Westcoast Cooking

Welcome to West Coast Cooking

April, 2009

In an essay called “A Plea for Culinary Modernism,” published in a journal called Gastronomica, the food historian Rachael Lauden points out that processed foods have been with us for at least as long as the written word and probably longer. She compares the demand that we stay away from processed foods to the demands of the Luddites, English handworkers who protested woolen mills in the eighteenth century because the factories would undo their traditional way of life.

The modern credo takes it for granted that fresh, whole and natural are good, while preserved, processed and treated foods are bad. But this is a pretty new idea, and one that upon close examination doesn't make good sense. To our grandparents and thousands of generations of our ancestors before them, fresh whole and natural meant dirty, unrefined and labor-intensive. As long ago as the second century BC, a Chinese philosopher sated that the most important foods were rice, salt, vinegar, soy sauce, oil and black tea. Four of these foods are highly processed, barely recognizable as products based on distilled and fermented grains and pulses, the fat pressed from the seeds of the plant in the mustard family and the oxidized and pressed leaves of a camellia bush.

In the Mediterranean, people deliberately fermented dairy products and pressed the oil from olives, salted their fish and transformed juices into wines because these foods were more stable, more easily digested and involved less work in the home. In pre-Columbian times, Meso-Americans bred their grain to the point where it could not reproduce without human assistance and they processed their corn with alkali to make it easier to cook and incidentally more nourishing. In fact, every culture on earth has enthusiastically embraced food processing with the same glee that the earliest humans embraced cooking because most forms of processing food result in a product that is in some way more nourishing and or more delicious than food in its natural state.

In short, I’m all for processed foods, but I want the foods themselves to be chemical free and humanely raised and I want the processing they undergo to be conducted in a way that does not damage the world in which I live. Frankly, I am very glad we live in a modern industrialized world where I have easy access to the rich and culturally diverse array of processed foods I enjoy every day like rice noodles to make my favorite pad Thai, or pre-made tortillas and cheese to make a quick burrito dinner for my family, not to mention simple pantry staples like processed olive oil and vinegar to make a quick salad dressing for greens from my own garden.

Dead Head Pad Thai
Before he settled down and became a stock broker and financial planner, my wife’s cousin Bob, who stood up for me as a groom’s man at our wedding, worked at various odd and colorful jobs. For years, he was housepainter. And for a while, during the early 1980’s, he used to follow The Grateful Dead concert tours pulling a trailer equipped with a rudimentary kitchen. In the trailer, he made and sold Pad Thai noodles which he served with Bob’s Hot Habañero Shake. Bob’s noodles were my introduction to the phenomenon that is Thai Food. I never got his recipe, but, after years of carefully dissecting the dish and studying other recipes, I have finally developed a recipe that comes close. I decided to forgo the habañero shake in favor of a few crushed red chilies.

Crispy Bean and Cheese Burritos
Cooking my way through college as a dinner cook at a family-owned Mexican restaurant in Bellingham, Washington, I became something of an authority on burritos. The burritos we served were not “soft;” instead, they were fried in oil until they were crisp. The frying took place either on top of the griddle or in a shallow pan of oil (depending on which of us cooks was in charge that night), and instead of simply turning the burritos over once too fry the second side, we developed a technique for rolling the filled burritos as they fried so that they took on a three-sided log shape, something like the famous Toblerone chocolate bars. A quarter century later, the restaurant, which is still in operation under new owners has long abandoned the three-sided burrito, but I still follow the procedure when I make burritos at home. Serve the burritos hot on a bed of shredded lettuce with homemade salsa and sour cream passed separately.

Chile and Tomato Salsa
Salsa made in big, commercial batches is usually composed of vegetables that have been smashed as well as chopped. What distinguishes a really fine salsa from an ordinary one is the care that's taken in how the vegetables are cut. Use your sharpest knife and take your time to make fine dice that burst with flavor in every bite.

Mixed Green Salad
In the last quarter of the twentieth century when young cooks first started localizing elements of country French cooking, finding good salad greens presented an almost insurmountable hurdle. These days, the mixed baby greens known as mesclun are available ready-to-eat in most supermarkets, making what was once a labor of love into an easy-to-prepare element of any weeknight dinner. This French-American Salad may be the quintessential accompaniment to a casual entrée.

March 2009

This month, in honor of St. Patrick's Day, we've got potatoes on our mind.

The great famine that hit Ireland in the mid nineteenth century was at least in part the result of a blight on the potato crop in a country where a third of the population had become completely dependent on the potato. Of course there were other factors -- political, social and economic -- that contributed to the disaster, but that potato blight was certainly the result of over-reliance on a single variety of potato.

In their original habitat in the Andes Mountains of South America, potatoes grew in an incredible variety of forms. If a late frost came or if the plants were infected with a particular pest, then at least some of the varieties were resilient enough to survive the hard times.

These days, the vast majority of our own local crop is a single variety, the Russett Burbank. Most of these are processed into French fries or other forms of "value added potato products." But Washington State boasts some of the best potato growing areas on earth and we have access to a considerably greater variety of potatoes than we did in decades past.

To learn more about the various potatoes grown in Washington and their culinary potential, visit The Washington Potato Commission.

Russets, the potatoes grown most extensively in Washington are the best choice for Baked potatoes and French fries. Of course they’re good for mashing and roasting too, but we think some other varieties can be even better for those preparations.

Yellow-fleshed potatoes like Yukon Golds and Yellow Finns are great for mashing. The texture though is less fluffy than russets, but handled correctly they are creamier and richer-tasting, even without butter or milk. They are perfect for steaming and for baking in gratin dishes with broth or cream. We like them cut into dice and tossed with olive oil and herbs for a quick weeknight roast. They are also good for thickening soups without using flour or cream.

White-fleshed potatoes can be used the same way yellow potatoes are used. They are also perfect for potato salads. One great advantage of most varieties of white potatoes is that their delicate skin never needs peeling. It makes a smooth dish even if its left intact and of course this helps preserve the vitamins and minerals that tend to concentrate on the outer layer of all spuds. We appreciate being able to skip the step of skinning potatoes when we’re in a hurry.

Waxy Red potatoes are another good choice for potato salads. And as long as they’re not over-whipped, they can make an excellent mash. One of our all time favorite dishes involves cooking sliced red potatoes in just enough salted water to barely cover them, then draining off the water and shaking them in the pan with a knot of butter and a handful of chopped parsley to approximate a dish that M.F.K. Fisher described as “Shook Potatoes.”

Blue potatoes lend themselves to all the uses listed for white and yellow potatoes and their extra dose of antioxidants makes them the most nourishing choice. Of course, their distinctive color is a consideration too, so keep them in mind when you want to dazzle.

Specialty fingerling potatoes like Russian banana or Ozette potatoes are especially dense fleshed and delightfully waxy. They are perfect for important dinners where each ingredient will be appreciated for its unique qualities. We never like to lose the look of these little charmers so we are reluctant to mash them. Try steaming them until they’re tender, then slicing them in half lengthwise and arranging them cut-side-down on a pan that’s been coated with olive oil and sprinkled with a generous amount of salt and pepper. Gently brown them on the stovetop or in the oven.

Storing:
Try to keep potatoes in roughly the same conditions in which they grew. The skins are delicate and it’s important to keep the skin intact to protect the flesh inside. Also, excess cold and moisture might cause the potatoes to rot. So don’t wash potatoes until just before you plan to use them. It’s important to keep them in the dark too. Light will cause the potatoes to turn green. Store them unwashed in a brown paper bag.

This week’s recipes:

Yukon Gold Cinnamon Rolls
We loved the way cinnamon rolls turned out when we baked them with a grandmother's recipe for potato bread in place of the usual dough, and when the food editor of Bon Appetit asked for recipes using Yukon Gold Potatoes, this recipe topped the list. Now it's at Epicuirous.

Yukon Gold Wrapped Halibut
The same thing happened with this formula for potato wrapped halibut filets with spinach. We first encountered the dish at Aureole Restaurant in new York and enjoyed something similar at Icon Grill in Seattle. We simplified the technique for home cooks.

Psychedelic Blue Potato Mash
Our hippie roots are revealed in this recipe that takes advantage of the brilliant and incidentally very healthy anthocyanine pigments found in naturally blue potatoes.

February 2009

Eating local in the summer is easy. In the winter, it might be a different story. If you have stocked up on local meats and preserved some fruits or vegetables, it’s as easy as reaching into your pantry or freezer. But even for those of us who don’t live quite like the family in Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, her wonderful book about spending a year eating food grown at home, eating local in winter is quite do-able if you know where and how to shop. Seattle Neighborhood Farmer’s Markets can help.

Even in these dark days of February, wild spot prawns, pasture raised pork and grass fed beef are well stocked. Rainbow hued root vegetables, winter mushrooms, Brussels sprouts, ruby red chard and sweet winter apples fill the stalls.

Here’s a not-quite-A to Z list of local vegetables available this week at farmer’s markets around Seattle.

Beets
Cabbage
Carrots
Greens
Leeks
Onions
Parsnips
Potatoes
Rutabagas
Squash
Turnips

Even if you didn’t get around to drying your own fruits, you can find: Apples, Wild Huckleberries, Peaches, Apricots, Prunes, Asian Pears, Bosc Pears, Tomatoes, Celery Leaf, Hot Chilies, and Garlic.

And of course there are artisan breads, butters, cheese, eggs, pasta, yogurt, honey, cider, seafood and meats galore.

We’ve put together a menu that will help you savor the flavors of winter and make you glad that spring is still a few weeks away.

Farmer’s Market Carrot Soup
The aromatic properties of well-grown carrots can be easily overlooked. Honing in on their natural sweetness, we tend to look right past their delicate herbal notes. But a fresh carrot from your own garden or from the farmer’s market will emit bright notes of caraway, lovage or fennel, it’s cousins in the herb garden. Nutmeg is a spice that contains some of the same aromatic compounds that carrots do. Try using a microplane grater to get the best flavor from whole nutmeg pods.

Pork Roast with Prunes
What makes a dish a classic? It could be tradition, or a natural affinity between the basic ingredients; maybe it’s a combination of those things. When a pork loin is filled with dried fruit and roasted in the oven, it just feels right, especially when winter has gone on a little too long. In this version, a “gastrique” or sweet-sour sauce built on the pan drippings, enhances the seasonal goodness of the dish. For the best results, look for pastured pork from local farms at Seattle Neighborhood Farmer’s Markets.

Apple Cider Custard Tart
Instead of apples baked in a crust, this unusual apple tart relies on poached apples tucked into a tart that’s baked “blind” or empty. Most fruit tarts like this one use a milk custard, but we think the poaching liquid, in this case a cup of apple cider spiked with a cinnamon stick and a little lemon juice or cider vinegar to cut the sweetness, makes a brighter and more appropriate filling. So making the tart involves three steps: making the crust, poaching the apples, then transforming the poaching liquid into a custard. Assembly of the three elements should take place just before the tart is served.

January 2009

Culinary Trends for 2009 and Beyond

Bye-bye Boomers Hello Generations X and Y
As Boomers begin to slip from the front and center of marketers’ attentions, I think we can expect more and more focus on what the next generation wants to eat. We boomers (born between 1945 and 1960) have officially taken a back seat now that our new president is from the next generation. Folks born between 1961 and 1980 may be thought of as generation X, and the next group, those who came of age since the turn of the century are sometimes referred to as the millennial generation or Generation Y. Their perspectives and concerns will shape food trends this year.

Boomers were raised on the processed food that dominated markets in the wake of World War II; our domestic food supply was modeled on the military industrial complex of the post war years. But we rebelled against that and embraced a movement toward more seasonal and local foods. This next generation, raised by the revolutionary boomers might feel as much nostalgia for our granola as we felt for our parents’ corn flakes. They already take for granted the sort of eco-centric model that we had to struggle to establish. But there is a twist. Instead of a struggle between the industrialized food model and the back-to-the-farm movement that boomers experienced, this generation might see the ethics and environmental standards promoted by the food revolution applied to the industrial model, a kinder, gentler industrialized food supply.

Gen-xers and Millennials will not abandon fast food or boxed cereal but they will demand that it be healthy for their bodies and for the environment. We’ve already seen a demand for ethically-raised beef, chicken, pork and eggs and industrialists are scrambling to adapt.

Less Meat More Flavor
We will see less meat – this generation is the most likely generation in American history to practice a vegetarian or “felxitarian” diet, eschewing meat most of the time or all of the time in favor of a diet richer in plant foods. But meat-eating will not disappear. Smaller servings of more intensely seasoned meats are quite likely. As this new generation of eaters embraces all sorts of “ethnic” foods, they are embracing a much broader palate of flavors than boomers enjoyed at their age. We had our Chinese and Mexican restaurants, but millennials are comfortable with Thai, Ecuadorian, Korean, and African foods. Even as the Food Network and the Travel Network have made exotic cuisines less intimidating, and the younger generation’s passion for all things exciting – spicey, colorful, thrilling – has created a demand for more intensely flavored foods.

We’re likely to see more lamb, a little more rabbit and duck, and a little less beef and pork. And all these sustainably raised meats will be prepared in very flavorful ways. Bill Niman, the man whose business Niman Ranch was launched when he started producing sustainably raised pork for places like Chez Panisse, sold his business last year and started raising goats. Farm schools like the amazing chefs’ school at Quillisascutt Goat Cheese Dairy in Rice, Washington will afford chefs from all over the country an intensive course in how to adapt farm fresh foods to the latest culinary techniques and the world wide trend of agri-tourism will afford tourists Slow Travel opportunities where Slow Food is part of the package.

More On-line, less Cafeteria Line?
This generation is of course the most tech-savvy generation ever and it seems inevitable that we’ll see more and more opportunities for ordering food on line, both packaged foods for the home and tech-enhanced opportunities for ordering food in restaurants, but this group is pretty touchy-feely and human contact will not be sacrificed for technology. According to a group called the Center for Culinary Development (CCD) and Packaged Facts, this Generation is more comfortable than previous generations with “The Third Place,” a communal business or public space where friends and coworkers can share food along with conversation and ideas in a setting that is not work or home.

We have every reason to expect an intensified version of traditional street food culture, with Gen Y diners embracing all sorts of healthy, flavorful foods that don’t involve the conventional trappings of formal dining or the responsibilities of home entertaining. But a sandwich with no more flavor or nutrition than the plastic in which it’s wrapped will not do for this food savvy generation. Expect innovative and spicy international flavors and delivery packages. Look for traditional the Hummus and Falafel from the Middle East, but add some hot red pepper harissa from Ethiopia and make sure those grains and pulses are locally and organically grown. Top that not-necessarily-a-sandwich for lunch with some amazing yogurt, (new brands are popping up everywhere) and the emphasis is on organic goat’s milk and active cultures, not on sticky-sweet fruit flavors.

Brands that don’t do “branding”
If anything characterizes this generation’s sensibilities it’s a certain amount of distance from corporate branding. Gen xers and Millenials alike appreciate underdog brands and non-brands most. What’s cool is what’s as yet undiscovered. Obscure bands, clothing brands and underground websites are for more attractive than mainstream products. But this doesn’t mean this generation does not show brand loyalty. Twenty-somethings interviewed in a 2007 survey by San Francisco-based Outlaw Marketing identified their favorite brands and while the last couple of years might have shifted things around a little, it’s telling that Trader Joe’s, and Whole Foods, along with In-N-Out Burger and Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream all made the Top Ten.

Young people appreciate the environmental concerns and fair hiring practices of those companies as well as the honest and uncomplicated way those companies present them selves to the world. In-N-Out pays a starting wage considerably higher than the minimum wage that’s standard at most fast food outlets and both Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s are committed to buying practices that promote a healthy environment. A greener lifestyle and social justice are core values to this generation, and the simple, no-fuss style that characterizes these brands distinguishes many other companies.

Hummus
Toasted sesame oil affords this version of the quintessential Middle Eastern spread extra depth of flavor. Served with pita chips, the spread makes an excellent appetizer for casual gatherings. Piled into half-moons of fresh pita bread, it also makes an excellent sandwich filling.

Pita Breads
Pita breads, which seemed exotic to boomers when we came of age during the last quarter of the twentieth century, are now ubiquitous. It's hard to imagine an American grocery store without them. But baking your own homemade pita is easier than you might think, and the puffy breads are much better fresh from your own oven.

Tandoori Gosht
Grilled Spiced Lamb with Yogurt Dipping Sauce
Even without a tandoor, the super-hot clay oven used extensively in Northern India, it’s possible to make a really flavorful meal for a crowd. If smaller portions of lamb shoulder or leg are available, the recipe can be scaled down accordingly.

Yogurt and Cucumber Raita
Raita is a yogurt based condiment, typically flavored with fresh herbs, cucumbers or even bananas. In the Ayurvedic system, cooling foods like these add moisture to hot dry foods making them more healthful and more appealing.

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