March 16, 2008 - March 22, 2008

« March 9, 2008 - March 15, 2008 | Main | March 23, 2008 - March 29, 2008 »

Knockout Punch!

Filed under: Food

I was at Punch Pizza in St. Paul this weekend, facing the usual dilemma: Could I will myself to resist ordering a favorite (the Borgata, the Vesuvio) and try something new? My friend recommended the Toto--melty goat cheese, cracked red pepper, toasty garlic, crisp bits of proscuitto, and heat-wilted arugula--and I think it's my hands-down favorite...that is, I suppose, until the next time I try something new. Any recommendations? What's your favorite knockout Punch?

Also, the restaurant recently launched a new blog to announce the winners of their "Capture our Fire" photo contest: They're showcasing the finalists in each category right now, by posting new photos every other day, to sustain the suspense...

Posted by Rachel Hutton at March 21, 2008 9:38 AM | Comments (4)

 

Off the Menu: Eric Nigg's Kulfi

Filed under: Off the Menu

Local comedian Eric Nigg isn't a renowned culinary authority, but he deserves to be considered one — at least vis-a-vis the Indian ice cream-style dessert kulfi. He brought this stuff over to my place to follow a meal of homemade chicken tikka masala, and it was cool, refreshing, subtle and damned delicious.

Kulfi — Ingredients

8 cups milk
1 cups cream
A generous pinch of saffron, about 8-12 strands
1 tsp. ground cardamom (best if freshly ground)
1 cup sugar
A few tablespoons shelled pistachio nuts, coarsely ground with a
pinch of salt and a heavier pinch of sugar
Additional pistachio for garnish, if desired

Bring the milk, saffron and cardamom to a gentle simmer. Stir regularly as the milk simmers until the volume of milk is reduced by half. Add sugar to dissolve. Add cream, and refrigerate until chilled, generally several hours or overnight.

Pour mixture into an ice cream maker with a 6 cup capacity (if your machine
is smaller, the recipe can easily be halved). After 20-25 minutes, stir in most of the seasoned pistachio mixture.

I reserved some of the pistachio mixture for a nifty silicone mold I generally leave, neglected, stowed above my kitchen cupboards. I simply sprinkled the pistachios into the bottom of the mold before pouring in the ice cream mixture. Freeze the molds overnight. Unmold and serve, perhaps with some additional broken pistachios.

If you don't have such a mold, sprinkle the pistachio over scoops of ice
cream after it's hardened in the freezer overnight.

In place of pistachios, almonds work quite well.

This kind of kulfi is ordinarily poured straight into a mold and frozen, rather than using the intermediary step of an ice cream maker, but the ice cream maker results in a smoother, softer texture. The extra cream, generally not used in Indian recipes, makes the ice cream extraordinarily rich and indulgent.

Although it's also not typical in Indian recipes for kulfi, the small hint of salt in the pistachio helps bring out all the other flavors in the ice cream. Like the great salted peanut butter ice cream at Seattle's Veil, one of the most remarkable items I've sampled there, it may evoke some strong reactions: At Veil, people either love it or hate it. I don't use as much salt as Veil does in my pistachio blend, so nobody who has tried my version was terribly shocked, but getting the balance might be tricky. Start with just a little pinch.

Posted by James Norton at March 20, 2008 1:40 AM | Comments (1)

 

The cheese (cart) does not stand alone

Filed under: Food

In a recent review of Meritage in St. Paul, I mentioned that they were the only restaurant in the Twin Cities that had a cheese cart. I just found out that's no longer the case: Heidi's in Minneapolis recently transitioned from serving a cheese plate to a cheese "trolley," under the command of maitre d' Frank Thorpe. (At Meritage, cheeses are sold individually, for $5 apiece; Heidi's offers an assortment for $17.)

If you're a fan of having your food wheeled out and served tableside, try the bananas Foster at R. Norman's, which offers a pretty fantastic flaming display.

Posted by Rachel Hutton at March 19, 2008 11:34 AM | Comments (3)

 

Three Items or Less: Upper Crust Brownies

Filed under: Three Items or Less

An introductory note about this ongoing grocery-store exploration feature: Yes, it's more properly "three items or fewer." "Or less" is a tongue-in-cheek concession to the way the real world actually functions.

Now, the food.

You can get an excellent rundown of what Upper Crust is all about right here, but in a nutshell, it's a local company that markets relatively healthy, ready-to-use dough that bakes up into morsels including cookies, breads, brownies and blondies.

The brownies caught my eye over at Kowalski's largely on the strength of their hauntingly beautiful rosemaling-style packaging:

When baked, the dough creates a relatively rich, respectably homemade tasting batch of brownies. Better than Betty Crocker? You bet. But the truly remarkable thing about these things is that they arrive as big honkin' square of brownie dough.

Here's the secret: Pop open the box and eat the dough. It's essentially a cold, cocoa-rich, extremely dense fudge.

As brownies, these things rate a 7 or 8 out of ten. As fudge? 9 out of 10.

Posted by James Norton at March 17, 2008 11:44 PM | Comments (0)

 

« March 9, 2008 - March 15, 2008 | Main | March 23, 2008 - March 29, 2008 »