FORK PLAY 70 March 16, 2010

Bacon, I Presume. Jean Georges Cubed. Go West. Cesare's Risotto

Dear Friends and Family,

     I guess we certified foodies, even we as a nation, are so deep into bacon there is no turning back.  And should
we?  Would we if we could? Isn't bacon a birthright?  (Forgive me, my Kosher and Muslim friends, if I seem to be indifferent to the religious constraints that keep you, I could say, shelter you, from baconmania.)

     Bacon, like sour cream, makes almost any dish taste better. I deeply believe this. But it's only in the last few years that it has crept into a thousand salads, become an inevitable clinging mate to Brussels sprouts, even scented its own bacon air freshener. Wasn't Air-Wick invented to get rid of that lingering breakfast bacon smell?

     NPR's Susan Russo cites the savory crisping of the pig's invasion into desserts: bacon bread pudding, bacon milk shakes, bacon truffles, bacon jellybeans, and bacon baklava. On Wikipedia's BaconMania entry, I find chocolate-bacon-peanut bark, maple-apple-bacon cake, chocolate chip-bacon-pecan cookies and peanut butter-maple bacon fudge. You couldn't tempt me with bacon baklava but I'd try that fudge.

     For a minute I thought I detected an early moment of bacon fatigue.  I've just spent two consecutive evenings at the fanciful ABC Kitchen at 35 East 18^th Street where Jean Georges Vongerichten is living out his farm to table dream. Even his carrot salad is thrilling. And it has no bacon.  There is a properly raised pork chop on the menu and Flying Pig Farm ham in the endive gratin, but not a jot of bacon anywhere.

     "Was that deliberate?" I asked J-G's chef de cuisine Dan Kruger.

     "No. Not at all." he told me.  "As soon as we start doing brunch and lunch you'll see bacon everywhere.  I love that combination of maple syrup and bacon."

     "Would you do it in a fudge?" I asked.

     He said he would and I'd get the credit. Ohmigawd. What will I do if I love it?

     Click here to read my BITE on ABC Kitchens with Jean-Georges.

***

Jean-Georges Cubed

     And what about Jean-Georges at The Mark? (25 East 77^th Street)  I've been there for dinner and back for lunch where the waiter seduced us with a tasting of pastries from the dessert tray. This is a dessert revolution for Vongerichten.  At one time every fancy French restaurant in New York had a pastry cart or a pastry table and cut slices from whatever you chose.  Today, a collection of bitty things - rarely very satisfying - comes on a plate from the kitchen in most of our ambitious restaurants.  At the Jean-Georges mother ship on Central Park West, pastry whiz Johnny Iuzzini does paired plates and tastings by theme: exotic, citrus, apple, chocolate. I rarely resist. I'll be writing more about The Mark on BITE soon.

***

Stop the Presses

     Ava keeps wanting to go back to Print at Ink48, a Kimpton Hotel in an old printing plant on Eleventh Avenue. That's about as far west as you can go without dipping your feet into the Hudson. I'm game. I love the out-of-New-York feel of the place. You could have an affair with your husband or even someone else's with little fear of anyone you know catching it on their cell-phone camera. I love the David Rockwell look, the use of recycled steel and wood font boxes.

     And I liked most of the food we tasted by the husband and wife team in the kitchen, Heather Carlucci and Charles Rodriguez, working with their own forager, a luxury financed by Adam Block, the chef wrangler doing his own first restaurant here.  What should you eat?  Click here to read what I liked at my first tasting at Print.  (653 Eleventh Avenue)

***

Cesare Casella's Sweet Squash Risotto

     My vegetarian niece came to town for a yoga workshop and that first evening we took her to our favorite Italian restaurant in New York City - Salumeria Rosi (263 Amsterdam) There are so many greens and vegetables on the menu of small dishes, I figured it would be easy to keep her happy. I didn't count on quite so many dishes being flavored with pig, prosciutto or guanciale or pancetta. That modish bacon twitch.

     A kindly heart in the kitchen offered to do pork-free brussel sprouts and substituted salt for the usual prosciutto. It was so salty we couldn't eat it. But Dana was madly in love with the squash risotto and came back to stand in line at lunch the next day for an encore.  She asked me to get Cesare's recipe. I'm not sure she'll find biscotti in Big Fork, Montana.  But here it is.

 

 

Squash Puree

1 butternut squash: cut in half lengthwise, seeds scooped out with a spoon

Olive Oil

Salt and Pepper

 

Ingredients

¼ cup extra virgin olive oil

1 medium white onion, fine dice

1 cup Italian rice (Carnaroli)

½ cup white wine

1 ½ quarts simmering, vegetable or chicken stock seasoned

Salt and Freshly ground black pepper

¾ cup grated Parmigiano Reggiano,

Squash puree, to taste

Honey to taste

 

2 tbs. pumpkin seeds, toasted

3 Amaretti Cookies, crushed with your hands

 

Procedure

     1. Drizzle oil on cut side of squash and season with salt and pepper. Place on baking sheet cut side down and roast in 250 degree oven until flesh is like a puree and skin is wilted and charred, about one hour.

     2. Cool, scoop out flesh and reserve.

     3. Place the olive oil and the onions in pan until softened but not colored, about 2 minutes.

     4. Add the rice and toast, stirring, until the rice smells toasted and is hot to the touch. 

     5. Add the wine and cook until evaporated. 

     6. Add simmering stock to cover the rice (about 2-3 cups), and squash puree (1 cup). Simmer, stirring constantly, until the stock has evaporated to the point that the rice appears on the surface.

     7. Add more squash (1 cup) and the simmering stock  to cover the rice (about 1-2 cups) and continue cooking, stirring, until stock has evaporated.

     8. Add more stock and the remaining squash puree and cook slightly more if necessary; the total cooking time is about 12-14 minutes. Taste and if necessary season with salt.

     9. When your rice is ready, remove the pan from the heat. Add the cheese and continue to stir until the cheese has melted. 

     10. Taste for seasoning. Drizzle honey as needed. If squash is very sweet you will need less honey.

     11. Garnish with toasted pumpkin seeds and crushed Amaretti cookies. Serve immediately.