Archive | February, 2015

The Fegguary Challenge: Eggstra Special Challenge

6 Feb IMG_2238

My friend Jeff started the #Fegguary Challenge a few years ago, and this year he upped the ante to an Eggstra Special Challenge (inspired by the Ice Bucket Challenge, I’m sure, but with a focus on health rather than donations).  I was on his first list of challengees (and now I have to challenge 3 people… stay tuned on Facebook for my official challenges).

Luckily, I am always stocked with eggs (because I love them!) and Pete & Gerry’s Organic Eggs are my favorite (it helps that they are also my favorite clients).

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What is not to love about small family farms, a great set of people, and delicious healthy eggs?

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So for my Fegguary challenge, I decided to try to make an egg dish I have always loved but never made.  The eggs that are in ramen soup are one of my favorite things on earth.  Also called Ajitsuke Tamago, I turned to Serious Eats for a quick “how to.”  Sadly, I didn’t have sake, so I decided to use rice wine vinegar instead.  This made sense in my head.  I also replaced the sugar with brown sugar because I saw that in another recipe and thought it would be a good change.

First step, boil eggs (since I’m pregnant, I went with hard boiled… which I also turned to Serious Eats for the real story on how to get them perfect… a bit creamy but not raw).

Put eggs covered in cold water.

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Bring to boil.

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Take off heat and cover for selected time (I went 8-9 minutes).

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As the eggs were cooking, I assembled my ingredients and mixed up the marinade per the recipe. (Though I just realized I didn’t add the water… so I guess I had a more concentrated marinade than I was supposed to!)

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Then I peeled the eggs (and these peeled pretty well… because they were a few weeks old.  I found out the hard way a few weeks ago that freshies actually don’t peel well when I got all excited about hard boiling some eggs fresh from the farm. Whoops.)

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And set the eggs in the marinade.

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Then covered them with a paper towel to keep them submerged.

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About 11 hours later, I drained off the marinade and stored them in the fridge for another 2 days (only because we weren’t ready to eat them yet).

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And then we had them over pastina. While, sadly, not ramen, the egg added a bit of protein and flavor to a simple pasta.

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They were “dyed” a really pretty color which went a few millimeters into the whites when cut open.  The touch of sweetness form the marinade was exactly what I was hoping for and it tasted a lot like the ramen eggs I have come to love.  Great flavor.

Thanks for the #Fegguary Challenge, Jeff. You inspired me out of my eggy comfort zone to hatch a plan for an eggceptional project.

And now I challenge YOU, dear readers.  Tag me if you take the #fegguary challenge!

 

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Edi and the Wolf

5 Feb

I have been meaning to try Edi and the Wolf for a long time now, but it’s just in a very inconvenient spot in the city for where I usually spend a lot of time.  It’s on Avenue C and 7th Street.  A great area for new restaurants, a bad area if you live in the Bronx.

My husband and a couple male friends (including my sister’s fiance) have formed “Pepper Club” as a chance for the boys to get together and eat peppers (which both my sister and I are allergic to).  When they got out, us girls pick another place and enjoy a girl’s night out.  So Edi & the Wolf was my pick.

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The menu has some intriguing options, and I especially liked the entire section for “Schnitzel & Co.”

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I also enjoyed that they have a special line to encourage #foodporn on instagram. (Though, sadly, the restaurant was very dark, making porn pictures a bit harder)

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We began with a flatbread with candied onions, pickled mushroom, mozzarella and speck.  The candied onion were fantastic on this and there was a great balance of flavor with the sweet onion, salty pickled mushrooms, creamy mozzarella, and bitter greens.

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We tried the braised short rib with pearl onion, delicata squash, trumpet mushroom, and carrot.  This was a hearty, winter dish with all the right flavors.

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We also tried the spätzle with wild mushroom, zucchini, and poached egg.  I heard this was a “must try” and I cannot disagree. Spaetzle is one of my favorite foods and this was an exceptional version.

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We got a side of the brussels sprouts with bacon, apple, and toasted almonds.  This was a GREAT brussels side.  The sweetness of the apples with the salty and the char.  It was all very, very good together.

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For dessert we decided to split a piece of a chocolate torte.  This was rich but not too rich and we savored every bite.

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We really enjoyed our meal at Edi and the Wolf and I’m very glad I finally got to try it.  It was worth the schlep to Avenue C and I would go back in a heartbeat.

Total Nom Points: 7.5 out of 10

Total Nom Points: 7.5 out of 10

 

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Kingside

3 Feb

We were trying to find a restaurant for a Friday night before a Broadway Show, and Mike mentioned that he had wanted to try Kingside in the Viceroy Hotel (57th Street between 6th and 7th Avenues).  It looked good from the outside, with a nicely lit sign and the black and white checkered floors that I’m a sucker for.

The menu looked pretty great, too.

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I absolutely love artichokes, and would probably call them one of my favorite foods.  So we had to get the crispy baby artichokes.  I was kind of shocked and appalled by the price: $20. But I went with it.

These were good, though a little greasy, and not great. Certainly not $20 great.  What are they thinking? Not everyone is an artichoke sucker like me!

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Mike chose the braised pork shank with roasted shallots, escarole and pork jus.  This should have been great. I mean… how can braised pork shank not be great? But it just wasn’t.  The meat was tasty but had very little flavoring besides the meat.  It felt a bit like a finely cooked piece of meat swimming in flavorless jus. How is pork jus flavorless? I’m still confused.

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We got a side of the brussels sprouts with mustard and black garlic.  These were also very ehh.  I LOVE black garlic and I would not have been able to identify that flavor anywhere in this dish. The sprouts were a bit soggy and while they looked like they had a char, they were really just kind of limp.

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And then I got the scallops (with butternut squash, bacon caponata, and brown butter)… good gracious the scallops.  I love scallops. I basically could eat a scallop in any form.  I don’t think I have EVER left a morsel of scallop on a plate in my history of eating scallops probably hundreds of times.  But this? This was awful. The scallops were so over-salted I could hardly eat them and wound up leaving an entire scallop on the plate. An atrocity. I ate the squash hash because it was okay and I didn’t want to starve, but I was seriously angry that someone could ruin a scallop.

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This was such a poor excuse for a restaurant. Someone took all the things that are trendy and good and then put a cook in there who had no idea how to execute on the food.  The concepts of all the dishes were fine, but whomever was behind that stove should be ashamed of themselves. I really have to hope they had an off night, but there is no excuse for ruining a perfectly good scallop.

Total Nom Points: 4 out of 10

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