recipe – Page 2 – Sam’s Food Blog

Fennel and Citrus Salad with Pistachios

Serves 6-8 as a side dish

2 heads of fennel

3 oranges

2 grapefruits

1/2 cup toasted pistachios, chopped

1 small red onion

5 oz fresh arugula

1/2 cup olive oil

3 tbsp apple cider vinegar

1 clove of fresh garlic, grated with a microplane or finely minced with a knife

1 tbsp whole grain or dijon mustard

1 tbsp agave/ honey

salt and chipotle chili powder to taste

Optional: 5 oz crumbled blue cheese, a dry gorgonzola dolce if possible

Equipment: chef knife, mandolin (optional, but helpful), cutting board, bowl for mixing, bowl with a mesh strainer set in it, microplane/ fine grater

Start by cutting the onion as thin as possible. A mandolin will make this easier, but it isn’t necessary as long as you can cut it very finely. Rinse the cut onion under cold water through a mesh strainer to help prevent the harsh onion flavors from overpowering the other ingredients after the salad has sat for a while.
Cut the fennel next, at leasts thin as the onion. Remove and reserve the fronds. Set the everything aside while you cut the citrus.
To prepare the citrus, cut the top and bottoms off of each orange and grapefruit just enough that you get past the pith and can see the segments of the flesh clearly. To peel them, place the fruit on one of their flat sides and cut the peel away, careful to remove all of the butter white pith. Cut the peeled citrus into wheels and remove any seeds that you see. If the grapefruit are larger than the oranges, cut those slices into half moon shapes. Set aside.
Add the oil, vinegar, garlic, mustard, agave, salt and chili powder to a small container with a watertight lid and shake well until creamy and everything is fully incorporated with each other.
Add 2-3 tbsp of the vinaigrette to a large mixing bowl and spread it around the bottom third of the bowl with a spoon. Add the arugula, fennel and onion with another couple tbsp of dressing on top and mix until everything is mixed together equally and fully coated in the dressing. Taste the salad at this point for seasoning. Add salt, chili to taste
Plate the salad in a tall pile on a large serving dish. Place the citrus on top of the salad in a visually appealing way. Sprinkle the pistachios (and the cheese if desired) evenly over the top and garnish the with the fennel fronds. Serve immediately alongside grilled or roasted meats and seafood.

*Since you rinsed the red onion, you can reserve some salad for later if you don’t plan on serving it all at once, just utilize the vinaigrette accordingly and store everything separately in the fridge.

Restaurant Review: The Dutch on 131 Sullivan St.

On June 8th 2024, I dined at the restaurant with a few of my colleagues from my day job. We had a 7 pm reservation and sat until just after 9:30.

The space was dimly lit with a large bar and small tables. Our server was fantastic, always checking on us and keeping our drinks from being dry for too long. The bathroom was beautiful.

Dutch gets a 6.5/10

Here’s what I drank:

Fort Copper cocktail ($20): rye, sweet vermouth, aperitivo

A great start to the meal, this cocktail was well balanced. It had 1 large cube of ice and was served with an strip of orange peel that was imprinted with their logo. The taste was equally as orange-y as it was herbaceously bitter. Aperol Spritz’s manly sibling, if you will.

Torch and Crown ‘Bat Flip’ Spring Ale ($11): draft beer

This draft was freshly juicy and hoppy, slightly bitter and quite refreshing. It was a perfect pair for many of the dishes that we enjoyed. This is the type of beer that you dream of after a long and hot day.

Saratoga still water for the table

Nicely chilled and we never went without for too long.

Here’s what we ate:

Jumbo Shrimp Cocktail (shared, $25 for 4 pcs)

Shrimp cocktail is one of the things I can’t resist ordering when I eat at a restaurant that’s new to me.

The shrimp came out on the same ice tray as the oysters. I’m not sure which garnish specifically came with which items, but they all sort of went with each other. There was cocktail sauce, mignonette, fresh grated horseradish and what appears to be either ketchup or mild cocktail sauce.

The red shrimp were cooked nearly to perfection. I prefer my cocktail sauce to have a bit more of a kick that what came out in the ramekin, but the extra horseradish helped compensate.

1/2 dozen Blue Pool Oysters (shared, $5 per pc)

This was their only west coast oyster. I’m guessing this was to prioritize more locally sourced selections, which I respect. Having said that, I tend to prefer the smaller, sweeter taste of west coast oysters and these did not disappoint. These bivalves were very clean with little to no grit, coming across the palate with a lot of fresh flavors. Think creamy oceanic cucumbers on petite half shells. The mignonette that came with it was pretty classic and delicious, shallots in vinegar.

House-Made Scallion Chipotle Cornbread (shared, $9 for 1 pc)

A rather small portion in my opinion. A litlle dry, which was compensated for by the whipped butter it was accompanied with. The butter was light yet decadent.

Crab-Stuffed Devilled Eggs (shared 2 orders, $9 per order of 2 pcs)

Delicious, but needed a little salt. Also a little light in portion size, I would like to have seen the same amount of crab split between 3 eggs.

Beef Tartare Cones (shared 2 orders, $16 per order of 2 pcs)

This was the best thing I ate all night. The Keller-esque snack was presented as crispy cone shaped tuiles filled with beef tartare garnished with caviar and one hazelnut. I would arrange the prevalence of flavors within this dish in this order: hazelnut oil, caviar, leen beef. Though I tend to prefer beef tartare where the beef shines first and foremost, this was a scrumptious couple of bites. The hazelnut oil came across my tongue very truffle-like. It was either that or they used truffle oil and just didn’t list it on the menu. I wouldn’t assume this to be the case since it was one of the most clear-to-taste components of the dish, and one would assume that what you taste the most of would be listed in the menu description.

“Chef’s Garden” Lettuces (shared 2 orders, $12 per plate)

Salad is an essential part of a balanced meal in my opinion, and this “chef’s garden” example checked all of my boxes. High quality greens with a lot of texture dressed lightly with a little extra lemon on the side and a garnish of grated parmigiano on top for a balanced finish. No bells and whistles because none were needed; I love salads like this.

14 oz Smoked Pork Chop with Mustard Jus ($45)

I was pretty excited for this pork chop, however I ended up a bit disappointed. There was nothing too exciting about it. The “Mustard Jus” was fine, its accompanying mashed potatoes were fine. It all needed just a bit more salt.

Honestly the sauce itself came across as bland. Given how heavy the char was on the outside of the chop, maybe the flavors cancelled each other out. I adore a good char on meat, but in this case it tasted shallow. With the dim lighting of the restaurant, it looked almost black all over.

The mashed potatoes were good, but there was so little of it I had to damn near ration it throughout eating the dish. It was definitely not a bad plate of food, but what was there almost felt like each component was not quite seen to its most delicious state.

The other gents I was with had their own drinks and entrees, totalling to approximately $456 before tip.

All in all I had a nice time at The Dutch. The food was good, not great. Everything was certainly on the higher end price-wise, which I guess I should’ve expected given the neighborhood where it’s located. My most prevalent critique throughout the meal was the mildness of seasoning on most of the dishes.

If you eat here, prioritize the raw bar, small plates and cocktails since that’s where you’ll get the most satisfaction.

The Demonization of Washing Meat

It’s funny to see so many chefs that are blown away by the concept of people washing their meat. “If you’re buying chicken that seems like it needs to be washed, you’re already fucked” is what I heard most recently, and it got me thinking; Not about why people wash chicken, but why so many people have a problem with it. Though food standards are good enough at this point in time that washing chicken is technically unnecessary, the tradition still holds strong for many households of color.

The reason behind this is an unfortunate one, but one that more people aught to know. For decades, there has been fear in colored communities that the people that don’t want them to live where they do sabotaged products and services in their communities to get them to relocate. In sociology there is a concept that states “if one defines situations as real, they are real in their consequences,” and that means whether these communities were sabotaged or not, they believed that they were, and acted accordingly. Washing chicken is a byproduct of overcoming adversity and doing what one needs to keep their family as healthy as they can. Not to mention the fact that many don’t have access to cushy Whole Foods meat sections with their corporate-friendly overly sanitized kitchens and meat cases.

So let me ask all the chefs that scoff at home cooks for washing their meat: If generations of your family felt that they had to wash their chicken so it would be safe to eat, and there wasn’t a trusted-by-you food-handling professional there to tell you not to and explain the reasoning, wouldn’t you wash your meat too? “That’s unsanitary, it spreads chicken particles everywhere” I hear so many cry as they judge behind their smartphone screens. Has noone ever heard of a wipe down? Surface cleansing wipes for the surfaces around the kitchen? If kitchen cleanliness in these situations leads to people getting sick, the cook probably would’ve made a similar mistake in the case that they didn’t wash their chicken.

It’s time to stop assuming and start letting people prepare food how they and their families have prepared it for generations. It seems many are mistaken believing that it was a “trend” around the mid 20th century, and that big names like Julia Child, Betty Crocker and James Beard were doing It in their own kitchens based on antiquated food cleanliness practices. This whitewashes the early struggles of a marginalized America, which is a regular practice in the US’s culinary zeitgeist. This information is out there, we just don’t see enough white chefs acknowledge this practice as traditional and not foolish.

Wash your chicken if you want. Simply pat down the meat with a paper towel if you want. But whatever you do, don’t demonize a whole culture of people just because you don’t get it.