Apple Cider Salted Caramels from SmittenKitchen

3 Jan

One of my favorite food blogs is SmittenKitchen. Her recipes are great and she does a great job of describing how to make certain things. Also, I find her recipes pretty crowd pleasing so I usually go to her site first when it comes to baking.  She released a book recently and when asked to pick out her favorite recipe, she managed to point to her Apple Cider Salted Caramels.

I read the post during Hurricane Sandy (while we somehow got insanely lucky and kept our power) and knew immediately I had to try this recipe. I love salted caramels and I love apple cider. This sounded like everything wonderful about fall.

So the day after the storm, I put on my boots and went a few blocks away to the grocery store in search of cider. By some odd fortune, there was one, single carton of cider left… laying down on an empty shelf.

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The recipe is actually incredibly easy. I know that a lot of people are intimidated by caramels and making candy, but it really just comes down to a bit of patience and a good thermometer.

I put mine into a silicon baking dish and they came out perfectly.

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I sprinkled some flake salt on top of mine as well.

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And I used my bench scraper to cut them into perfect squares.

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And managed to get through the cutting only eating one… 

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But these little nuggets of heaven didn’t last long as I rolled them in parchment paper.  I think I ate almost half during the next hour.  They were freakin’ amazing. 

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And they got accolades from my office. Perfect little candies.

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I made them a second time and I think that the cider I used impacted the final texture.  It just refused to reduce to the same syrupy consistency of the first time, even after I cooked it for twice as long.  I went with it, and they still tasted GREAT, but they were a bit stickier and harder to handle.  I had to keep them in the fridge just to make sure they could be peeled from the wrappers.  But still… delicious.

The recipe specifically says to use unpasteurized cider, but I couldn’t find that, so both times I used pasteurized cider that was in the refrigerated section.  I’ll have to try a few more times (damn!) The first time around I used Red Jacket cider, so if you find that, I’d scoop it up for this recipe.

This recipe is going straight into the KEEPER section.

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L&W Oyster Co

1 Jan

I joined an old coworker for lunch right near my NYC office at a brand new place, L&W Oyster Co (on 5th Ave between 28th and 29th). I think it had been open for just a few weeks.

The menu was a bit different from what is posted online, so here was the lunch meeting from a couple weeks ago:

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The restaurant is quirky, small, and fun.

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With magnetic poetry on the walls.

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And place mats explaining some of their favorite oysters (though not what is on the menu).

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My ex-coworker started with the clams.

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And I got a selection of the three oysters on the menu and we shared some large shrimp cocktail. (All the fresh seafood was very good and very fresh)

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And we were delighted to be given a pack of their homemade goldfish crackers.

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They were mildly spicy and baked to a perfect crispy.

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Steve got The Popeye with steamed mussels, chorizo, spinach, white wine, and gigantic beans. I couldn’t try it due to the chorizo, but he really enjoyed his meal.

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I got the Clam on Clam action which came with a clamwich (fried clams, tarter sauce, and pickled shisito peppers, which I asked to not have due to the my allergy) and some chowdah (brooklyn clam chowder, brooklyn lager, corn nuts, and house cured pancetta).  Before my meal made it in front of me, our waiter realized that my clamwich still included the peppers, so back into the kitchen that went.  But I got to start on my chowdah and quinoa (which was tasty).  I really loved this chowdah.  Creamy without being too heavy, good clam flavor, and the corn nuts and pancetta in it were just perfect.

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And when my clamwich (with salt & vinegar potato chips… YUM!) came out, I enjoyed that it was on a parker house roll roll.  It was a nice fluffy foil for the crunchy clam strips (though I wish they were more clamy in flavor).  The sandwich was good, but not as good as the chowdah.

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We also ordered some coffee (gotta love a French Press).

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And tried their sorbet of the day, which I can’t remember the exact flavor, but I remember it being some sort of citrus, and it was especially delicious. Great flavor and texture.  Really great end to the meal.

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I was impressed by our entire lunch here and think it’s a great lunch spot.  Nothing was among the best of that dish I have ever had, but everything was solidly tasty and I like what they’ve got going on.

Total Nom Points: 6.5 out of 10

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Zoob Zib

28 Dec

Within the past year, we noticed that a new Thai Noodle Bar had opened down the street on 9th Avenue between 35th and 36th. We walked by it as we walked to and from the movie theater, or the High Line, or basically anywhere downtown on the west side. We always mentioned that we should try it, but it took us until a cold December night to pop in.

Zoob Zib is from the owners of Aura Thai restaurant (we live in the “Thai Town” section of southern Hell’s Kitchen, and I find that of the hundreds of Thai restaurants to choose from in a 5 block radius, there is very little that sets them apart, so I cannot tell you if Aura is one of the good ones or one of the mediocre ones).      

The interior is actually quite nice, with the old halogen lights and mason jars turned into chandeliers.  Yup, it’s totally cliche right now, but I love that style.

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We started our first visit (yes… there have already been multiple) with a duck roll appetizer. It was roasted duck, scallion, cucumbers and hoisin sauce wrapped in a tortilla pancake. It was all nicely flavored and balanced and the fresh cucumbers and scallions were really nice.

 

On our second adventure, we tried the scallion pancakes. I’m not sure why they called them pancakes, especially since they stood them up in little triangles, but they were nice and crispy. I think they were lacking in flavor a bit, but I couldn’t eat the sauce (due to peppers). That probably would have balanced it better.

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I also took the second set of pictures with my brand new camera. I have had my old camera for nearly 3 years, and while it suited my purposes, it is old enough that the zoom stopped working and the lens would stick. So it was time for a new one.  My sister did some research to help me narrow down the options and I went to B&H Camera to try them out.  Turns out, a lot has improved in 3 years! I wound up very happily leaving with the Fujifilm FX1 after testing it in low light, up close situations. This was taken in extreme low light, and it’s a point and shoot, yet it still got clarity and depth of focus. YAY! (First round pics taken midday by a bright window with my iPhone 5).

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In the first round, Mike tried the Bah Mee Moo Daeng from the Specialty Noodles section, which was roast pork, minced pork, golden fish ball, fried chicken and shrimp wonton, half sliced egg and egg noodles.  He enjoyed it, and I thought it had a really nice lemongrass flavor.

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But mine was awesome.  I got the Crispy Rard Nah which came with sautéed gravy. sautéed chinese broccoli in gravy over crispy egg noodles or chow fun noodles. (I got mine with egg noodles).  Our waitress warned that the noodles were fried first to be crispy, but then were put in the sauce so didn’t come out as such.  What I really didn’t expect was that the “gravy” would actually be more like soup. But OHHH was it delicious.  Very umami in flavor.  I really enjoyed it.

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So when we went back a few weeks later, both Mike and I got that dish.  Mike got his with duck and including peppers.

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And I decided to try the chow fun (thick noodles) version which came with Chinese broccoli only (different vegetables from the egg noodles version). It was very good, but I preferred the other vegetables (though the thick noodles were really great).

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I also have to pat myself on the back for my next decision, which was to get an add on of pork cracklings and a pah-lo egg.  These were absolutely fantastic additions to the soupy dish.  The cracklings added salty, crispyness and they were not at all stale (something that I was starting to assume just came with the territory of pork cracklings).  And the egg is mildly sweet (in a good way) and was delicious in the gravy. 

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We were so pleasantly surprised by our meal(s) here.  I haven’t had “noodles” like this before, and have stuck to the Pad See Ew and Pad Thai dishes at most Thai restaurants.  But these dishes were really superior and were just perfect on a cold, snowy December night.  Total comfort food, even though it was totally foreign.  And the portions were very large with lots and lots of meat in each bowl. Very glad to have this place within walking distance!

Total Nom Points: 7.5 out of 10

Total Nom Points: 7.5 out of 10

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