→ December 5, 2008
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Chocolate-Bourbon Pecan Pie.

I’m a big fan of recipe triangulation. I see a recipe I want to try, but something doesn’t sit right – a method, an ingredient, whatever, there’s something there that I don’t believe will work, and I don’t believe in wasting time or food on poorly constructed recipes. So I find other recipes for the same dish and try to combine them, identifying similarities and isolating the differences, then either picking and choosing methods from all recipes, or just splitting the difference when we’re talking about something like a discrepancy in oven temperature. This recipe for a rather heavenly pie is the result of just such a triangulation. It’s largely adapted from Bourbon and Chocolate Pecan Pie Recipe, with an assist (the heated-filling trick) from the plain pecan pie recipe in Baking Illustrated.

(Next time out, I’m going to see how much chocolate I can stuff into the filling, but I’ve had two requests from readers for this recipe who saw my update on Twitter.)

Chocolate-Bourbon-Pecan Pie

One pie dough for a 9″ pan

1/4 cup (1/2 stick) unsalted butter
2 ounces unsweetened chocolate
3 large eggs
¾ cup dark brown sugar
¼ cup white sugar
¾ cup dark corn syrup
½ tsp vanilla extract
3 Tbsp bourbon
¼ tsp salt
1½ cups coarsely chopped pecans

1. Blind-bake the dough at 375 degrees for 25 minutes, covered in foil and weighted down with pie weights or dry beans or whatever you have that won’t melt at 375. Remove the foil and weights and bake 6-7 minutes more until the crust just starts to brown.
2. Set a skillet with about ½” of water over a burner and bring to a simmer. Melt the butter and chocolate together in a heatproof bowl set over the simmering water. Stir to combine and set aside to cool. Do not overheat or the butter will break.
3. While the pie is baking, take a large heatproof bowl and whisk the three eggs together until frothy (meaning you can see some air bubbles and the mixture’s volume is increasing). Add both sugars and whisk until completely combined.
4. Add all remaining ingredients except the pecans and set over the simmering water (you didn’t pour it out, right?), whisking constantly, until the mixture reaches 130 degrees on an instant-read thermometer.
5. As soon as the pie crust reaches that light golden brown stage, dump the pecans into the filling, then pour the whole thing into the crust. Drop the oven temperature to 300 degrees and bake until the top is cracked and the center is just barely set – it should wiggle when you shake the pie dish, but should not slosh. Start checking it around 25 minutes; mine was done at 30, although my oven holds its temp well because I have a pizza stone and some unglazed quarry tiles on the oven floor.
6. Set on a cooling rack and allow to cool completely before cutting, 2½-3 hours.

Filed Under: Cooking, Food Tagged With: , ,
→ August 11, 2008
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Long Beach eats, 2008 edition.

First up, some admin stuff:
* I’ll be on ESPNEWS today at 3:40 pm EDT.
* There will be a chat this week, probably on Thursday.
* I’ve got two blog entries up at the Four-Letter, one on the top prospects from the AFLAC All-American Game and another on the top guys at the Area Code Games.

To the food…

Long Beach was definitely in the house, although I ventured out to the streets of LA for a few meals. Dessert first: Frozen yogurt is all the rage in southern California, and the most popular chain is Pinkberry, so I felt almost obligated to try it so I could make fun of all of the people who consume the stuff. I was, however, unprepared for how absolutely vile the stuff is. The flavor made me feel like I was sitting inside a bottle of white vinegar, licking the sides and inhaling the fumes. Their yogurt comes in three flavors – “original” (vinegar-flavored), green tea, and coffee. It’s all nonfat, which is about the stupidest thing I’ve seen in ages, since the fat in yogurt helps coat the taste buds and mute the yogurt’s acidity. The result of removing the fat is the need to increase the sugar to balance out the acid, and that results in a major glycemic load and a very unsatisfying product. I ate the oreos I’d ordered as a topping and tossed the gunk. Something that looks that much like ice cream shouldn’t taste that much like shit.

Moving along rapidly … I decided to revisit a restaurant I’d tried back in 2006 and didn’t love, because so many readers have told me it’s the best sushi place in this part of greater LA: Koi in Seal Beach. I admit I was wrong about Koi, having complained of bland sushi. I’m guessing it’s a maturing of my taste for sushi, since I’ve gotten to experience some high-quality sushi on my travels and now understand what incredibly fresh sushi tastes and feels like in the mouth. Koi’s is absolutely on par with the freshest sushi I’ve ever had, and the flavors, while not intense, were complex and smooth. I avoided all rolls – not only are they apparently inauthentic, but I feel like they’re a way to use sauces to cover up mediocre fish, and at a place where the fish is really good, you’re just hiding the quality under salt and sugar. I ordered salmon (I recommend it without the ponzu sauce), yellowtail, yellowtail belly (special order), and three items off of the specials board: sea bass (served with salt and lemon juice, so you eat it without any soy sauce at all), bluefin toro, and Japanese red snapper. Everything was delicious, fresh, and soft as butter. On my second visit, I asked the main sushi chef, named Taka, to “surprise me.” He hit me with albacore belly with lemon juice, sea salt, and shaved ginger, which was incredibly soft but had a very slightly fishy taste that I think came not from the fish but from the combination of flavors. It was almost like the faintest taste of a grassy cheese, although I hate to use that term because it makes the fish sound spoiled, which I’m quite sure it wasn’t. Taka surprised me again with sweet shrimp nigiri, the first time I’ve ever eaten raw shellfish. I ate both pieces, because I’m not an ingrate, but had a hard time getting past the knowledge of what I was eating. (If you missed the previous discussion, I avoid raw shellfish because the risk of food-borne illness is particularly high.) I also received the shrimps’ heads, deep-fried, but found them inedible between the tough shell and the weird goo in the middle.

My other sushi experience here, at Haru Haru on the border of Long Beach and Seal Beach, was disappointing; I went there because it was close to the stadium and next to a Trader Joes, so I could eat, get some supplies, and still get back in time for the second game. I asked if there were any special nigiri/sashimi of the day, but there weren’t, and the fish I got was bland and even a little bit tough. It’s not worth the stop so close to Koi, even if Koi is a good bit more expensive.

Tiny Thai in northern Long Beach – north of the airport just off Carson St and Lakewood – served totally nondescript Thai food, although it appears to have a devoted following. I asked the waitress for suggestions; she asked if I liked spicy food and I said not really. (Sometimes I do, sometimes I don’t. That night, I was not in the mood.) The first thing she suggests is a stir-fry with chicken, beef, or pork in a sauce of chili peppers and basil. The second thing is garlic beef or chicken, which isn’t so much spicy but gave me visions of waking up at 3 am as a fire-breathing member of the allium family. I ordered pad see ew instead – I had an odd craving for broccoli anyway – and it was very ordinary, and the chicken had clearly been cooked in advance, as there’s no way they could have cooked it in the time between my order and its arrival at the table.

Bouchees Bistro on Long Beach Ave is sort of a gourmet food for the masses place, and I was intrigued by the $3-5 sliders they offer, which seems to be a popular option. I went with three – the jumbo lump crab cake, the angus sirloin burger with bacon and spicy aioli (I had them omit the cheese), and the seared ahi tuna with avocado – and started with a house salad with balsamic vinaigrette. The salad was the highlight because it was flawlessly dressed – not a drop too little or too much – and the ingredients (romaine lettuce, cucumber, tomato) were ridiculously fresh. Sometimes I forget how good Californians have it when it comes to produce. Of the sliders, the crab cake was the best – they did not lie about jumbo lump – and the ahi tuna was the worst, with a seared exterior that was already cool when it reached the table and made me wonder if it had been sitting at all. One turnoff: I didn’t eat all of the tomatoes in my salad because I’m not a huge fan, but ate half of them. The waitress who took my salad bowl away said, “Next time, ask to leave the tomatoes off.” I felt like I was being scolded and pointed out to her that I ate some of them, figuring I didn’t need to point out that it was my discretion whether or not I wanted to eat every last freaking bite of my food. She backed off.

I hit two breakfast spots, nothing new. The Coffee Cup is my new favorite spot; I had chorizo and eggs, the combo ($6 for two eggs, two slices of bacon or links of sausage, and two pancakes), and the EMPT with their own honey apple sausage. Everything was good; the sausage was delicious although the casing got a little bit tough in the cooking. I appreciate that they didn’t charge me for the hot water for my tea – I brought my own bags, and some places will charge even if I don’t use their crappy Lipton bags. (The Coffee Cup uses Pickwick, a slightly better food-service option than Lipton but still not great.) The blueberry pancakes (50¢ extra for the berries) were good but had a strong taste of cinnamon that might turn some folks off. Their breakfast potatoes – big chunky home fries – are outstanding, but they do burn the occasional piece. I also love the whole wheat bread they use for toast, and they’re not stingy with the butter.

I had one morning where I stopped at the Long Beach Café because the Coffee Cup was out of my way and I regretted it. The food wasn’t half as good, the “biscuit” was a sorry excuse for a baked good of that name, the eggs were overcooked, and so on.

Two recs from Los Angeles: I met dak and Junior from Fire Joe Morgan at BLD, the name of which is an acronym for the three meals they serve. We were there for dinner, and started with a plate of meats and cheeses that we asked the server (clearly a budding actress) to choose for us, with only the guidance that we disliked particularly pungent cheeses. She did pretty well by all accounts; I wanted no part of the camembert, but the sheep’s milk cheese (I think it was called Midnight Moon) was like a young pecorino romano, the speck (smoked prosciutto) was outstanding, and the spiced marcona almonds, quince paste, and slices of black mission figs on the side were all addictive. For an entrée, I went with the seared cod with spicy avocado cream sauce and sliced fingerling potatoes, all of which was impeccably fresh but disappointingly low-impact in flavor. The dish was just missing its mojo. The two writers paid for dinner for some inexplicable reason, so when dak comes to Massachusetts later this summer, I’m going to reciprocate and take him to McDonald’s. (Ken Tremendous big-leagued me and said he was too busy to show.) Anyway, both dak and Junior liked what they ordered, so I’d call it a hit all around, and even if I didn’t love my dinner I can appreciate the freshness of the ingredients.

Over on S Figueroa north of USC, La Taquiza is my kind of Mexican place: small and authentic, but user-friendly for the non-native. I went with the carnitas tacos – carnitas was the special of the day – and a watermelon agua fresca, which was my reason for going in the first place, as it was mentioned in the LA Times article to which I linked about a month ago. The carnitas were delicious, although the tacos were just fresh tortillas (I watched a woman making them as I waited in line) and meat, with a modest salsa bar available. The agua fresca was good, but not up to Phoenix Ranch Market standards, with a pretty strong lemon flavor but plenty of sweetness to balance it. It was like a watermelon lemonade, shaded a little more towards the watermelon. I’m underselling the place, though – I’d go back and probably be a little more specific on the order.

Filed Under: Appearances, Food Tagged With: , , , , , ,
→ May 6, 2008
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New Orleans.

I had a quick trip through New Orleans to see Shooter Hunt Рreport to be posted on ESPN.com at some point this week Рand hit two of my favorite spots in one of my favorite eating cities in America, the Acme Oyster House and CDM (Caf̩ du Monde).

Acme Oyster House is a pseudo-dive – looks like a dive, but really isn’t one, and it pulls in its fair share of tourists because it’s in the French Quarter just off Bourbon Street. Their Cajun fare is excellent and fairly predictable, although I was a little disappointed in their chicken and andouille gumbo on this visit because the roux was slightly overcooked, giving the gumbo a very slightly burned taste underneath all of the other flavors. I’ve had the same thing happen to me when making gumbo at home, so I know it’s an easy thing to mess up, but I go to New Orleans to get perfect gumbo. The shrimp po’ boy, on the other hand, was perfect. A po’ boy is a sandwich served on French bread that’s been hollowed out to hold the fried shellfish products with which it’s stuffed. I ordered mine “dressed,” meaning it has lettuce, tomatoes, and mayonnaise on it, with pickle slices on the side. It’s hard to mess it up as long as the shrimp are fried properly, and these were.

After the game, I went to the 24-hour landmark CDM for beignets and coffee. I intended to have one beignet, which is a fried dumpling made of yeast-based dough (a zeppole to the Italians and New Yorkers in the audience), served under a blanket of confectioner’s sugar. Since you can’t order just one – one order equals three beignets – I got three, and ate all three. They’re beyond good – crispy exterior, light airy interior, with that slightly nutty flavor that properly fried dough has. The coffee is New Orleans-style, where the coffee is mixed with ground chicory root, and served au lait. It’s weak as hell, and I never drink much, but a few sips with the beignets just make for a more authentic experience. Or something.

I walked around the French Quarter a bit to walk off the calories, and I was surprised at how little it had changed from my last visit, December of 2003, pre-Katrina. I’m sure the reality is that it changed, and then changed back, but it appears that significant resources went into restoring the French Quarter to its maximum touristy goodness. That’s a good thing, since tourists are money and New Orleans has long depended on tourism and conferences for its economy, but at the same time, I wonder about areas of the city that didn’t fare as well in the storm and are probably still in need of rebuilding. The one facet of the French Quarter that had changed was security: There were police everywhere, and extra security guards in my hotel, the Marriott on Canal Street, where baseball held its winter meetings in 2003. It’s a shame that it’s necessary, but tourists are indeed money, and dead tourists are bad for business.

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→ January 19, 2008
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Disneyworld eats (second trip).

So before I get into new places, let me reiterate how much I like Raglan Road. We went twice, and I had the shepherd’s pie and Guinness both times, while my wife and I split the bread-and-butter pudding once. Other dishes I can recommend: The Guinness and onion banger is delicious, served over mashed potatoes and topped with a ladle-full of their beef stew, making it ridiculously hearty; their chicken and sage banger is also very good and a bit lighter than the pork banger, plus it’s a more reasonable portion than the prior dish; and the “pie in the sky” (chicken and mushroom pie) is hearty without being heavy, although it could never reach the heights of a proper steak and mushroom pie. We ordered a side of chips at lunch, and they appeared to be hand-cut. One caution: The Dunbrody Kiss dessert may sound delightful, but the cornflake layer on the bottom turns into a chewy, icky mush, and ruined the dish for me the one time we ordered it back in ’06.

Other than Raglan Road and a couple of breakfasts at Boma, we ate in the parks this time around. Most pleasant surprise was Flame Tree BBQ in Animal Kingdom; it’s real Q, complete with pink smoke ring. They offer pulled pork, shredded beef, ribs (St. Louis), and smoked chicken. My wife went with the pork sandwich; the meat had a mild smoke flavor and was just a little bit dry (unavoidable given the quantities they must smoke and serve). I went with the ribs, which were a little tough but were covered with spicy-sweet bark, the most glorious part of barbecued ribs in my book. The baked beans that came on the side had a smoky molasses flavor, but the corn muffin was nothing more than mushy corn cake. It’s easily one of the best values anywhere on the property.

The Prime Time Café at Hollywood Studios (formerly MGM) had good food, but was way overpriced. We both went with the pot roast, which was very nicely done, with most of the fat cooked out and plenty of well-browned surface area; it sat on top of some ultra-smooth mashed potatoes that served mostly to soak up whatever ran out of the pot roast. At $17 for lunch, it’s a bit dear, and large portions at lunch aren’t a big plus to me. They do make a good chocolate shake, though.

Get the smoked turkey leg if you have to eat at Magic Kingdom, or maybe the tuna on multi-grain bread at Columbia Harbour House. The Kingdom really doesn’t offer much for full-service options, and their quick-service selection isn’t great, either. The Sleepy Hollow stand, tucked in a corner in Liberty Square, has funnel cakes and Mickey waffles, two guilty pleasures.

We ate our way around Epcot, as usual, but hit a few new places this year:

  • The Biergarten in the Germany pavilion, offering a dinner buffet at $27 per adult (not including booze). Dinner buffets don’t usually thrill me, but the selection at this one was excellent, and our server, from northern Germany, told me that most of what was on the tables was authentic German food. The various sausages were all fantastic, as was the warm German potato salad (cider vinegar, mustard, and bacon … seriously). The salmon in dill sauce was solid, although I’d bet I got a piece that hadn’t been sitting under the lamps for long. The beef roulade tasted great but had dried out, while the pork schnitzel (breaded and fried!) was outstanding. Desserts were a disappointment. Live music is part of the appeal, with your typical goofy Disney humor.
  • The Rose and Crown in the England pavilion served straightforward versions of some of what you’d find at Raglan Road. We went twice; I wasn’t blown away by the pot roast, which was fattier than the one I had at Prime Time, but the bangers and mash were excellent, with outstanding color on the sausages. My sister got the fish and chips the time she came with us, and the breading on the fish was ultra-crisp and golden brown. Guinness on tap here is a bit colder than I’d like.
  • The San Angel Inn in Mexico was a disappointment. The menu seems less geared towards authentic cooking than other Epcot restaurants, and the prices here were out of line with 1) what I expect at a Mexican restaurant and 2) the quality of the product. I ordered the pescado a la ranchera, seared tilapia served over rice with an avocado cream sauce and roasted poblanos. The tilapia was quasi-blackened; the fish was almost certainly frozen at some point in its post-life life. I did like the avocado cream sauce, which was about as smooth as soft-serve ice cream.
  • We did the “princess dining” dinner at Askershus in the Norway pavilion. It’s steep at $29 per adult, but you are paying for the characters (your kid gets a photo with one of the princess characters, and the remaining princesses walk around and visit all the tables). The food was very good, probably the best of any place we hit at Epcot. Dinner starts with a koldbordt buffet of cold cuts, smoked fish (the smoked salmon was ridiculous, ultra-smooth with a sweet smoky flavor), and salads. For the entrée, I went with the baked salmon with mustard; I was disappointed that the mustard was yellow mustard, which I think is kind of nasty, but the salmon was perfectly cooked and the potato pancakes underneath it were fresh and crispy. My wife went with the braised pork shank, a huge portion where the meat just slid right off the bone. Dessert is family-style, with three desserts coming on one plate: a “rice cream” (pudding) with sweetened strawberries, a cappuccino cheesecake that tasted more like mousse than cheesecake, and a “princess cake” with a white chocolate mousse. All three were delicious. Note that this restaurant’s menu appears to change seasonally.
  • We hit the quick-service restaurant at the Morocco pavilion, the Tangierine Café. The “lamb wrap” was a gyro in all but name, with very juicy lamb shaved to order and served on a hot fresh flatbread with just a little bit of yogurt sauce (can I call it tzatziki if it’s not a Greek restaurant?). It’s a bit messy to eat while you walk, but either it was delicious or I was starving, because I inhaled the thing.

Finally, I can’t discuss Epcot without mentioning the Patisserie in the France pavilion. Their chocolate mousse is dark and very smooth; I can’t imagine that they’re making a true mousse with an egg white foam, a labor-intensive and fussy preparation, but that sure as heck is what it tastes like. Their éclairs are solid, with chocolate pastry cream inside, and the strawberry tart has a hard shortbread crust filled with sweetened whipped cream. I just wish you could get a proper espresso somewhere around there, but the only coffee they serve is Nescafe.

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