-Gorilla Biscuits

Along the same lines, I really like creating simple dishes. Only a handful of spices to coat a single protein and a small side. And if it doesn’t take too long, even better.

To make this dish you need:
1.) Tilapia fillet (one per person)
2.) Beer
3.) Chili powder (preferably Mexican)
4.) Salt & Pepper
5.) One shallot (more if you’re making for a few people)
6.) A cucumber
7.) A lemon

Take the fillet and rinse under water. Maybe I’m paranoid but I always rinse fish and poultry. Pat dry.

Take a single large cutting board and place the fish at one end. I cut my cucumber and shallot at the other end; if this is too close to cross-contamination for you, place the fish on a separate dish.

Wherever your fish is, season with a two-finger pinch of salt (we’re not including your thumb in the two-finger pinch equation). Then, lightly season with black pepper. Next, take your chili powder and hold the shaker at least two feet above the fish and coat the whole fish with a single layer. FYI, adding seasoning from a height helps spread it out better, you should do this with the salt and pepper as well.

Flip the fish and do it all again to that side.

While your fish is sitting, grab your frying pan, preferably cast-iron, and add olive oil. You don’t need a lot of oil! But the measurement completely depends on the size of your frying pan. You need just enough olive oil to easily coat the pan. Turn the burner to high.

While the pan is getting hot, slice your shallot. Usually you only need half of a bulb. Make 1/4 inch slices. Take the slices and cut in half.

Put your hand about ten inches over the pan, if you can’t keep it there for more than a few seconds, you have the right temperature. Now throw in the sliced shallot. The shallot only needs a minute of cooking to get soft at that heat. You don’t want them to brown yet, just get soft.

Once the shallot is softened, add the tilapia fillet right in the middle of the pan. Clear a spot with the shallot so the fish properly sears. Cook the fish on each side for about two minutes. (A fish-specific spatula is extremely helpful. They’re the ones that are made of metal and have big slots running through them. Their flexibility makes handling flaky fish a lot easier than a firm spatula would.)

Once you have a nice, dark-brown color on your fish, lower the heat and cover with a pot-top. Let the fish cook this way for another 5 minutes, flipping once.

I don’t have a top that properly covers my pan. So, I take the spatula and place the handle on the counter so that the business-end is hanging over the edge of the pot. (Pointing toward the center of the pan.) Take the ill-sized top and place in the pan with one edge being lifted up by the spatula. This will help the fish cook through without burning it or needing to warm up your oven.

During that five minutes, peel and slice your cucumber. This will be your side. And trust me it works. The crunch of the cucumber pairs properly with the soft fish and it’s natural sweetness compliments the heat of the chili powder.

When the fish is ready we take it out leaving the shallot behind. If you aren’t sure how done your fish is, try cutting it with your spatula. If it puts up resistance, you’re far from it being finished and it probably needs ten more minutes. If it goes through but you still see pink, let it go for another minute or two. Once finished, place the fish on the plate you will be serving it on.

Now that the fish is cooked, turn the heat off because we’re going to deglaze the pan. This recipe calls for beer, so I assume you’ve cracked one at the onset of your preparation. Take what’s left, you need around three ounces, and pour it into the pan.

You should instantly see the beer foam and sizzle. Take your spatula and start scraping. You want everything that’s stuck to the bottom of the pan to mix into the beer along with the shallots. Once the beer stops fizzing and foaming, you’re done. Deglazing shouldn’t take more than one minute.

Pour the liquid from the pan over your fish. Take a wedge out of your lemon and squeeze over the fish. Place the cucumber to the side of the fish. (A pinch of salt on the cucumber never hurts…)

Done.

If you properly deglaze the pan and add the lemon, I promise you will want to lick the plate. This entire meal takes 15 minutes, tastes delicious and is pretty healthy too.

Enjoy!

I set out to rectify that.

Cooking, I have a knack for. Recipe creation, not really. A solid base of information provided by my mother and the occasional class at The Brooklyn Kitchen have given me enough know-how to whip something up. But an actual original recipe, other than my infamous worked-over veggie burgers, I have not created.

What follows is the perfect recipe for a chili concoction that will rock your taste buds as much as it does your colon.

I realized that what I was missing in my last attempt was a fatty substance to add that lingering flavor you get out of true dishes. I also only used one jalapeno, forcing the addition of the sriracha.

This time I solved both issues. For depth of flavor, bacon is an obvious choice. Take five slabs, chop them and then render in a medium-sized saucepan. Once rendered, add three diced jalapenos. Cook until the bacon begins to crisp and your nose starts to burn.

Take about a pound of ground turkey and season with salt (lightly), black pepper, garlic powder and onion powder. Of course fresh garlic and onion is preferred. Dump the meat in the pan to brown.

After a half a minute, add two tablespoons of tomato paste. Stir.

Let the meat brown. Now taste. Depending on how spicy the meat is, add an appropriate amount of honey. Start with a three-second squirt out of your honey bear. Taste. Too spicy? Add more honey. Once you have the correct ratio of honey, take a tablespoon of white vinegar and add to the mix. This will help cut the richness of the chili.

Take a small can of pinto beans and strain as much liquid out as possible. Add to the pot. Let that all simmer for at least 15 minutes once the beans are added.

Get some extra-sharp cheddar, the amount is kind of up to you, shred and fold into the the beans and meat.  Shred some extra for topping.

Let the pan simmer for a bit. There’s no science to how long it cooks at this point, it really just depends on how much time you have.

I like polenta – a lot. So I like to take half-inch slices and fry them up. Season with a  pinch of salt, pepper and garlic powder. Don’t overcook! Just brown them on medium-low heat. You want a slight crunch without losing the creaminess in the middle.

Take your bean, meat, bacon and jalapeno mix and pour over the sliced polenta. Take the extra shredded cheese and put it on top as soon as you as you can so it melts nicely.

There you go. You will flip out at the depth of flavor here and, more importantly, that you only have a single pot to clean.

And I faced the scary menu. Sardines, pickled egg, capers, pickled carrot and parsley sound more like someone’s pranking you than suggesting a sandwich. But you remember that Saltie is in some way connected to Marlow & Daughters and the ingredients suddenly transform into hidden secrets you never dreamt of.

So I ordered the Captain’s Daughter (the aforementioned combination) with a cup of hot chocolate. The hot chocolate was excellent; thick and creamy, with just the right level of sweetness. Even if as soon as I was out the door I pondered what made me think to order a hot chocolate with a fish sandwich. But it was an excellent hand warmer for the walk home.

The sandwich was excellent. Most things placed on fresh focaccia are. The saltiness of the capers brought out the best in the sardine, which was slightly muted by the pickled egg, and the parsley, bathed in something acidic, cut through any heft. So, yes, I do suggest you give it a try.

But that isn’t why I felt the need to write this. Now, I can’t give a full review of the place because I’ve only been there the one time, but the fact is, the sandwich was $10. Actually, all of the sandwiches were $10 or hovering slightly above, which makes you wonder how they figure out what to charge. In any case, I would gladly pay $10 for the sandwich on taste alone. What enraged me was when I got home I discovered that my sandwich wasn’t even cut in half. Ten dollars and you couldn’t cut my sandwich in half?

Fine. Whatever. I’ll get over it. It tastes that good. But what’s this? My bread is falling to pieces. Remember, this isn’t a cold-cut sandwich; you need to apply pressure to keep all the pieces of fish and egg from falling out. In trying to keep your sandwich whole, you inevitably begin to bend it. The more it bends, the more it falls apart.

Again, for $10 you couldn’t cut my sandwich in half?

This is the problem with charging so much for something as quotidian as a sandwich. It brings it up a level in expectation. If this were maybe $7, I would be back again and again. But when you ask someone to pay that much for a sandwich and you don’t deliver perfection, it’s hard not to be disappointed.

Also, why the fuck are sardines and eggs costing me this much? I know this is exotic food to the uninitiated but, really, this is peasant food. The kind of thing my Dad would whip up for me for lunch on a Saturday when my Mom wasn’t around to complain about the smell.

We Brooklynites love our food. Especially anything novel. And often around here, things are as advertised. Saltie makes very good food – let that not get lost in this rant – but I just want to get what I pay for. Or vice versa.

The Limousines: Very Busy People

For the most part I’m lazy and under-motivated. Which is a little surprising when I look at my life from the outside. It isn’t like I don’t do anything. I have a full-time job, run a side-business with a friend and I’m going to be an adjunct professor this Spring.

Sometimes I really don’t understand how I am where I am. I don’t mean that in a bragging manner. It’s just disbelief  that I am somewhat successful, yet I know full well that I could probably sit on a couch for a week with a stack of DVDs and not get bored.

I seem to run on a personality-cocktail of good fortune, some wit, general friendliness, (apparently) ahead of the curve intelligence, being in the right place at the right time and not turning down any opportunity. I think it’s that last trait that has helped me the most. When it comes to my professional career I’ve never turned anything down. Luckily I had things to “not turn down,” of course, but I didn’t.

I tried.

This blog, for example, was a case of creating opportunity for myself. I was extremely lucky to be working with Chandra at the time and got along well enough with my developer Pete to become a friend and business partner.  So I set out to create this.

I spent so much time refining the design. Far too many nights pouring over Photoshop until I got the exact look and feel I wanted. The endless iterations and self-doubt.  And then there’s the requirement gathering, working with the developer who thinks you’re crazy, convincing Chandra to write with me; essentially the nasty bits we designers often forget. It’s just a ridiculous amount of work.

But hey, here it is — we did it.

Then came the writing. The lack of hits. The tweaking. The maintaining standards. The random stints of lost interest. So you stop. But it pisses you off that you stopped. Remember how much time you put into it?

I know what it takes to stay motivated to do something. Luckily, in the most important times I am able to. I wonder how you take hardcore determination and turn it into sustainable, mild determination.

I think that’s exactly what I’m looking for: a mild determination.

You would think that if we had to narrow down to one song what We Made a Blog is about, it would be by the likes of LCD Soundsystem or The Cool Kids (who we do both love). But the really appropriate song was around before them or either of us.

“The Only Living Boy in New York” is a song Paul Simon wrote for Art Garfunkel. Simon’s in his city – our city – and he’s seeing his creative partner off on other artistic pursuits. It’s a beautiful early morning in New York, where just the part of the sky visible through the buildings seems like a vast expanse, and Garfunkel has already flown off and Simon is wishing that everyone out there sees the beauty of the talent in his friend that he sees. He’s alone in his thoughts, temporarily without someone who gets them, but happy in a place he loves.

WMAB is two people on separate artistic paths but with the same vision. Together we merge our talents in this space and apart we hope that the world recognizes in the other what we do. And, of course, there’s our silent partner, New York. Like all good silent partners, it’s the one that makes everything possible.

I fell for your sausage, egg and cheese on a biscuit – and the beignets on the side, too. Then I had the fried green tomato sandwich and I couldn’t stop gushing about this magical, stationary food truck that had appeared two blocks away from my apartment. For about two months of Sundays, I would have my ritual tomato sandwich. Then a waitress suggested I try the oyster fritter sandwich. This is when things started to go sour.

That sandwich was actually quite good – not great, but solidly good. So, I thought, what about the rest of your menu? First up, the hot dog. It doesn’t matter how organic or closely grown a product is to where it’s being sold, taste is taste, and you either have it or you don’t. The dog did not. I might as well have been eating a veggie dog – a very expensive veggie dog, at that.

OK, so one negative. No reason to panic, but I was starting to see why so many said you were “overpriced” and “not very good.” But I stuck to what I liked about you and life went on wonderfully for us both. Then you committed an unforgivable sin, one of biblical proportion.

We’d never spent the afternoon together, so I hadn’t had your weekend special: fried chicken. Until last week. You’re selling chicken in the same town as Pies ‘n’ Thighs, so I figured you wouldn’t be messing around. I drooled in anticipation from order until delivery. What came after was a monumental disappointment.

There was the taste of par-boiled, then fried chicken that comes at the pre-hot sauce stage of buffalo wings. The chicken didn’t suffer the usual list of complaints, meat on the dry side, soft skin, etc. It was cooked ‘properly,’ it just didn’t taste like anything.  On top of it (literally) was a sauce whose beginnings seemed to be juice squeezed out of a plastic lemon. When I suggested to my friend that you don’t come close to matching Pies ‘n’ Thighs’ delights, he remarked, much more tellingly, that you don’t “stack up against KFC.” And he’s right – about taste and price (not that I’m endorsing fast food). For $10, I felt like you were flipping me the bird. And about the $10 octopus dish I was served: Thanks for the two pieces of octopus. The pound of chick peas and faro at the bottom was quite tasty, but I don’t think it’s enough to repair things between us.