Tomato and Rice Soup

It's cold, wet and dreary in Hotlanta today.  The kind of weather that breeds severe lethargy (read:  laziness) and, a hankerin' for soup.  

So I made one.  Tomato and rice with sweet corn, ham and onion.  

Soups are really easy - pretty much it's a throw-it-all-in-a-pot dish.  I started mine by browning up some ham trimmings (left over from Thanksgiving) and adding them to a chicken stock base with two pints of stewed tomatoes and one can of tomato paste.

Then I added some rice (risotto, actually - I like the creaminess of it), sweet corn, and chopped onion.  Brought it to a boil, reduced the heat to medium low and let it cook for an hour and a half.

All the different flavors melded together - the risotto plumped up and the rest, as you'll see from the below pictures, is soup-making history.

Oh - and I threw together a cornbread (didn't deviate from the recipe this time - last time I tried to make it I decided to give it my own flair and it bombed) to have with my soup - Cornmeal, flour, eggs, milk, a little salt ... pretty tasty!!

A Different Kind Of Omelet

When most people think of omelets, they think of the pervasive French variety (of which I am a HUGE fan) ... a pan-full of eggs, cooked to just under-done and then folded onto a plate.  Add filler ingredients if you wish.

But I recently discovered a version that predates the French omelet - and from what I understand is the first discovered version of an omelet.  A Turkish variety that's similar to a pancake. 

Well it's not really an omelet, but it's thought that the Turkish people were making these eggs dishes well before anyone else.  A hybrid of what we would think of as a French omelet, an Italian frittata (omelet baked in the oven), and a pancake (is that a tri-brid?), "kaygana" are egg dishes cooked on top of the stove and laced with minimal ingredients.

Kaygana are traditionally filled with simple flavors - feta cheese, sun-dried tomatoes, honey. 

In MY case, I chose leftover steak and broccoli.  :) 

Of course, as with nearly every egg dish, I started by bringing the eggs up to room temperature and beating them until smooth.  Added a dash of pepper.

Over medium low heat (these are not scrambled eggs, OK?)  I sauteed the eggs, stirring frequently until about 50% of their volume was cooked (see below).  At this point, I began lifting the sides of the omelet and letting the uncooked portion flow to the sides and bottom of the pan. This helped to quicken the "set" of the eggs and to strengthen the bottom of the omelet so it can hold the weight of filler ingredients.

I added leftover flat iron steak and broccoli and a scant bit of cheese and turned the heat down to low to let the eggs finish setting.  Basically a frittata cooked on top of the stove, my Turkish-influenced omelet was pretty - and really tasty!

Flat Iron Steak, Lemon Broccoli and Pommes Frites

I love the flat iron steak.

It's a relatively new cut of beef, taken from the top shoulder portion of the cow near the chuck cuts.  It's pretty tasty and best of all - inexpensive.  I bought a steak big enough for two people for 3.99.  

I rested it, coated with olive oil, ground black pepper and kosher salt, for about an hour before I started cooking it.

While the steak was resting I ran some russet potatoes through a mandoline to make thick cut potato chips.  I added salt and pepper and fried them in canola oil until they were JUST ABOUT crispy.  This gave me sort of a hybrid between potato chips and french fries ... pommes frites, I believe the French call them.  Oooh La La.

After draining the potatoes - excuse me, pommes frites - and allowing them to cool, I did a quick sear on the steak of about 5 minutes per side.  Pulled it off the heat, and let it rest while I quick steamed some broccoli in the microwave.  YES.  The microwave.  It's perfect for such things and par-cooking and quick steaming (as well as the ubiquitous popcorn).  Plus, you get to keep the bright green color that is most times lost when steaming on top of the stove.

As soon as the broccoli finished ... voila!  A great dinner that took all of 30 minutes (not counting steak resting time).  Rachael Ray ain't got nothing on me, baby.  :)

Cold weather, hot breakfast

It's not porridge - not oatmeal - it's grits.  Get it straight.  We're in the south. Land of all things corn.  We say "Bless Your Heart".  We eat grits.

*I* eat grits.  Love 'em.

I consider myself a grits purist.  I don't go for the sugared or garlicked type - you're changing a staple of southern tables from something pure and revered into something else.  Something fancy.  Something unholy, one might say.

That said ... I have no issue dressing up grits.  

It was FREEZING (literally) this morning when I got up.  

Now I'm not normally a make-breakfast-during-the-week kinda guy - I'm usually running out the door late.  But this morning I decided to work a bit at home before I drove to the office and once THAT decision was made, I had a hankerin' for breakfast.  SO I made some grits.

As any true Southerner should feel, I don't believe in "instant" grits - for that best-bowl feeling, you gotta cook 'em a while.  On low.  Stir frequently.  OH, and add just a bit of butter.

But when you're done, dressing them up with bacon and a little ground black pepper is TOTALLY acceptable.  And yummy.  And with a big bowl of grits in your belly you're probably not going to need lunch until mid-afternoon!

Abattoir - Meat and three? NO! Meat and Thee!

As a confirmed carnivore I get excited about meat.  Steak, pork, lamb, venison, duck (ok that's fowl but whatever) ... all favorites.  I love to cook meat - I love to eat meat.  I REALLY love to eat meat.

There's nothing quite like the feeling of grinding, or as the fancy-folk say, "masticating" a tender, buttery, rare steak between my teeth ... the juice flowing down my throat and sometimes, my chin ... the heady cave-man rush of flesh-eating ... ooh ... I need a sweat rag just thinking about it.

SO any time I get the chance for a meat-centric meal I get all a-flitter.  Now, my favorite Atlanta chefs from some of my favorite Atlanta restos (Bacchanalia - Floataway) are opening Abattoir.

And honey, I couldn't be happier.  From the article (copied below from AJC dining critic Meridith Ford Goldman) I gather this is going to be a rooter-to-the-tooter kinda place, using as many parts of the animal as possible, and more importantly, the parts that are REALLY tasty.

I grew up watching my Grandpa eat various offal - and I never really dug it all that much but as I've matured - and my tastes as well - I've come to appreciate a good innerd when I get it.  

And I can't wait - anyone wanting to go just shoot me a message and we'll plan a first-look when it opens!

Abattoir restaurant to open in early 2009

Bacchanalia owners’ new eatery will focus on ‘whole animal cuisine’

By MERIDITH FORD GOLDMAN

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Saturday, October 25, 2008

Bacchanalia chef-owners Ann Quatrano and Clifford Harrison have announced that Abattoir, their “meat-centric” concept inside the old meat packing plant in the White Provision development near Bacchanalia, will open in early 2009.

“Abattoir” means “slaughterhouse” in French.

Joshua Hopkins, who has worked as part of the Bacchanalia family since 2005, will helm the new restaurant’s kitchen. He will serve as business partner of the new concept as well.

Hopkins’ most recent post for the James Beard award-winning couple has been as chef de cuisine of Bacchanalia; he has deep roots in Charleston, S.C., where he worked at two of that city’s most popular and prominent restaurants, Slightly North of Broad and High Cotton.

The concept for the restaurant revolves around what Quatrano calls “whole animal cuisine,” using locally raised (when possible) and freshly butchered fowl, fish, beef, pork and game, with a focus on using the whole — so expect to see (and taste) every part, from tongue to foot.

Pushing Daisies - romance with eggs and toast

Yeah, it's another breakfast post but I don't care.  

My new favorite show is Pushing Daisies (on ABC Wednesdays at 8).  It's a fairy tale, it's a murder mystery, it's an (sometimes) acid trip but it's also a love story.

Ned, a pie maker, has the ability to bring people back to life with just a touch.  He uses this ability to help his friend Emerson, a private investigator, solve murder mysteries.  The drawback to Ned's ability is that he must touch the person again and return them to death within a minute of reviving them or they stay alive and someone else (generally someone close by) will die.  Kind of a death-must-be-avenged thing.

So when Ned comes across his childhood love, Charlotte (Chuck), dead - he can't resist bringing her back to life.  And letting her live (thankfully, the person who had to die was an evil undertaker).

But now, Chuck and Ned are in love but they can't touch each other, ever, or Chuck will return to her dead-ness.  So the show spends a lot of time, mostly very sweet and cute gags, keeping Ned and Chuck from touching but still having them fall in love.

ANYWAY - that's just a set-up for the eggs and toast - Chuck is living with Ned and decides she needs to be independent and moves out, albeit to the apartment next door.  They're both miserable but neither will say it and one morning, they meet leaving their apartments and Chuck comments that she "smells eggs and toast and though of you (Ned)" to which Ned says "well, I was making eggs and toast for breakfast".

It was sweet.  REALLY sweet.  And I'm not a sweet kinda guy so you know it has to be terribly sweet.  ANYWAY - I was feeling weak and romanticky so I made eggs and toast.  :)  And here are the pictures:  eggs, scrambled and a scant bit of cheddar shredded on top and whole wheat toast with Plugra butter - mmmm.