So Long, Sweet Scharffen Berger

By now you’ve either seen it on the news, read it in an email or heard about it from a colleague: Berkeley’s beloved Sharffen Berger chocolate factory is closings its doors. San Francisco’s Joseph Schmidt, maker of decadent, artistic truffles, will also be closing shop. 

In 2005 both chocolate companies were bought by Hershey Co. Rumor on the web’s comments boards has it that Hershey “swore up and down they would not alter their new subsidiaries’ business or products,” but now Hershey is closing the original manufacturing plants. The chocolate production will be consolidated at factories in Illinois and Pennsylvania. Even talking about these fine chocolates in terms of “production” makes me sad — whatever happened to “crafting” artisan chocolates? Only time will tell whether Hershey maintains the high quality for which Scharffen Berger and Joseph Schmidt chocolates are renowned.

I am glad that I’ll still be able to buy Scharffen Berger chocolate (provided it still tastes as good!) but will miss the Berkeley factory. It was less than two weeks ago when we dropped by to try the latest chocolates at the factory store. The store was packed with students waiting for a tour that afternoon; little did they know they would be one of the last tours to pass through the factory.

For now, all I can say is so long, sweet Scharffen Berger.

Burnt Orange Panna Cotta

My mom made this panna cotta a couple weeks ago as a conclusion to our Sunday noon meal. The complex caramel flavor from the cream and the bright citrus flavor from the fresh oranges complemented each other well — and made this the perfect dessert for a sunny but brisk winter afternoon.   

 

Serves: 6
Active Time: 30 minutes
Start to Finish: 9½ hours (includes chilling)

 Ingredients
1½ teaspoons unflavored gelatin (from one ¼-ounce envelope)
2 tablespoons whole milk
¼ cup confectioners’ sugar
⅛ teaspoon salt
1½ cups heavy cream
¼ cup granulated sugar
2½ teaspoons finely grated orange zest
¼ cup fresh orange juice
¾ cup sour cream
2 navel oranges

Special equipment: six 4-ounce metal molds or ramekins

Method
Lightly oil molds or ramekins. Sprinkle gelatin over milk in a small bowl and let stand for about 1 minute to soften. Whisk together confectioners’ sugar, salt and 1 cup cream in another small bowl.

Heat granulated sugar in a dry small heavy saucepan over moderate heat, without stirring, until it begins to melt. Continue to cook, stirring occasionally with a fork, until melted into a golden caramel. Stir in 1½  teaspoons zest and cook, stirring, until zest in fragrant, 30 seconds to 1 minute. Stir cream mixture and carefully add to caramel (it will bubble and harden). Cook over moderately low heat, stirring, until caramel is dissolved. Add gelatin mixture and remaining 1 teaspoon zest and stir until gelatin is dissolved. Stir in orange juice, remove from heat, and let stand just until cooled to room temperature.

Pour caramel mixture through a fine-mesh sieve into a medium bowl.

Beat remaining ½ cup heavy cream in a small bowl with an electric mixture until it just holds soft peaks. Whisk sour cream in another small bowl until smooth. Fold whipped cream into sour cream, then fold into caramel mixture until well combined. 

Spoon into molds and refrigerate, covered, until firm, at least 8 hours.

One at a time, dip molds into a bowl of hot water for 3 seconds, then run a thin flexible knife around edge of mold, tilting mold so panna cotta pulls away from sides. Invert mold onto center of dessert plate, holding mold and plate at a 45-degree angle so panna cotta slips out. Let panna cotta stand at room temperature for 20 minutes.

Meanwhile, remove peel and white pith from oranges with a sharp paring knife. Holding oranges over a bowl to catch juices, cut segments free from membranes and transfer segments to cutting board. Squeeze juice from membranes into bowl. Coarsely chop orange segments and add them to juice.

Just before serving, spoon oranges and juice over panna cotta.

From The Gourmet Cookbook (2004, 836-7)

The Food Snob’s Dictionary Tells All

For weeks I have had The Food Snob’s Dictionary: An Essential Lexicon of Gastronomical Knowledge laying on my desk, thinking “Yes, someday soon I will write a blog about it.” Nothing ever materialized. Until today, that is.

In my quest to learn about molecular gastronomy, the brilliant thought struck me that maybe, just maybe this all-telling tome would hold the key to my understanding of molecular gastronomy. Yes, this would be it. Below, a definition of molecular gastronomy according to The Food Snob’s Dictionary. 

 ”Molecular gastronomy: Techno-futurist approach to cookery that applies scientific manipulation — and elaborately silly utensils and serving implements — to the gastronomical experience. Coined as both a term and a discipline in the 1980s by the Hungarian-born, Oxford-based physicist and amateur cook Nicholas Kurti (who proudly concocted an inverted baked Alaska, with a frozen outer layer and hot interior ) and the French chemist-foodie Herve This, molecular gastronomy was taken up as a cause by lab-rat chefs in the nineties and aughts, most notably This’s buddy Pierre Gagnaire in France, FERRA ADRIA in Spain, HESTON BLUMENTHAL in England, and Wylie Dufresne and Grant Achatz in America. As offputting as it may sound, the deconstructed “lumberjack breakfast” of mini-pancakes served on an octo-tined standing fork with Canadian-bacon “ketchup,” atomized eggs, and crab syrup was a triumph of molecular gastronomy.” 

There you have it. 

If you’re wondering why some of the names are in all caps, it’s because they are defined elsewhere in The Food Snob’s Dictionary. Pick up your own copy to learn authoritatively who’s who in the food world.

“Mean and Green”

In the spirit of discussing the Locavore movement, I’ve included a tantalizing morsel from James O’Brien’s article, “Mean and Green,” which appeared in the November 2008 Diablo magazine. O’Brien offers witty observations of the Bay Area’s obsession with eating green. Don’t stop after this paragraph, though; click the link and read the entire article.    

 

One man’s quest for an eco-friendly diet. And you thought low-fat was a drag!

By James O’Brien

 

“For years I’ve felt guilty and depressed with every piece of food I put in my mouth either because it was going to make me fatter or less healthy, or else because it wasn’t. Think rice cakes. Now comes the green movement, and the greening of everything from birth (you do it at home) to burial (no coffins, just dirt). The latest mandate is to make sure that your diet is green. More and more, especially in the East Bay and around Northern California, if you’re not eating green, and telling everyone about it, then you are a recalcitrant laggard abuser of the planet Earth.” Read more…

 

Illustration by Nick Dewar

Mr. Wizard Meets the Locavore

Eat Local.

That’s the rallying cry I hear these days. Maybe it’s because I live a stone’s throw from Berkeley, mecca of Slow Food. Maybe it’s because my Southern California college cafeteria prided itself in serving scraggly but delicious apples and tender stalks of asparagus from local farmers. Maybe it’s because Michael Pollan’s In Defense of Food makes me want to grow my own food like my Neolithic ancestors or, at the very least, my great-grandmother. Of course I want to eat local: it’s healthier for me, good for the environment and supports the local economy. Eat local, eat what’s in season, eat what’s natural. Don’t tamper with your food — let its own flavors shine through.

When I read Denver food critic Jason Sheehan’s article “Mr. Wizard,” I was surprised to learn that not everyone is obsessed with eating locally grown and natural food. In fact, a whole crop of molecular gastronomists study the science of how of food behaves under certain conditions and then manipulates food with chemicals and extreme temperatures to create new forms of food. Ian Kleinman, the “Mr. Wizard” of O’s Steak & Seafood at the Westin Westminster, CO, is one such chef.

Whether Kleinman is flash-freezing crème anglaise around a blackberry, creating grape caviar by squeezing drops of grape juice into calcium chloride or coaxing balsamic vinegar into a stiff, peaked foam with a blowtorch, he is constantly transforming (transmuting?) the familiar into the unfamiliar.  If Alton Brown explains the rules of food science, then Ian Kleinman pushes the rules to their limits.  

My immediate reaction to molecular gastronomy is “No! No! No! This is so unnatural! This can’t be healthy! Isn’t everyone on the eat-local, eat-natural bandwagon?”

No, apparently not. What also disconcerted me about molecular gastronomy is how different the mindset is than the eat-natural philosophy. With the eat-natural philosophy, there is no need to change the texture or form of good quality food. The pleasure in eating foods naturally is derived from celebrating the food in its original form. In molecular gastronomy, however, the chef tinkers with the food’s very essence to create something unnatural, a cuisine nouveau.     

I’ll be honest: I’m skeptical about molecular gastronomy. Then again, I have never read the book Molecular Gastronomy, and I’ve never eaten a molecular gastronomy creation, but reading Sheehan’s “Mr. Wizard” opened my eyes to a new way of thinking about and preparing food. I’m not about to run out and buy a molecular gastronomy starter kit and test out this cuisine, but if you do, let me know. I’d love to try your creations and formulate an experience-based opinion on molecular gastronomy.        

 

Virtual Points of Interest:

***Chowhound’s 10-point cheat sheet to molecular gastronomy. 

*** Jason Sheehan’s article, “Mr. Wizard” (page 157ff).

*** Ian Kleinman’s blog. 

*** Molecular Gastronomy starter kit (complete with Calcium Chloride, Sodium Alginate and Sodium Citrate).

Grilled Tuna with Herbed Aioli

If you’re not feeling up for tackling yesterday’s osso buco recipe, here is a much simpler and equally delicious recipe: grilled tuna with herbed aioli. For medium-rare tuna, you only need to grill it two minutes a side. The herb- and garlic-rich aioli is a refreshing complement to the tender tuna. 

Ingredients
¼ cup olive oil
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
2 tablespoons chopped fresh basil
2 teaspoons chopped fresh thyme
2 teaspoons dried tarragon
2 garlic cloves, minced
1/3 cup mayonnaise
 
4 7-ounce tuna steaks (each about 1 inch thick)

Method
Whisk first 6 ingredients in 11×7x2-inch glass baking dish for marinade. Place mayonnaise in small bowl. Whisk in 1½ tablespoons marinade to make aioli. Set aioli aside.

Sprinkle fish with salt and pepper. Place fish in marinade in dish, turning to coat. Let marinate 1 hour at room temperature, turning fish occasionally.  

Oil grill rack. Prepare barbecue (medium-high heat). Grill fish to desired doneness, about 2 minutes per side for medium-rare. Top fish with aioli. Serves four. 

 
From The Bon Appetit Fast Fresh Easy Cookbook (p323).

Osso Buco: A Recipe

 Braised Lamb Shanks with White Beans

 While this isn’t strictly Osso Buco because it is made with lamb shanks rather than veal shanks, it comes pretty close. This is a project that takes an entire afternoon (about 4 hours) but is well worth the time invested. Once again, this recipe comes from my family’s current favorite cookbook: The Gourmet Cookbook, a collection of recipes from Gourmet magazine.  

 For Lamb Shanks
4 lamb shanks (about 1 pound each)
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 medium onion, coarsely chopped
1 medium carrot, coarsely chopped
1 celery rib, coarsely chopped
8 garlic cloves, coarsely chopped
1 (750-mililiter) bottle full-bodied red wine, preferably Bordeaux
4 cups chicken stock or store-bought low-sodium broth
1 tablespoon tomato paste
2 fresh thyme sprigs

For Gremolata
3 tablespoons chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
1 teaspoon finely grated lemon zest (about 1 lemon)
3 garlic cloves, minced

For Beans
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
2 small onions, finely chopped
2 small carrots, finely chopped
2 celery ribs, finely chopped
3 garlic cloves, minced
2 cups cooked white beans (preferably Great Northern or navy), rinsed if canned
2 to 2 ½ cups chicken stock or store-bought low-sodium broth
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 Turkish bay leaf or ½ California bay leaf
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

For Finishing Sauce
3 fresh tarragon sprigs
1 tablespoon unsalted butter

The lamb shanks are cooked two different ways: first they are braised, then they are stewed in stock, wine and vegetables. These lamb shanks are halfway there -- they've been braised.

Make the Lamb Shanks
            Pat lamb shanks dry and season with salt and pepper. Heat oil in pot over moderately high heat until hot but not smoking. Brown shanks well all over, in batches, 5 to 8 minutes per batch, and transfer to a plate. Add onion, carrot, celery, and garlic and sauté until onion is softened, about 3 minutes. Add wine and simmer mixture, stirring occasionally, until liquid is reduced to about 3 cups, about 6 to 8 minutes.

Stir in stock, tomato paste, and thyme and return shanks to pot. Bring to a boil, then cover, reduce heat, and simmer, stirring and turning shanks occasionally, for 1 ½ hours.

Uncover pot and simmer, stirring occasionally, until lamb shanks are tender, about 1 more hour.

The basic vegetables for the dish -- carrots, celery, onions and garlic -- are used in both the liquid in which the shanks are stewed and in the white beans. Here the vegetables are coarsely chopped for the stew.

Meanwhile, Make the Gremolata
Stir together gremolata ingredients in a small bowl. Cover and set aside.

Make the Beans
            Heat oil in a 4-quart heavy saucepan over moderately heat until hot but not smoking. Add onions, carrots, celery, and garlic and cook, stirring, until onions are softened, 2 to 3 minutes. Add beans, 2 cups stock, butter, and bay leaf and simmer over moderate heat, stirring occasionally and adding remaining stock as necessary to keep beans moist, until they have reached a creamy consistency, about 30 minutes. Discard bay leaf and stir in half of gremolata and salt and pepper to taste. Remove from heat and cover to keep warm.

When lamb shanks are tender, transfer to a plate and keep warm, covered with foil. Strain braising liquid through a sieve into a saucepan, discarding solids, and stir in butter and tarragon. Boil sauce, stirring occasionally, until thickened slightly. Strain sauce through sieve into a bowl and season with salt and freshly ground black pepper.

Sprinkle lamb shanks with remaining gremolata and serve with beans and sauce.

Recipe also available on Epicurious.com.

Osso Buco: A Poem

Billy Collins

To whet your appetite for Osso Buco and give you something to chew on mentally, I present you with a poem by Billy Collins entitled “Osso Buco.” Billy Collins was named U.S. Poet Laureate in 2001 and writes wonderfully clever yet gracious poetry about the ordinary. 

Read this poem aloud and listen to the sound of the words, and don’t stop reading at the end of every line but follow the punctuation. 

“Osso Buco”

by Billy Collins

I love the sound of the bone against the plate
and the fortress-like look of it
lying before me in a moat of risotto,
the meat soft as the leg of an angel
who has lived a purely airborne existence.
And best of all, the secret marrow,
the invaded privacy of the animal
prized out with a knife and swallowed down
with cold, exhilarating wine.

I am swaying now in the hour after dinner,
a citizen tilted back on his chair,
a creature with a full stomach–
something you don’t hear much about in poetry,
that sanctuary of hunger and deprivation.
you know: the driving rain, the boots by the door,
small birds searching for berries in winter.

But tonight, the lion of contentment
has placed a warm heavy paw on my chest,
and I can only close my eyes and listen
to the drums of woe throbbing in the distance
and the sound of my wife’s laughter
on the telephone in the next room,
the woman who cooked the savory osso buco,
who pointed to show the butcher the ones she wanted.
She who talks to her faraway friend
while I linger here at the table
with a hot, companionable cup of tea,
feeling like one of the friendly natives,
a reliable guide, maybe even the chief’s favorite son.

Somewhere, a man is crawling up a rocky hillside
on bleeding knees and palms, an Irish penitent
carrying the stone of the world in his stomach;
and elsewhere people of all nations stare
at one another across a long, empty table.

But here, the candles give off their warm glow,
the same light that Shakespeare and Izaac Walton wrote by,
the light that lit and shadowed the faces of history.
Only now it plays on the blue plates,
the crumpled napkins, the crossed knife and fork.

In a while, one of us will go up to bed
and the other will follow.
Then we will slip below the surface of the night
into miles of water, drifting down and down
to the dark, soundless bottom
until the weight of dreams pulls us lower still,
below the shale and layered rock,
beneath the strata of hunger and pleasure,
into the broken bones of the earth itself,
into the marrow of the only place we know.

from The Art of Drowning

Photo credit: John Hopkins University

Osso Buco: An Introduction

Just over two years ago, on December 27, 2006, I had Osso Buco for the first time. I was in Naples, Florida with my family visiting relatives for Christmas. On the 27th we went to an Italian restaurant to celebrate my aunt’s birthday and it was there I had Osso Buco.

Osso Buco? What’s that? Braised veal shanks. OK, veal sounds a little weird. Isn’t that baby cow? Yep, and traditionally these baby cows are fed a diet of milk rather than grain or hay and are only allowed to exercise very little, which causes the meat to remain tender and light in color. You can read more about it here. 

Osso buco is made from the foreshank of the calf.

The special thing about Osso Buco isn’t just the tender veal meat, though, but also the marrow inside the bone.  The cut of meat used in Osso Buco is a 3-inch slice from the foreshank of the calf, so you get a piece of meat enveloping a cross-section of marrow-filled bone. Even the name of the dish points to the prized marrow, as Wikipedia informs me: Osso Buco literally means “hole bone” (osso ”bone,” buco ”hole”). Osso Buco is served with a long-handled little spoon so the diner can scrape every last bit of marrow from the bone.   

Notice how both ends of the marrow spoon are designed for use, allowing you to scrape out every last bit of bone marrow goodness.

In an effort to give you a well-rounded education about veal, I feel it my duty to inform you that veal is also a very controversial meat. Google “veal” and you will discover countless websites objecting to the inhumanity of raising calves for veal meat. The veal industry, however, is not without its reply.   

Whether you decide veal or no veal — do visit Runner Beans again for the second and third parts of this series on Osso Buco.    

 

Photo credits: Veal cuts: Encyclopedia Britannica online. Marrow spoon: Benjamin Franklin Tercentenary exhibit.