endless banquet" posts (!), and dust off some old favourites.  

Without any further ado, here's a post that first appeared on Sunday, June 15, 2008, and is perfect for the summertime grilling season.

'Cause I'm easy, yeah, I'm easy...--Keith Carradine, "I'm Easy," Nashville (1975), dir. Altman

I guess if you always have access to the best quality meat, well, then you can be as adventurous as you want with it. Kind of like cooking with wine--I'm sure everything tastes even better if you happen to be in a position to cook with high-quality wines, but most of us have had limited experience (if any) with doing so. As a result, when we, here at "...an endless banquet," get our hands on really good meat, our tendency is to, yes, keep it simple (just as when we get our hands on a really good bottle of wine our tendency is to, well, drink it--we're kind of old-fashioned like that). The point is, in both cases, we want to really taste the difference.

So when we were lucky enough to get a gorgeous pork rib roast that had been sourced, slaughtered, and dressed by a friend of ours (!),* we turned to our friends from London's River Café to give us a little guidance on pork and minimalism.

fig. a:  CA COOK BOO

If you're not familiar with Rose Gray and Ruth Rogers' River Cafe Cook Book Easy and Italian Two Easy: Simple Recipes from the London River Cafe, you love Italian and Italian-inspired cuisine, and you're a believer in keeping it simple, well, you really ought to be. As the titles suggest, most of their recipes require a minimum of ingredients, a minimum of time, or a minimum of effort, and some fall under all three categories. Some of our favorites contain literally three ingredients and take just minutes to prepare. Seriously. And don't let the vaguely glam cover of River Cafe Cook Book Easy throw you: the minimalism of the content is mirrored by the minimalism of the books' design. Virtually every photograph is taken from directly overhead, and many feature a stark white background. Seriously, minimally perfect.

fig. b:  yellow on black

The one we chose on this particular occasion requires two ingredients, just a few more if you make a salsa verde to go along with it (and we highly recommend that you do).

Pork chops with lemon

4 pork chops
1 lemon

Preheat a large cast-iron pan over medium-high heat. Preheat the oven to 400º F (200º C/Gas 6).

Season each chop generously with salt and pepper (okay, you need two more ingredients), put the chops in the pan and sear them on each side quickly, no more than 30 seconds per side. Take the pan off the heat.

Cut the lemon in half. Squeeze the lemon juice over the chops, and place the squeezed lemon halves in the pan along with chops. Roast in the oven for 10 minutes. Press the lemon halves on to the chops and baste with the juice. Roast for another 10 minutes or until firm to the touch.

note: if you don't have a cast-iron pan that's large enough to fit four chops, sear them in batches in a cast-iron pan, and then transfer them to a preheated oven tray and continue with the recipe above.

[recipe from River Cafe Cook Book Easy]

Now, the oven recipe works like a charm, but it being BBQ season, a few weeks ago we decided to adapt the above recipe for the grill.

We rubbed a little bit of olive oil into the chops before generously seasoning them. We took a small cast-iron pan, added a tablespoon of olive oil to it, and brought it out to the barbecue with us, and we cooked the lemon halves in the pan on the grill while we grilled the meat over a hot flame. Before flipping the chops we used tongs to pick up a lemon half and rub it all over the chops. Total cooking time was almost the same as above and we tried to flip the chops as little as possible. The lemons got nice and caramelized and we served them alongside the chops and drizzled a little of the delicious sauce they'd created overtop.

When we started our chops looked like this:

fig. c:  the raw...

When we finished cooking them they looked like this:

fig. d:  ...and the cooked

And minutes later they'd been picked clean.

This recipe really doesn't need anything additional--the flavors are honest and clean and pretty much perfect as is. All you really need to finish the ensemble is a vegetable side, a salad, and a glass of wine. But, if you wanted to dress them up just a little, you can't go wrong with this salsa verde:

Salsa Verde

2 tbsp parsley leaves
1 tbsp mint leaves
1 tbsp basil leaves
extra-virgin olive oil
1 garlic clove
1 tbsp capers
3 anchovy filets (1 or 2 will do, if you're using salt-packed)
1 tsp Dijon mustard
1 tbsp red wine vinegar
black pepper to taste

Finely chop the herbs, put into a bowl and cover with olive oil. Chop the garlic with the capers and the anchovies. Add to the herbs and mix together. Stir in the mustard and vinegar, season with black pepper and add more olive oil to loosen the sauce.

Serve a spoonful over your chops. Also excellent with steaks--grilled or roasted.

[recipe from River Cafe Cook Book Easy]

aj

* Merci, Sam Pinard.