The Bitten Word

Roasted Broccolini with Marjoram

A Bitten Word Recipe
Inspired by The Spotted Pig

Last week Zach was in New York for a couple days for a conference. It was two long days of sessions (albeit really interesting ones).

But the night before the conference started, Zach made it into the city with enough time to catch a show. He saw a one-man play called Buyer & Cellar, which was really quite great. The show is Off Broadway, in a great tiny little theater in Greenwich Village. 

After the show let out, Zach was a little peckish. And he knew just where to walk: The Spotted Pig. We both love that restaurant, and late on a quiet, cool Sunday night, it was a little corner of heaven right there in the West Village. Warm and inviting and wonderful.

Zach grabbed a seat at the bar and checked out the menu. He ended up ordering a great crispy-seared mackerel with crème fraîche and mint vinaigrette, which was delicious.

And he ordered the Roasted Broccolini with Marjoram. With the first bite, he knew he wanted us to recreate it at home.

Grilled Thai Chicken and Eggplant with Basil

A recipe from The Bitten Word

Three things conspired the other day that led to us making this dish for dinner:

1. We were jonesing for some classic Thai flavors, especially basil, in which a dish is pack with so many pungent spices that it clears your sinuses.

2. It was crazy nice weather in D.C. Unheard of in August. We had even turned off our air-conditioning and opened our windows. As such, we didn't want to heat up the apartment by cooking over a hot stove.

3. We had uncooked chicken in our fridge, a couple of eggplants from our CSA, and an abundance of basil in our garden.

Voila! Grilled Thai Chicken, Eggplant and Basil!

Grilled Summer Vegetable and Quinoa Salad

A recipe from The Bitten Word

These are the crazy times.  

It's the time of year when produce is piling up all around us. We're getting more than we can handle from our CSA, and yet we're still buying more each week at the farmers market. We can't help it!  Everything is so good and abundant right now! (Our names are Zach and Clay, and we're addicted to vegetables.) 

As a result of our over-abundance of veggies, we've got to have a couple tricks up our sleeve for using up a bunch of different vegetables. 

One is called Throw Everything In a Skillet. It's a very complicated recipe in which we basically sauté everything in our fridge. Onions, corn, tomatoes, okra, zucchini, squash, whatever. Eggplant? Yes. Green beans? Sure. We sauté one group of veggies at a time (so each different kind of vegetable gets nicely sautéed), then throw it all back in the pan to combine. If we're feeling especially fancy, we'll throw in a handful of chopped fresh basil at the end.

Our other favorite recipe this time of year? Quinoa Salad.

Purple Cloud

A recipe from The Bitten Word

Sometimes there's that moment when you're in a restaurant and you bite into something, and you immediately think, "I have got to learn to make this at home."

We had that experience in Puerto Rico, at small restaurant in Old San Juan.

Bittens, here's the story of the Purple Cloud. 

While we were visiting Puerto Rico (and eating everything in sight), we had different schedules for the first few days. Zach was off with a photographer, reporting a story for his magazine.

Clay, meanwhile, had appointed himself guardian of the beach. On the first night, Clay wandered into Old San Juan for dinner, with no real destination in sight. He pulled up a few "best of" lists on Yelp and ended up at a pseudo-vegetarian restaurant called Verde Mesa.

The restaurant is quaintly quirky, like something furnished from your wacky French grandma's attic (or, you know, basically Anthropologie). But the food was great -- mostly vegetarian, some fish, all very fresh. Clay's meal was lovely.

But on the way out, Clay noticed a few diners enjoying an incredible-looking dessert. It was a big, frothy whip of purple, a creamy, pinkish peak piled high in a dish. And it looked amazing. Clay immediately vowed to return to Verde Mesa with Zach.

Two nights later, we were back at Verde Mesa. And there it was on the dessert menu, "the Purple Cloud." We ate it. We loved it. We could have ordered another. (We refrained.)

We knew we had to try making it ourselves. 

Golden Beet and Burrata Salad with Orange Poppyseed Dressing

A recipe from The Bitten Word

They say that necessity is the mother of invention.

But when it comes to summer vegetables, the opposite can also be true: Abundance is the mother of invention.

Trust us, we're not complaining. But that's just the situation we found ourselves in last week. We'd picked up a bunch of golden beets at the Sunday farmers market (along with green beans, the last of the season's asparagus and some other vegetables we couldn't say no to). Then, on Wednesday, our CSA share came in, full of cabbage, kale, carrots and peas.

So one night for dinner, we pulled out the beets, determined to do something with them. We whipped up this salad, and we're in love.

Thanksgiving 2012: Gin Apple Cider

A recipe from The Bitten Word

Happy Thanksgiving Week! Have a cocktail!

This is our final Thanksgiving preview recipe.  We've told you the biggest Thanksgiving trends, cataloged all the recipes from this year's food magazines, and walked you through the 20 or so recipes we tried out ourselves.

Now it's time for a drink.

Thanksgiving 2012: Tot's Egg Custard Pie

A recipe from The Bitten Word

Egg Custard Pie was a staple at my family gatherings growing up. Regardless of the occasion, be it Thanksgiving or lunch after church, in a time of celebration or sorrow, Egg Custard Pie was present. And it was always made by my grandfather, Tot.

Tot is an unusual name. And it's even more unusual when you learn that it's his full first name -- It's not short for anything, and he has no middle name. Even more odd, Tot is a twin. The name my great-grandparents chose for my great-uncle? Dot.

All you need to make Tot's Egg Custard Pie are eggs, sugar, nutmeg, cornstarch and whole milk. Tot's notes for the recipe say to use "sweet milk," by which he means non-buttermilk. And he never bothers with a homemade pie crust -- he's perfectly content with a store-bought shell. 

The pie itself is a cinch to make. Whisk the filling together, pour them into a pie shell, and bake until the pie is set. Serve the pie at room temperature after it's had time to cool. The pie, sweet and scented with nutmeg, is light in texture, rather like a cross between a cream pie and a flan. The texture of a Egg Custard Pie might not be for everyone, but we love it. 

Decades later, Tot is still making this pie. We hope to be making it for just as long.

-- Clay  

 

Thanksgiving 2012: Tart Apple Chutney

A recipe from The Bitten Word

When we were asked by the Washington Post to come up with a few recipes for their Thanksgiving coverage, we thought of a few cranberry sauce alternatives that we wanted to try. So we hit the kitchen, developing three recipes for turkey-complementary sauces. They each turned out rather well, but our favorite was this Tart Apple Chutney. 

Any time of the year, we love a thin slice of a Granny Smith apple on a turkey sandwich. That was the inspiration for this chutney, which is made with Granny Smiths and golden raisins and flavored with cider vinegar and fig preserves for a nice tart/sweet contrast. To give it a bit of texture, we added toasted walnuts. 

We loved this as a complement to turkey. The tartness of the apple and vinegar went perfectly with a nicely roasted bird. If you want an alternative to cranberry sauce that will stand out at the Thanksgiving table, this will do the trick. 

Thanksgiving 2012: Fried Brussels Sprouts With Paprika-Spiked Dipping Sauce

A Recipe From The Bitten Word

So, we knew a few weeks in advance that the Washington Post was coming for Fakesgiving. That was good news, because it gave us plenty of time to plan our big meal. It also gave us a chance to try out some of our own original creations to accompany the profile.

First on our list was Brussels sprouts. Sometimes, it seems as if the mission statement for this blog should read: "Convincing You to Love Brussels Sprouts Since 2008."

We were eager to try frying Brussels, so we broke out the Dutch oven and heated up some peanut oil. 

Chorizo and Sweet Potato Hash

A recipe from The Bitten Word

Cheap, healthy and fast. It's the trifecta of home cooking. 

Don't get us wrong: We sometimes love devoting hours to a slow-cooked dish. And we're fine with splurging on special ingredients. (And lord knows we like our share of unhealthy foods!)

But for a get-us-through-the-week mid-week dinner, we're always striving for the same triple-header: cheap, healthy and fast.

Here's a meal we've been making a lot lately that is a total winner on all three counts.