Veal Prince Orloff

This particular evening was inspired by the hilarious, classic "Dinner Party" episode of Mary Tyler Moore, where Sue Ann Nivens cooked everything and Mary played host. Unlike other parties that Mary threw, this meal of Veal Prince Orloff for Congresswoman Gettys was a success. And so was our dinner! I used Julia Child's recipe but this recipe from epicurious.com is very similar.

I wanted an elegant table to feature our 'haute cuisine' palely painted in mostly white.

 

 Simple cuts of silk celadon ribbons served as napkin rings.

As involved as the dish of Veal Prince Orloff was, it's great to make the day before and merely re-heat when dinner time comes round.

Crunchy asparagus with garlic butter was courtesy of Fresh Direct, served as our starter, and both bags took about five minutes to come to life in the microwave. Devoured.

The lovely veal is shown below, cooked to a bare pink, smothered in a sumptuous sauce passed down from the hands of French nobility! Components are listed in more detail here, but basically, onions simmered with rice created the soubise; chopped mushrooms in butter served as our duxelle preparation; the flour and milk bechamel turned into veloute with the addition of our veal liquid and then became mornay with the addition of grated Swiss cheese. After a swift puree from the heft of a hand blender, all danced together and we had the lyrical sauce for our Veal Prince Orloff.

Two sturdy bunches of braised celery to accompany the veal was basically my own invention, lightly tossed in melted butter and slowly simmered in shallots, then I added a half cup of dry white wine and a half cup of French court bouillon stock to the mix, garnished with chives and flavorful celery leaves. Devoured.

The Baked Pears Alicia was a made up dessert created for the Mary Tyler Moore episode and I did a riff on the recipe that I found online. I don't mind telling you I used canned pears so I wouldn't have to peel, split and core them. I marinated them overnight in their own juices, some water and white wine, with vanilla beans, reconstituted dried lemons slivers, cinnamon bark and baked them in a 350 degree oven until warm.

P.S. Devoured.

We set up our beautiful vintage chocolate service and made a steaming batch of hot cocoa, laced with a few shots of Patron coffee liqueur-flavored tequila.

Our guests, mid romp!

Thanks, Mary!

Soundtrack: Henry Mancini, Martinis with Mancini; Equivel, Christmas!; Herbie Hancock, Cantaloupe Island; Antonio Carlos Jobim, The Man from Ipanema; Frank Sinatra, A Jolly Christmas.

Fatta Cuckoo - Next Magazine Review

I just loved this place!

Fatta Cuckoo
63 Clinton St (btwn Rivington/Stanton Sts), 212-353-0570, FattaCuckoo.com

Upon entering tiny seater Fatta Cuckoo, we felt as if we had jumped into the Magic Screen from Pee-Wee’s Playhouse. As the mere name might imply, the space itself is quirky, whimsical and fun, assembled by proprietress Leah Tinari with her own broadly imagined paintings hanging on the whitewashed-brick walls. The food is a delight, as handled by chef Matias Hernandez. It’s stuff that everybody likes but  doesn’t descend to ordinary comfort food. Tinari glows with passion about her food and art, and it emanates from her as she dotes upon the engaging premises. An amusing, explanatory anecdote: when Tinari was a child, her Italian nonna used to tap her belly with a gentle forefinger after eating an exhausting meal and coo, “Fatta cuckoo!”

Over a groovy soundtrack featuring old-school hits, the cocktail list further inspired our imaginations, particularly the special T-Party cocktail with Espolòn tequila, spiced honey, Lillet and bitters. What could have been a blithely loathsome brunch drink, the St. Rose was actually a very solidly balanced cocktail with vodka, St-Germain liqueur, Aperol, orange bitters and a float of prosecco. We also took more than a few sips of a blood-orange screwdriver with vodka, muddled basil, a breath of lime and a splash of soda water.

We ordered a cream-filled ball of burrata cheese, plucked from Saxelby’s in the nearby Essex Street Market. This beauty was domestically crafted in Philadelphia and the day’s preparation included mint and pistachio pesto with a chiffonade of basil and a touch of olive oil, served with cranberry-walnut crostini. We were curious about the calamari—stuffed with braised short ribs!—but moved on to a plate of ravioli filled with whipped ricotta, shiitake and cremini mushrooms in a mushroom cream sauce tied up with thyme and offered like little presents with wonton skins as wrapping paper.

It took about three seconds of scouring the menu to realize we had to have the fried chicken, which turned out to be incredibly juicy—brined and battered and served with a ladleful of sharp Gorgonzola, celery root purée, house-made hot sauce and a prickly side of carrots and celery, all in homage to classic roadside chicken wings. We paired this up with red Swiss chard sautéed on an amiable plate of frizzled bacon and golden raisins. Seriously crispy pork was furthered by a fanciful blueberry barbecue sauce, an earnest cornbread cake and slivers of slaw. We plundered the mushy potato puffs, or elevated Tater Tots, if you will.

Keeping it in the family, Tinari’s mother lends a hand with Mom’s Desserts, which she actually makes. We’re talking brightly zesty yet delicate Key Lime pie; cream cheese cheesecake with a graham cracker crust that had us at OMG; and a Grasshopper Mousse that screamed for a ’70s dinner party with crème de menthe, a fluff of the freshest whipped cream and a dusting of chocolate sandwich cookie powder. We rolled over all of them, enjoying every bite that we could manage, as we’d been pointing at our bellies for quite some time.

Even after the sugar rush subsided, what could we say? We’re cuckoo for…

Short Order: Comforting food for everyone served with a refined side of whimsy in a relaxed, charming atmosphere.
Peter’s Picks: T-Party tequila cocktail; vegetable ravioli; fried chicken; Mom’s Desserts
Peter’s Pans: Venturing to the Lower East Side and then trying to find where on earth the restaurant was!
Prices: Appetizers: $10–$15; Entrées: $16–$21; Alcohol: wine, full bar, specialty cocktails.

First published in part in Next Magazine. 

Photo credit: Gustavo Monroy.

Fettucine Rigate alla Carbonara

Rarely can I pass up a pasta! Angolo Soho executive chef Michael Berardino was kind enough to provide this wonderful recipe, untangling the mystery of his carbonara. His dish is actually rather simple though, done in classic Italian style, without the heavy cream so often used in the Americanized version.

Fettucine Rigate alla Carbonara

Serves 4

Ingredients:
1 lb. fettucine
¼ tbsp. ground black pepper (about 90 turns from a pepper mill)
3 oz. pancetta cut into strips 1/2" by 1/4"
2 oz.  Pecorino Romano cheese, grated fine on microplane
4 egg yolks
2 ½ tbsp. unsalted butter
1 tsp extra virgin olive oil

Directions:
Bring a large pot of salted water to a rolling boil. Drop the pasta into the water and stir to keep from sticking. 

While the pasta is cooking, place the pancetta in a large saute pan and cook until crisp and rendered. Pour off half of the fat, and add the black pepper. Toast the pepper until aromatic. Add a little butter and 1tsp of EVOO.

Remove the pancetta, reserve on the side, and add some of the pasta cooking water to form an emulsified sauce. 

Once the pasta is cooked, remove from the water, drain well, and add directly to the sauce. 

Add the remaining butter, the pancetta, and the pecorino cheese.  

Mix well to combine and if needed add pasta water to adjust the consistency of the sauce. 

Plate the pasta into 4 bowls, leaving a little well in the center for the egg yolk. 

Finish with the egg yolk, a couple cracks of black pepper and a little grated pecorino.

Angolo Soho is located at 331 W Broadway (@ Grand St). Visit AngoloSoho.com for more info.

First published in part in Next Magazine.
Photo Credit: Gustavo Monroy

Shouldn't You Just...?

Purchase a number of battery powered tea lights and place them around a few branches to create an instant fireplace? The birch twigs seen here are secured through the top of a wine rack. What a warm glow for the winter! No kindling required.


Modern advice on etiquette for the not-so-new millennium.

It's Beginning to Look a Wee Bit Like Christmas!

                                      

Thanksgiving has hardly passed and I'm already on a tear to suit up for Christmas. I haven't done the tree yet (fake, emits a preternatural glow, from Urban Outfitters) but I've set up a seasonal table with numerous woodsy boughs, pine cones real and others shaped and fashioned into candles, clementines, and candy canes. I like the deer wearing the scarf!

Here's the heft of the table...

with a further inspection of the centerpiece.

Birds and pugs are seen frolicking here amongst the boughs and pine cones--and that's a bottle of  homemade vanilla extract, with vanilla beans slowly infusing into vodka before being presented as gifts in a few weeks.

A real pine cone hovering about the pine cone candles on a vintage candy dish from my cousin and a doily from a set that Baby and I found in Thomaston, Maine over the summer. 

One mustn't forget the coffee table!  Sprigs of fir branches and laurel stuck in a Moroccan tea pot on a silver tray, with Christmas tree bulbs that my relative wrapped in sequined ribbons and dotted with beads--back in the 70's! And I think I see an encroaching lobster, don't you?

Dried lemon rinds, orange zest, cinnamon, black allspice pearls and sparks of cloves are all simmering on the stove top, filling the apartment with the most persuasive, wonderful aromas. Whatever the holiday, do enjoy and let the season ring!

A Moment

As a writer who constantly ponders food and drink, I would like to pause in prayer from the usual banter here to consider the last few days for those of us who lost power to make meals, pull water from our taps and the staggering number of people still enduring. And most importantly those continuing to be struck by the devastating loss of their homes, their foundations ripped right from under them. For those of us returning to normalcy, what trembling luck we have. With Thanksgiving coming up, I hope that those in the most desperate need will be able to face the future and find a way to soon say the same. Do enjoy what you have and donate where you can.

Crepes Corbie

When Corbie was eight years old, she used to hang around the smoke-filled green room in the theater wing of my college, where her mother taught students about the world of musical comedy. I suppose we baby sat Corbie in a way, so naturally we all tortured this precocious, tousled-haired little girl. She recently turned 30 and now I find myself friends with a successful, slyly beautiful, talented young woman. To celebrate in our way, Baby and I made her dinner headlining our own creation, flaming Crepes Corbie. Think of a savory Suzette, with lobster (we are both from New England, of course) with vanilla chive sauce, brown butter, pearls of salmon roe and of course, Cognac.

I set a reasonable table for the three of us during the day with these outrageous tall stems that dangled sprouted pods from the top as a centerpiece, and other autumnal branches that had delicate orange and yellow flowers,  reflective of our petite pumpkins and ghoulish gourds.

Baby made the stacks of crepes ahead of time as well. To make the thin pancakes, a basic recipe can be found here. And always throw the first one out for luck!

About an hour or so before our guest of honor arrived, we started to saute the lobster shells (from the reserved lobster meat) in butter and wilt the leeks, carrots, celery and tarragon chiffonade in prep for the vanilla chive lobster sauce. This requires heavy cream and I forgot to buy it, but you know what? You forge on (and don't tell anybody your dish didn't come out the way you wanted it to be). The end result was still pretty tasty, just thinner, and well, less fattening too.

We made the scallion mashed potatoes ahead of time too, and quickly microwaved our bag of haricots verts with almonds from FreshDirect, as we reheated the potatoes later and topped them with lump crab before serving.

When we all sat down to dinner (after a few glasses of rose, which turned into a few more) we enjoyed a wonderful salad composed of mesclun greens, Napa cabbage, Mandarin orange segments and toasted brioche croutons tossed with a silky shiitake and sesame dressing, courtesy of Annie's, which frankly could be served with a straw.

The Crepes Corbie were a delight to make, as we rolled up three at a time in a buttery saute pan, with the lobster tucked inside. Then we added about a quarter cup of Cognac, removed from the heat and lit the whole thing on fire! A note: before the flames rapidly die down, the dish should be presented theatrically to the table (at a distance) and served once the incendiary crepes are quite out.

We had yellow cupcakes with vanilla frosting for dessert. After all, whatever our age, I hope we are still children at heart.

Happy Birthday, dear Corbie!