Ezra Klein

Before I get into this recipe, a few notes on cooking tofu. Tofu is, I'm pretty sure, the most misused and unfairly maligned foodstuff around. And it's unfairly maligned because it's misused. Because it's badly cooked. If your only association with tofu is the quivering, cold white squares that your hippy housemate put in her bulgur wheat salad, you're not going to like the stuff.

Tofu, however, is an incredibly useful pantry staple (we're talking here about firm tofu, not silken). It's cheap. It's healthful and environmentally friendly, at least compared to livestock. It can last in the refrigerator for upwards of a month, hanging out until you need it. It can soak up the flavor of anything, and be cooked to almost any texture. It can be lightly fried to serve as a soft counterpoint to crisp vegetables like broccoli or green beans, or it can be cut into small cubes and fried to a sharp crunch. But like anything else -- ever eaten dry chicken breast? -- it must be cooked well.

Let's start here: Your tofu should almost never be white. Certainly not in a dinner context. The question with tofu, rather, is how brown. Just as you cook fish until it's no longer opaque, and you cook chicken until it's no longer a pale pink, you should cook tofu until it's no longer pale and unappetizing. You should cook it on high heat, in plenty of oil. If you have it, you should use sesame oil. You should let it fry to a golden brown.

From there, of course, things get more complicated. There are all sorts of ways to cook tofu. You can press it to extract liquid, bake it, fry it and then braise it (which is what I did in this recipe of yore), even barbecue it. But we're not going to get complicated here. If you haven't cooked tofu well before, you should just cook it. Cut it into cubes of about an inch (the bigger the cube the softer and moister the center). Again, use plenty of oil. Maybe with garlic and chiles in it. Again, use high heat. Again, until it's golden brown. Learn to use it. Not as a replacement for meat, but as an alternative. Unlike meat, it can hang in the fridge for quite awhile, so if you have a couple packages sitting around, you always have a protein for dinner. Alright, the recipe:

Continue reading "WEEKEND FOOD BLOGGING: TOFU." »

Posted by Ezra Klein at 7:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (34)

In recent weeks, I've made this recipe over and over again. It's incredible. And easy. And requires about five ingredients. And will impress your friends.

Get two 28 ounce cans of high quality whole tomatoes. I've been use San Marzano tomatoes. Cook's Illustrated recommends Progressive brand. Try to get them packed in juice, not puree. Either way, preheat your oven to 250. Drain the tomatoes. Cut them in half. Seed them. Pour a half cup of high quality extra virgin olive oil into a large baking dish. Arrange the tomatoes cut side down. It's okay if they crowd. Sprinkle them with a teaspoon-and-a-half of dried oregano, and a bit less than a teaspoon each of salt and sugar. Pour a half cup of olive oil on top.

Put them in the oven. Let them roast for an hour. Take them out. Breathe in deeply (trust me on this). Using tongs, flip them, so the cut side is up. Put in for another hour. Take them out. Breathe deeply again. Hope this smell never leaves your kitchen. Admire the deep crimson the tomatoes have developed, and if you're like me, dip some bread in the dark, fragrant olive oil pooled throughout the dish. Using tongs, flip the tomatoes one more time, so the cut side is down. Put them back in for 20 minutes. Remove from oven.

Layer tomatoes in a bowl, sprinkling raw minced garlic atop each layer. Cover with the fragrant oil from the baking dish. Let sit for an hour or two, till it's not scorching hot. Serve on thick slices of toasted bread, with goat cheese. A great dinner party appetizer.

Posted by Ezra Klein at 4:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (28)

Fall is now official. Earlier this week, I braised. This recipe, for those interested. It was perfect. Dense and rich and spicy, the chicken falling right off the bone. Braising, it should be said, is tremendous. And easy. You brown your meat at high heat on the stove. You add your liquid, your aromatics, your spices. You bring to a boil. You cover. You put it into an oven at a low temperature or on the stove at low heat. The liquid simmers, infusing the meat with the flavors of the broth and coaxing tough or dry cuts into becoming warming, tender, comfort food. I can't think of another cooking technique that triggers such total transformation in the ingredients. But don't take it from me. Here's Mario Batali to show you how:

While we're on the subject of Batali, I spent some time over the past few weeks looking for a good Fall cookbook. Came up mostly dry. Until a friend brought over her copy of Molto Italiano: 327 Simple Italian Recipes to Cook at Home. I now sleep with it under my pillow. The recipes are perfect for the season, dark and salty and rich and bold and simple. The writing is clear and lyrical; the recipes have narrative and context and even a bit of drama. And the food photography is probably the best I've seen. i highly recommend it.

Posted by Ezra Klein at 2:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (7)

This is a great recipe for barbecues. One caveat: I woke up too late for the farmer's market and simply bought the peaches at the local Harris-Teeter. Big mistake. Go to the farmer's market.

Anyway: Peaches, diced. Red onions, diced. Hot peppers of your choice, diced. Chipotle chiles in adobo sauce, diced. A few tablespoons of sauce from the chiles in adobo sauce. Cilantro, coarsely chopped. Limes, squeezed. A glug or two of good quality olive oil. Amounts and proportions should be decided based on how much you want, and how sweet, spicy, and tart you want your salsa. In general, a bit more peaches than red onion, around a whole lime of juice, and enough adobo sauce to balance out the sweetness. Let the whole thing sit for at least 30 minutes to flavors can combine.

Posted by Ezra Klein at 2:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

We'll talk about bailouts tomorrow. For now: Food blogging.

It's the end of the summer, so I'm trying to to take advantage of all the ingredients that are about to disappear from the shelves. Hence, this recipe. Two good tomatoes, diced. Three cloves of raw garlic, diced or crushed through a press. Two tablespoons good olive oil. Fresh basil leaves, coarsely chopped. Red pepper flakes. Salt. Pepper. Combine in the bottom of a large bowl, mash down with a fork. Boil a pound of linguine in heavily salted water. Combine. Serve with freshly grated Parmesan cheese and, if you have it, red wine and crusty bread. Delicious.

Posted by Ezra Klein at 2:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (12)

I've been into pasta lately, so here's Mario Batali teaching you how to make a variety of sauces.

Incidentally, I made a helluva pasta last weekend: Set your pasta water boiling. Meanwhile, in a saute pan, brown 10 full, lightly-smashed cloves of garlic in a 1/3rd cup of olive oil on medium-low heat. When the cloves are almost brown, add in a half cup of good, cured, black olives. Turn up the heat a bit, let the cloves get golden. By now, your water should be boiling. Add a package of ziti. While that's cooking, add two or so cups of chopped plum tomatoes to the olives and garlic. Simmer for a bit, till everything is cooked through and softened. Combine with pasta, grated parmesan, red pepper flakes, and, if you have it, fresh basil.

Posted by Ezra Klein at 5:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (26)

I don't much like making salads for myself. In general, I find them insubstantial, overly delicate. They're a nice first course, but when I'm cooking at the end of the day, there's little time for first courses. But this grilled bread salad, adapted from a Mark Bittman recipe, has become my favorite meal of the summer: It's filling enough to serve as a main dish; light enough to keep you from feeling heavy in the dense, stale, DC air; and gives you an opportunity to use all those perfect tomatoes that have come into season. Plus, it's dead easy, and pretty cheap:

Ingredients

Part of 1 crusty baguette (about 8 to 12 inches, depending on how much bread you want)
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
A few tablespoons diced shallot or red onion (probably between 2 and 4 -- depends how much of that flavor you like)
1 clove of garlic, minced
1 1/2 pounds tomatoes, chopped. Use any kind that looks good.
Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
1/4 cup or more roughly chopped basil
A handful of slivered almonds

Directions:

1. Preheat broiler; rack should be 4 to 6 inches from heat source. Cut bread lengthwise into quarters. Grill or broil the bread, watching carefully and turning as each side browns and chars slightly; total time will a few minutes. (When bread side, rather than crust side, faces the heat, keep a close watch. It can burn extremely quickly.) Remove, and set aside.

2. While bread cools, mix the tomatoes, shallots, garlic, olive oil, and lemon juice in a large bowl. Mash tomatoes a bit to release their juices. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Cut bread into 1/2- to 1-inch cubes (no larger), and toss them with the salad.

3. Let bread sit for 10 to 15, tossing occasionally. Some folks like the bread pretty crispy, others a bit on the soggy side. Taste frequently to see where you come down. When it's ready, stir in basil and almonds, and serve.

If folks have ideas for similar salads -- which is to say, salads that don't rely on leafy greens, and are a bit more substantial than the normal fare -- leave them in the comments. I'd love to have a few more main course salad recipes like this one.

Image used under a Creative Cmmons license from Dylan Parker.

Posted by Ezra Klein at 1:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (14)

This recipe is largely adapted from Cook's Illustrated, though I've added jalapenos for a bit more kick and changed around some other minor elements. It's by far my favorite way to prepare shrimp. Also, for garlic lovers (of which I am one), this is your alpha and omega. The dish is infused straight through with garlic. You'll need:

14 medium garlic cloves , peeled
1 pound large shrimp , peeled, and tails removed (I don't worry about deveining shrimp, but you can)
8 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 teaspoon table salt
1 bay leaf
1 (2-inch) piece mild dried chile , such as New Mexico, roughly broken, seeds included (see notes and step by step)
2 Jalapenos
1 1/2 teaspoons sherry vinegar

Mince two cloves of garlic. Put in a small bowl, and mix with two tablespoons of olive oil and the salt. Pour over the shrimp and let marinate at room temperature for 30 minutes.

Put six tablespoons of olive oil into a saute pan and let warm on medium heat. Meanwhile, using the flat side of a chefs knife, lightly smash four garlic cloves. Add them to the oil, and let them brown. It should take four to seven minutes, and make your kitchen smell great. Take them out.

While letting the oil cool back down, thinly slice the remaining eight cloves of garlic. Tear up your New Mexico chile into small, but rough, bits. Dice your jalapenos. Add all this to the oil, and cook on medium-high heat until cooked through (you should be able to eat a sliver of garlic without there being any strong bite). It'll take about 5 minutes. Add all shrimp, plus marinade. Cook the shrimp for two minutes on one side, till the shrimp has colored on that side (but not on the other!), then, using tongs, flip all the shrimp. Wait until the shrimp is almost cooked through, another minute or two. Then, add the sherry vinegar, and finish on high heat, about 30 seconds. Transfer to plates, and serve with Mexican rice. Think of me fondly.

Posted by Ezra Klein at 11:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (12)

Just as Jews toss out all the chametz before Passover, I figure I should get this oh-so-unkosher bit of food blogging before I sit down to make Passover food later today (just charoset, actually). The following recipe is vaguely modified from a recent Mark Bittman column. It's very easy, and very good. The only catch is you'll need to go by an Asian market an purchase fermented black beans, as they're rather the key ingredient. But they're delicious, smoky and salty and flavorful, so you should have them anyway. Alright, you'll need:

Continue reading "WEEKEND FOOD BLOGGING: BLACK BEAN SHRIMP." »

Posted by Ezra Klein at 11:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (11)

I don't really do brunches. Not that I'm holding out for any particular reason. I just don't tend to want to cook much in the morning, and brunch doesn't lend itself to the Szechwan food I generally favor. But with family in town this weekend and no real time or energy for a dinner party, brunch seemed like the best bet for a group meal.

Eggs were, of course, the obvious starting point. A quiche seemed like fun, till I realized you had to make, or at least use, a pie crust. Not my thing. Scrambles are fine, but hard to scale up for nine people if everything is going to stay warm. Souffle seemed like a pain in the ass. So, to the cookbooks, Klein! Eventually, in Mark Bittman's invaluable How to Cook Everything, I came across a recipe for baked eggs, which I modified in ways you'll see below. As accompaniment, I decided to try my hand at breakfast potatoes. One quick warning: The quantities on both these recipes are loose. I cooked for 9 and ended up making food for 12. So I'm scaling down. In any case, these aren't precise recipes. You'll change your quantities based on how many vegetables you'll want, how much of a crust you prefer, etc. So don't worry too much about the exact amounts.

Continue reading "WEEKEND FOOD BLOGGING: SPINACH AND ONION BAKED EGGS" »

Posted by Ezra Klein at 10:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (17)

The kimchi fried rice is fun, but this dish is rather more dramatic. It creates about the most flavorful tofu I've eaten. The recipe comes from Fuschia Dunlop's Land of Plenty, and originally calls for chicken thighs. I used tofu, and added red bell peppers. I imagine it's absolutely great with chicken though. Here's what you need:

Continue reading "WEEKEND FOOD BLOGGING: TAI BAI TOFU." »

Posted by Ezra Klein at 5:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

I found this recipe out in Greater Blogtopia, where it's referred to affectionately as "refrigerator velcro." It's the sort of dish where the ingredients are pretty flexible, so you can just stick in whatever is hanging around your refrigerator waiting to get used up. What you need is about five or six cups of cooked white rice, preferably left in the fridge for a day or two. Kimchi, or else it's not kimchi fried rice. Three eggs. Soy sauce, chili sauce, and stock. From here, the recipe follows what I did, but you can replace my veggies with yours. They're just what I happened to have:

Continue reading "WEEKEND FOOD BLOGGING: KIMCHI FRIED RICE." »

Posted by Ezra Klein at 2:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

I'm not, generally speaking, a huge green bean fan. Too often, they're cooked blandly, and sort of squeak as you chew them. But flipping through my Szechwan cookbook, I found this vegetarian recipe for dry-fried green beans (the other version uses dried shrimp and ground pork, neither of which I had on hand), and figured it worth a try. And it was!

Continue reading "WEEKEND FOOD BLOGGING: DRY-FRIED GREEN BEANS." »

Posted by Ezra Klein at 1:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (15)

This recipe is adapted from Herbivoracious's "Mexican Matzo Brei." It's good, and it's easy, and it's worth making. The "yuppie" bit comes from the central ingredient: Trader Joe's handmade flour tortillas. In general, you should probably buy corn tortillas, but I went shopping too early in the morning to remember that, and thus the results were rather yuppified. In any case, you'll need:

2 Trader Joe's handmade flour tortillas
3 eggs
Half a bell pepper, any color, diced.
2 green finger chilis, diced.
Grated cheese (cheddar or some sort of cheddar-heavy blend)
Vegetable oil
Hot sauce
Black pepper

Rip the tortillas into small strips. I'd suggest using about one and a half tortillas, and just eating the other half while you cook. That, at least, is what happens when I cook. Heat a bit of oil in a small saute pan and fry up the strips till they're crispy, but still a little chewy. Shake them onto a plate and set aside. There, don't they look pretty?

Now, crack your three eggs into a bowl and whisk them around. Drizzle a bit of hot sauce if, like me, you think everything should have hot sauce. Now -- and this is important -- using either a different pan or having let the original pan cool, turn onto medium-low heat, and put in the eggs, bell peppers, and chili peppers. Cook for a couple minutes till the eggs are firming up. Toss in the tortillas. When what you've got looks like a scramble, throw in a handful or two of cheese and top with a few turns of crushed black pepper. When the cheese has melted, transfer to bowls, serve. Think about how cool it is that the American Prospect subsidizes both political commentary and delicious recipes, and decide you really must subscribe.

On a slightly different note, my food photos suck. I made an Italian wedding soup last night which I won't even post the photos of, they're so bad. But the soup was good! The problem is my kitchen has little light and I do most of my cooking after dark, so my trusty Canon point-and-shoot is basically useless. If I use the flash, everything is overexposed. If I don't, it's all dark. The manual settings don't fix the problem. I'm thinking of investing in an SLR, but I'm not sure if that would solve thw issue. Would I need to buy a whole flash kit, too? Or would a basic model, like this guy, be enough? Any advice?

Posted by Ezra Klein at 2:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (19)

This is what I've learned: Ingredients matter. And are often hard to find. Szechuan peppercorns, for instance, aren't available at your local Safeway. But their numbing, smoky flavor is essential to a good kung pao. So when I was in San Francisco a few weeks ago, I picked some up, along with real dried chiles. My life hasn't been the same since.

I don't want to post the recipe till I've got it just right. But so far, my tips (and this is for a tofu-based stir fry) are: Make sure you fry the tofu till it's crispy. Use more more chilis then you really think appropriate, and cut about half of them into thirds to better disperse their flavor. Cut your vegetables smaller than I did in the stir fry pictured above; use about a teaspoon of Szechuan peppercorns, and don't try to be a hero on this one; Szechuan peppercorns don't heat, they numb, and overuse can ruin your ability to taste other flavors. Lastly, and conceptually the most important, don't oversauce, the flavor should come from the chili-infused oil more than from the actual sauce.

Most of my remaining mistakes have been ingredient failures: My Chinese vinegar was of the wrong type, I didn't have light and dark soy, I experimented (adding a touch of Dijon mustard, say, or a teriyaki-soy blend). But in a remarkable demonstration of commitment to my craft, I ventured deep into Virginia yesterday to find a Chinese supermarket, where I was finally able to pick up the right sy sauces, and vinegars, and about 16 other sauces, pastes, and pickled things that I've been wanting to cook with. So: Success! Also, Chinese supermarkets, like all other retail outlets, now play Feist over the soundsystem. Her ubiquity is astonishing.

Posted by Ezra Klein at 12:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (19)

I should say, for starters, that a couple months ago, I posted some food tidbit that devolved into a massive comment thread on the relative merits of oil-packed, canned tuna. By comment 62, I was persuaded that there was more to the world of canned tuna than the watery tins of Bumblebee I'd disliked in my youth, and so I wandered out to my local Trader Joe's and got some of the finer stuff. You guys were right.

The above dish, however, has no tuna at all. Instead, it's farfalle with prosciutto and sweet peas. Preparation is simple. You'll need:

Continue reading "WEEKEND COOKING BLOGGING: "IGNORE THE CAUCUS PASTA" EDITION." »

Posted by Ezra Klein at 8:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (9)

In the second cooking adventure of the weekend, I finally got around to trying a recipe I'd long wanted to attempt: Salt-roasting. The LA Times article where I originally found it made the product sound mouth-watering and the process seem very cool. Essentially, you gather an obscene amount of salt, mix it with water and fresh rosemary till you form a paste, cover the bottom of a baking dish, place your food on top of it, layer the rest of the mixture over your food, and shove it in a very hot oven. From there, it forms a hard, super-hot shell around your meal, creating a sort of oven within your oven. It comes out looking like this:

Then you crack the salt shell, extract your food, brush it off, and serve. The result is remarkable. The original article put it best: It's food that tastes exquisitely like itself. I made pork tenderloin and fingerling potatoes and the meal tasted like...pork tenderloin and fingerling potatoes, but more so, and more fresh and moist and fragrant than you knew it could. Here's what it looked like:

One of the best meals I've had in some time. Recipe below.

Continue reading "SALT ROASTING." »

Posted by Ezra Klein at 11:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (26)

As you all know, I am to stir frying as man is to nature. I have dominion over it. But the one dish which has eluded me is, sadly, my favorite: Kung Pao. I can't seem to get the sauce right. For awhile, I was relying on a bottled version from Trader Joes, but they stopped carrying that little jar of spicy transcendence, and so now I'm back to trying to make it myself. Sorry, I should rephrase. I'm back to trying to perfect it myself. Today was Attempt Alpha. I used the Cook's Illustrated recipe (though I substituted tofu for chicken, Chinese rice wine for sherry, and added onion), which is copied below the fold. The product looked like this:

Sadly, it wasn't very good, or at least as good as it should've been. The sauce came out overly brothy, and without sufficient kick or flavor. Next time, I'm putting the chilis in at the beginning rather than the end, reducing the liquid, upping the proportion of oyster sauce, and adding some chili oil. Will let you know how it goes. In the meantime, if anyone's figured out how to produce a perfect Kung Pao, they should head on over to the comment section and share some wisdom.

Continue reading "THE KUNG PAO CHRONICLES." »

Posted by Ezra Klein at 1:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (25)