How to Boil the Perfect Egg

It's past Easter, so I now, like many people, fancy myself somewhat of an egg boiling master. After boiling 3 and 1/2 dozen eggs, I found boiled egg nirvana.

Let me explain.

Ms. Iz. (aged 11, very discerning eye) and I tried to do our egg decorating late one Tuesday evening. It was a lackluster event, bordering on disaster. The dye I had chosen had no vibrancy, lacking in color as well. The crayons weren't doing their part. And, the stickers that came with the kit were not interesting enought to ofer any kind of joy. This accounts for the first dozenand a half eggs.

Three days later, we tried again. With more white wine vinegar, and better dye, we had a much higher success rate. The eggs were vibrant. The crayons were used to make very cute faces. The stickers still weren't very interesting. This accounts for the final two dozen eggs.

I now have a fridge full of beautifully colored hard boiled eggs. And a very good grasp on proper egg coloring techniques.

Perfect Hard Boiled Eggs (from Julia Child, of course)

Ingredients:

• 1 dozen eggs 3 and 1/2 quarts of water

• 1 Large Stockpot

Method:

• Lay the eggs in the pan and dd the cold water.

• Set over high heat and bring just to a boil.

• Remove from heat, cover pan, and let sit exactly 17 minutes.

• After the 17 minutes, transfer the eggs to a bowl of ice cubes and water.

• Chill for 2 minutes.

• (This next step, I do not do, but Julia does, so I am including it here: Transfer the eggs to the boiling water again and let boil for 10 minutes. Return the eggs to the ice water, craking the shells in several places.)

• Chill the eggs in the fridge.

Enjoy!

Fake Bacon.....Or How I Made Vegetarian Carbonara Sauce

Yes, your heard me, (or you read that right) I have crossed over to the fake bacon realm.

I'm not sure I've mentioned this, but I've given up meat for the next few months. Oh, believe you me, it's not easy, especially since I would be happy to eat half of an entire roast beef for breakfast every day. Oh, but I digress.

So far, I have learned to make quite a few interesting full vegetarian dishes without missing the meat. Many eggs, fish and much cheese and beans have been consumed over these past 3 weeks. I even managed to avoid meat at our Chinese New Year Dim Sum luncheon (albeit, *that* event did make me a little sad, what with the roast duck and all).

Then, I saw this post for Spaghetti alla Carbonara on the blog A Chow Life. I was sunk. The need for bacon (which, I will have you know, I passed up at a brunch last weekend) reared its ugly head. There was no way around, it I needed to make this....fast.

I turned to my friend Ms. A, a long-time vegetarian. We headed to our fabulous organic veggie emporium, Rainbow Grocery, and she schooled me in the non-meat bacon options. We settled on Smart Bacon. Though still skeptical, I knew this was my only option.

When I returned home, I readied the ingredients and reviewed the recipe. The Smart Bacon was not at all like *real* bacon. When I opened the package, the tell-tale hickory smoke smell did not assault my nose. Nor, when I touched it, was the texture at all what I had anticipated. Since it is so thin and without the grooves of real bacon, I decided I would chop it up really small into a dice. Also, I realize now, that I did this as much to keep myself from feeling the weird texture in my mouth as for presentation.

I fried it up (had to use quite a bit of oil to make up for the missing fat), followed the instructions and sat down to eat. What a fabulous surprise I had, upon that first bite, of the bacon essence mixing in just-so with the egg, cheese and spices.

The apologies I owe to everyone and their brother (not my brother mind you, the biggest bacon eater of us all) for putting down their fake bacon are vast and cover years. Accept my apologies, and this recipe as a thank you for putting up with me.

Spaghetti alla Carbonara

serves 4

Ingredients:

• 5 tblsp. extra virgin olive oil
• 1 pkg meat-free Bacon (like Smart Bacon), diced
• 1 lb. spaghetti
• 1 and 1/4 cup freshly grated parmesan
• 4 eggs, separated
• Freshly grated black pepper
• 1 tsp red pepper flakes (optional)

Method

• Bring 6 quarts of water to a boil in a large pot, add 2 tablespoons salt.
• In a saute pan or skillet, combine oil, red pepper flakes, and meat-free bacon over medium heat.
• Heat the meat-free bacon through, and long enough to get the red pepper flakes to pop.
• Remove from the heat and set aside. Do not drain the oil.
• Cook the spaghetti in the boiling water until just al dente.
• Reserve 1/4 cup of the pasta cooking water and set aside, then drain the pasta.
• Add the reserved pasta water to the pan with the meat-free bacon.
• Add the pasta and heat, shaking the pan, for 1 minute.
• Remove from heat.
• Add 1 cup of the cheese, the egg whites, and pepper to taste, and toss until thoroughly mixed.
• Divide pasta among 4 warm bowls.
• Make a well in the center of each one, and gently drop an egg yolk into each well.
• Season the eggs with more pepper and sprinkle tops with remaining cheese.

Adapted from A Chow Life

I wish it *were* Casamiento...It's a Close Second

Beans and rice in any form are a wonderful, homey, warm, satisfying dish. To be honest, I hadn't had much in the way of really good Mexcian, El Salvadorean or Nicaraguean food until I moved out to California. When I was 16, I got on a plane to Los Angeles from New York. Gran fran sent me off with a bagful of food, which, if memory serves me right, involved a salami sandwich on Pepperidge Farm white bread with Mayonnaise, pretzel sticks and M&M's. I felt very grown up on that trip. It was my first solo cross-country trip. Old enough to seem like I belonged on that plane alone, but young enough to revel in the free sodas and movies (yes, movie headphones were free in those way-back days).

My friend's family picked me up at LAX and asked if I was hungry, which I was. They drove to a small Mexican food stand and said the fish tacos were the best thing to order. I hadn't had much Mecxican food growing up, so had no idea the goodness I was in for. That fish taco changed my life! It made me realize there was a whole world of spices and herbs that I had never even thought of. I still recall the satisfying crunch of the lightly battered fried fish against the cilantro and cumin-spiced beans to this day.

Once I moved to California, there was a wealth of Mexican and El Salvadorean food choices, and I have been in heaven ever since. A favorite dish, casamiento, which is essentially rice and beans was introduced to me in the recent past. The version I've enjoyed the most is served at Panchita's here in San Francisco. Trying to recreate it has proven fruitless, so I can only satisfy my yearning for casamiento at Panchita's. I do, however, make a nice non-spicy rice and beans dish that has a similar homey/satisfying texture and flavor to it.

So for me, beans and rice were really just that: black beans, rice, some sour cream, sharp cheddar and if I'm feeling adventurous, diced red onion and avocado. It's one of my first out-on-my-own fast eacy comfort foods. I've been making this or a variation of this dish for close to 20 years. My rice and beans is only for me, sometimes my family, too, but it's not the kind of dish I even think to serve to guests.

I am including a real Casamiento recipe here, for those of you who have the time and heart to put into it.

Otherwise, this is how I make my own, lovely rice and beans. Enjoy!

Rice and Beans

serves 4

Ingredients:

• 1 can black beans (preferably Goya brand)
• 2 Chipotle Peppers in sauce (Embassa brand)
• 1/4 teaspoon cumin
• 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
• 1.5 cups white rice, cooked to your liking
• 1 avocado
• 1/2 cup shredded cheddar cheese
• 1 small red onion diced
• Sour Cream to taste

Method:

• Place black beans and chipotle peppers in a small saucepan over medium heat. Stirring, heat until thoroughly heated through.
• Once the beans are warmed and the rice is cooked, serve 4 equal portions of each into bowls.
• Add shredded cheddar, avocado pieces, red onion and sour cream to taste.
• You can add some nice hot sauce at this point, if'n the chipotle's weren't hot enough.

Bones...Not for Soup....for Roasting

There is a restaurant here in San Francisco, Bar Tartine, that has a lovely menu ranging from locally harvested veggies to fatastically prepared roasts. My most favorite item on their menu is the roasted beef marrow. I had never tried this dish before going to Bar Tartine.

Let me tell you, once I had them, I found every excuse to go there for dinner as often as possible. It is not inexpensive, so it was quite an undertaking financing my new obsession. But, they never let me down. Each and every order showed up at the table piping hot with a lovely herbed salad and perfectly toasted bread slices. Frankly, I like going there with vegetarians, that way I get the whole order to myself.

Today, I am on day two of staying home sick. As mentioned in my previous post, I have taken to cooking my own comfort foods. And, so, this morning when I was at Whole Foods picking up fruit, I wandered over to the meat counter. They did indeed stock (no pun intended...ok, well maybe a little pun), beef marrow bones.

But then, the questions began: "is it for soup?" "did you want the femur or the knuckles?" "how many pounds did you need?"

Short of telling the butchers about my craziness for the Bar Tartine version, I tried to give them the sense that I knew what I was doing. I explained I was just roasting them and serving them with toast. He figured out that I wanted the femur cut into smallish pieces and went off to saw the bones apart for me. In the end, I didn't come off as an idiot, and came home with $12 worth of the loveliest beef marrow I've ever seen (ok, I guess I'd never seen it raw until this morning...).

In the end, I realize that Gran Fran did make osso bucco periodically utilizing the same (or very close to the same) types of bones. Once I got them marrow home, I placed some in a pan and stared at it. It resembled the cooked appetizer I loved from Bar Tartine, but it also seemed like a daunting task to get these bones from raw to roasted.

The recipe I based my first batch on came from Group Recipes. I used it mostly to make sure of how to put the bones in the pan, but improvised from there. So, herewith, my version (I've now made two batches) of an almost-as-good-version of Roasted Bone Marrow ala Bar Tartine.

Roasted Bone Marrow serves 6 as an appetizer

Ingredients: 3 lbs Beef Bone Marrow cut into 3 inch long pieces

• 1 cup loosely packed Italian Parsley
• 3 cloves Garlic
• 3 Tbsp Lemon Juice
• 2 Tbsp Olive Oil
• Salt and Pepper to taste

Method:

• Preheat oven to 450 degrees F.

• Place marrow bones cut side up in oven proof skillet or roasting pan.

• Roast in the oven for 25 to 30 minutes, just until the marrow gets soft, the outside of the bones are lightly browned and the excess fat on the bones has browned as well.

• While bones are roasting, finely chop the parsley and garlic. Mix with the lemon juice, olive oil, salt and pepper. If you have an electric chopper, this is a good time to use it.

• Toast bread pieces.

• Serve with small spoons to scoop out the heavenly marrow, which can be placed on the toast with the parsley mixture.

ps check out those photos, huh? thanks again to gran fran and joe for my swanky new camera! xo