recipes – Sam’s Food Blog

Back in Black

Two years ago I stepped away from working in the culinary industry due to some medical issues that I was dealing with. The job I moved to was in retail with full insurance benefits. It was the first time that I had any amount of sick leave, paid time off, national holidays off with pay. It was easy and detail oriented, and though a major departure from what I was used to, it was a blessing as I was treated for and recovered from my illness.

I saw an opportunity to work at a prestigious and popular restaurant in Manhattan. A new adventure was waiting and I was the one that had to make the decision: keep living a relatively easy, but unfulfilling life? Or dive off the deep end back into a world that I had long since said goodbye to. I chose the latter, with hope and fear tangled around each other in my head like a Russian wrestling a bear to the death.

Two weeks in it’s like how I remembered. Constant until the end, especially at a popular place like this one. In Garde Manger (or garmo for short), it’s s lot of the same things with the occasional outlier dish. Both cold appetizers and desserts populate my side of the menu. The alpha and omega of the meal, our position is prep heavy with more to be done during service.

The main difference this time around comes from within myself. Before, I had undiagnosed ADHD and general anxiety disorder (not that it’s excusable), and I was a nervous wreck. Getting stoned on my lunch break kept my mind even hazier than it would’ve been otherwise, combined with being the lone hot line cook, garde manger and somehow the main dishwasher. It was a lot of pressure and u fortunately I crumpled like a RAW rolling paper.

Since then, I’ve been through a considerable amount of shit and learned a similarly considerable amount of shit about people, jobs, cooking and life in general. Right now I’m ambitious and proud, excited to put my head down and finally hone my craft through action, rather than my mind. The goal remains the same, to get to a point that I can write recipes for a living, write a cookbook and start a family. My pathway to those places is a but different than I expected, but I’ve found out that that doesn’t really matter by the end of your life.

I’m back in black pants, nonslip shoes, apron and a white button down cooks’ shirt, equipped with my knife roll and a few sharpies. I miss the ones that helped me get to this point, that I don’t get to see as often anymore. But it does still feels good to be where I should be. The universe feels more satisfied with me, like I don’t have as much of an urge to fight against it.

I’m tired, but I’m happier too.

Summer Cheddar and Veg Sandwich

your favorite soft sandwich bread

1/4 green bell pepper

1/4 red bell pepper

2 leaves butter lettuce

3-4 cherry tomatoes, cut in half and lightly seasoned with salt

9-12 thin slices of cucumber

1 tbsp chopped roasted pistachios

2-3 oz sharp yellow cheddar

2 tbsp mayo

salt and fresh pepper

Spread a generous layer of mayo on both slices, about 1 tbsp per slice.
Add a good pinch of pepper to the sauced bread and place the halved tomatoes on top, cut side down
Add the slices of cheddar on top of the tomatoes and pistachios, and the sliced bell peppers on the other slice of bread (the mayo helps the loose ingredients stay in the sandwich).
Lastly, layer your cucumber on top of the cheese, then your lettuce. Combine both halves of your sandwich and slice into equal halves. Enjoy with your favorite summer beverage and a bag of chips!

Toasted Couscous Rice Pilaf

1/2 cup pearl couscous

1 scallion, finely chopped

3 tbsp olive oil

1/4 of a yellow onion, finely chopped

2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped

1/2″ knob of ginger, peeled and finely chopped

3 cups long grain rice, rinsed 3 times

2.5 cups water

1.5 cup full-fat unsweetened coconut milk

2 tsp hondashi stock powder (can be omitted if vegetarian)

2 tbsp butter

1.5 tsp salt

1 tsp white pepper

Equipment: Sauté pan with lid, slotted spoon, heatproof bowl, chef knife

Put the olive oil in the pot and turn your burner to medium. Once the oil is loose and shimmering, add the couscous and toast until golden brown.
Remove the couscous to your heatproof bowl, leaving as much oil in the pot as possible. Turn the heat to medium-low and add your scallion, onion, garlic and ginger. Cook until softened, but not browned.
Add the rest of your ingredients, stir well and bring to a boil over medium-high heat.
Once fully boiling, stir one more time and scrape any sticking rice off of the bottom to prevent clumping and burning. Turn the heat to as low as possible and cover with the lid. Simmer for 15 minutes.
Remove the pot from the heat and let it sit covered for 15 more minutes. After the time has elapsed, fluff the rice with your slotted spoon until all the grains are separated as much as possible and serve!

Seasoning Mastery, pt 2

Welcome to the next part of my series Seasoning Mastery!

Part 1 explored my recommended best practice in terms of getting used to properly seasoning your food. You learned how to season a chicken leg to lip smacking perfection.

This time, we focus on seasoning water-based foods(broths, soups and stocks). There’s not so much direct instruction in terms of actually seasoning, the key here is to ready internalize seasoning, bit by bit.

Cooking with this medium is somewhat simple, but specific rules tend to be found across the world to allow for a duplicatable end result with potentially inconsistent ingredients. At the beginning, you want to keep seasoning with straight salt to a minimum. A pinch here or there, but most definitely avoid adding too much salt to start. It is important to note that you don’t have to avoid salt altogether, but too much salt early on can lead to a salty end product, especially after reducing the liquid by a measurable amount.

Also take into consideration salty ingredients like salted fish (fish sauce, anchovy paste), concentrates (bullion), preserved fruit (lemons, limes) or any other thing that is very strongly flavored and meant to lay a base of flavor for the rest of the dish. This seasons in the beginning, perfume,ing all other ingredients and allowing room for more salt to perfectly balance the flavors at the end of cooking.

A good method to getting your broths and soups to a perfect salt level is to go a little at a time. Taste constantly, adjusting levels of acid, salt, sweetness, fat to hone in on the best end result. My preferred method in terms of going a little at a time is to have a spoon, scoop up some broth and salt it lightly. Taste what’s on the spoon and think about the taste. If it tastes good, add some salt or other balancing flavor to the lot without adding too much. When in doubt, remember that you can’t take away once you add, and you can always add more if need be.

Once the liquid is delicious and balanced, you can enjoy on the spot, or you can pack it up into the fridge to cool and it will be even better the next day. This extra step can be the difference between good and great food.

But keep in mind, it’s your food and you can do with it what you want at the end of the day, I’m just here to help.

There’s a First Time for Everything: Brooklyn Chinatown

I had walked down 8th ave a few times to get to a friends’ house for dinner, but I never had the time to partake in what I saw available. Having said that, I was tempted to take a pit stop and make my friends wait even longer for me to arrive. The smells were intoxicating. They took me back to my trip to China in college. The durian, dried seafood, and stir fried noodles were the closest thing to real Chinese street food and vendors I’ve witnessed outside of the mainland of China itself.

My wife and I were guided by a close personal friend, Danny “Machiats” Mentado, through some of the food vendors. We started by ordering skewers of various meats cooked over live charcoal. It was like a classic NYC food cart, but open concept with a pit in the back to house the glowing coals. Char marinated meat perfumed the area, causing me to float through the air like Jerry the mouse mesmerized by a fat hunk of cheddar.

You have to call to order and I get the beef tendon balls, charred aorta and the chicken heart. The wait is long, because we ended up at the end of an invisible queue of hungry locals waiting to feast on their perfect late night drinking food. As we wait for our turn in heaven, we wander down a stand selling a variety of stir fried noodles. The three of us share one spicy and one mild container of vermicelli noodles cooked with egg, bean sprouts, scallions and whatever wonderful sauces they threw in. The chef’s wok was beaten to hell; bent completely out of its conventional shape and into the shape of efficiency. You could tell that this man cooks these same noodles the same way over and over again every day. And you taste that cultivation of technique. I ended up with most of the spicy noodles to myself, it turns out my spice tolerance is much higher than my friends’.

As my plastic takeout container gets closer and closer to being empty, we receive out skewers. The charred aorta was cartilaginous and succulent, the beef tendon balls were bouncy and flavorful, and the chicken hearts had a perfect meaty char to them. Everything was heavenly. I got to try Danny’s lamb skewer and it was by far the most luscious and buttery lamb I’ve ever eaten, and I won’t forget it anytime soon.

I ended my meal by trying something that I had always been curious about: stinky tofu. A legendary preparation of the well beloved bean curd that includes mold inoculated fermented tofu cubes that have been fried hard and dressed in a punchy, spicy sauce with raw garlic, cilantro and soy. It was hard to describe, reminding me of a funky washed rind cheese with deeply savory flavor notes, a provocative aroma of something born of necessity. I can’t say I didn’t like it, but I’ll definitely have to temper my palate to that taste over some time.

To think that I haven’t even seen all of the Chinatowns in New York is amazing. There’s so much culture and diversity across the 5 boroughs and I’ve barely scratched the surface in the 5 years I’ve been living here. I certainly look forward to seeing, tasting and experiencing more of what is out there waiting to be had.

The Best Turkey Meatloaf Ever

1.5 lbs ground Turkey

2 slices white bread, crusts removed

1/4 cup heavy cream

1/4 cup milk

1 onion

1/2 of a green bell pepper

1/2 of a red bell pepper

1 tsp neutral cooking oil

1 whole egg

1/2 tbsp garlic powder

1/2 tbsp smoked paprika

1/2 tbsp dried thyme

1/2 tbsp ground ginger

3/4 tbsp salt, plus 1 pinch for sauteing

1/2 tbsp pepper

1/4 cup of ketchup, plus more for serving

1/4 cup grated parmigiano reggiano or grana padana cheese

hot sauce

Equipment: 1 small mixing bowl, 1 medium mixing bowls, cheese grater, chef knife, rimmed sheet pan, saute pan, silicon or wooden spoon

1. Tear the crustless bread into small pieces and soak in a mixture of the cream and milk until its completely mushy (15-20 minutes) in the small mixing bowl.

2. Peel and grate the onion into the medium bowl and preheat your saute pan with the oil over medium heat.

3. Chop the bell peppers into small pieces and add to the hot pan with a pinch of salt and cook until they are softened but not browned. Add to the bowl of grated onion.

4. Drain the excess liquid from the soaked bread and add the bread and the ground turkey to the bowl of grated onion and cooked peppers.

5. Beat the egg with a fork and add to the bowl along with the spices, cheese and ketchup. Mix until fully combined.

6. Form into a loaf shape on a sheet pan and bake at 400F until a meat thermometer inserted into the middle reads 155 F.

7. Let the meatloaf rest for 15 minutes, slice and serve with ketchup, hot sauce and preferred sides.

Brown Butter Egg Whites

Have you ever made a recipe that calls for egg yolks, leaving you with multiple eggs’ worth of whites to waste?

Don’t fret, I’ve come up with a perfect use for those lone whites that is delicious enough to make keeping up with them worthwhile.

Ingredients

1 Tbsp butter

4 egg whites/ 1/2 cup liquid egg whites

1 slice white american cheese (broken up into small pieces)

salt and pepper to taste

Something carby to accompany your eggs (crusty bread, toast, rice, etc)

Equipment

small nonstick pan (you can use a well seasoned carbon steel/ cast iron of you’d prefer), rubber spatula

Heat your tbsp of butter over medium-high heat until the bubbling subsides and the milk solids have darkened. Season your egg whites with a pinch of salt, 2-3 cranks of freshly ground black pepper and your broken up slice of cheese.
Immediately turn the heat down to medium-low, and add your egg whites.
Stir it quickly with your rubber spatula, incorporating the butter into the eggs and breaking up any large curds that form.
Once the whites are no longer watery and are almost completely firmed up, remove them to a plate and enjoy with your preferred carb!

Seasoning Mastery: part 1

To make food truly delicious, you must master seasoning. It’s a daunting undertaking to be sure, but a necessary one if your aim is to have your guests leaving fat and happy as can be. If I have the option, I only ever use Diamond Crystal kosher salt because it’s widely available and the salt crystals themselves are nice and coarsely ground, which helps prevent over seasoning. A little goes less of a long way than other, more finely particled salts, and I like that.

The crucible for this process of proficiency must be cheap and satisfying, giving aspiring home cooks no excuse not to try and fail, at the very least, until they get consistent with their technique. To check these boxes I almost always reach for the humble chicken leg.

They’re one of the cheapest per-pound pieces of fresh meat that can be bought at all supermarkets, and they’re delicious to boot; fried, grilled, roasted, braised, confit. All take fairly little effort to reach a fantastically succulent end result. My reaction from guests is usually something along the lines of “What the hell did you put on that chicken?!” and when I say simply salt and time they gasp and feign disbelief. I get a kick out of it every time.

Getting to that point take some time and trials; you’ll probably end up over and under seasoning quite a few legs. I strongly recommend eating it no matter if it tastes perfectly seasoned, bland as cardboard or salty as the sea. It will help you internalize your results and remember for next time the mistakes you made. You’ll need a chicken leg, some cooking oil, salt, tongs, a plate, an oven-safe sauté pan, paper towels, and a meat thermometer. All of these things are equally as important as the next and will give you a great end result with enough practice,

Now for the actual process:

With washed hands, you take your chicken leg. Dry it with a paper towel until there is no residual moisture on the surface and sprinkle enough salt on the surface to lightly coat the whole thing with no spots unseasoned. Put it on a plate with paper towels underneath to absorb moisture pulled out by the salt. Now is the time to be patient. For now, leave it uncovered for 24 hours in your fridge. With time, the salt will dissolve and disperse itself throughout the meat, the skin will dry out from the cold circulating air and the flavor will concentrate.
Flash forward. It’s the next day and you’re giddy about your experiment. Take the plate with the chicken out of the fridge and let it sit on your counter for 30-45 minutes. Preheat your oven to 400℉ and preheat an oven safe pan over medium heat on a burner for a couple minutes. Once it’s nice and hot, add a tablespoon of neutral oil (I recommend peanut or canola) and use a paper towel to remove any accumulated moisture from your chicken and place it skin side down in the pan. Turn it down to medium-low and let it sit for 5 minutes. Flip it and immediately place the pan in the hot oven. Let it roast in the oven for 10 minutes and the check the temperature. You want to insert it into the thickest part of the meat and make sure to not touch the bone because it will give you an inaccurate reading. If it reads 155℉, move the chicken onto your reserved clean plate to rest for 10 minutes before digging in.
Take mental note of what you taste: the texture, flavor, seasoning, juiciness. Your end result should taste seasoned all the way down to the bone, but not salty. It should be supremely juicy and intensely satisfying. If it isn’t, there’s always next time! No matter the outcome, you just took your first step towards mastering your seasoning technique!

Now do it until you have a consistently delicious final product every time, and you’re golden! This is just the beginning of a great journey of delicious memories. Keep at it until you’re confident and it will pay off tenfold.

Zucchini Ribbon Salad

1 zucchini, shaved longways

1 squash, shaved

Salt

2 tbsp lemon juice

2 tbsp high quality vinegar (rice or sherry)

1/2 tbsp agave

10 grape tomatoes, halved

2 larger or 3 smaller scallions, cut thinly on a bias

1 cob’s worth of corn

8-10 mint leaves, chiffonade large ones and leave small ones whole

1 pack of tarragon (6-8 stems worth), picked and left whole

4 oz crumbled fresh feta

Salt to taste

A lot of freshly cracked Black pepper (at least 10 cranks, but to taste)

Equipment: large mixing bowl, 1 small mixing bowl, utility/ paring knife, cutting board, mandolin

Cut the ends off of the zucchini and carefully slice it from end to end with the mandolin. You should have long, thin ribbons of zucchini.
Cut the ends off of the squash as well, but cut it with the madoline into thin rounds. Combine with the zucchini ribbons and add a hefty pinch of salt. Carefully mix until everything is coated in salt and let it sit for 15 minutes.
While that’s sitting, mix the lemon juice, vinegar, olive oil, salt, and agave until fully incorporated. Slightly undersalt the dressing to account for the salty feta on top at the end.
Drain the liquid from the sliced zucchini and squash and add the mixed dressing along with your prepped tomatoes, scallions and corn.
Plate the the dressed salad and garnish with the fresh herbs, crumbled feta and black pepper.
Enjoy!

Cornbread Muffins with Berries and Cream

Cornbread Muffins (makes 9 muffins)

130 g ap flour

130 g stone ground yellow cornmeal

8 g baking powder

25 g toasted milk powder

big pinch of salt

2 large eggs

245 g buttermilk

60 g melted butter

80 g honey

1 tbsp butter (for toasting)

Equipment: scale, measuring cups/ spoons (1/3 and 1 cup, 1 tbsp and 1/4 tsp), 2 small mixing bowls, 2 larger mixing bowls, piping bag, 3×3 muffin pan, whisk, serrated knife, small sauté pan

Thoroughly whisk the dry ingredients in a large bowl and the wet in smaller one.
Pour the wet ingredients into the dry and whisk until no pockets of dry ingredients remain, lumps are good so be careful not to overmix. Transfer to a piping bag and rest in the fridge for 30 mins.
Preheat the oven to 400 ℉ and prepare your 3×3 muffin pan by spraying with nonstick spray, or brushing the muffin pan walls with butter.
Fill your muffin molds 3/4 of the way up and bake for 15-18 minutes or until a toothpick poked into the middle comes out with a little bit of moisture and crumbs stuck to it.
Once removed from the oven, flip the muffin pan over on a cooling rack and flip them individually right side up to cool.

Macerated Berries

1 cup Blueberries

1 cup Raspberries

50 g lemon juice

100 g light brown sugar

pinch of salt

In the other small mixing bowl carefully mix the ingredients together every 10 minutes until all the sugar is dissolved into the accumulated juices

Whipped Cream

2/3 cup heavy cream

1/3 cup buttermilk

1 tbsp sugar

1/4 tsp vanilla paste/ extract

1 Pinch of salt

In a larger mixing bowl whip all the ingredients to soft peaks

To Serve

Cut the corn muffins down the middle and toast in a pan with butter
Plate the cut muffins next to each other with a heavy dollop of whipped cream laid across the top and plenty of berries and sauce spooned over the middle and around the edges. Garnish with fresh mint.
Enjoy!