Paleo Swedish – Koenigsburger Klopps

I once handed my card to a pastry chef from Durham.

"Paleo-culinary ethnography?" She laughed and walked away.

Yeah, well.
Paleo-culinary ethnography is what I call American food before it became fashionable – before the Food Network and even before Julia Child. I do try to take it seriously. I do own a dozen or so cookbooks that are older that I am. And I do stick my proboscis into them trying to excavate something interesting in order to turn back the clock. And in spite (or despite) of the levity I generate in the professional foodie community, I will endeavor to persevere.

Nosing about one of my 29 (wink, wink) year old mother's cookbooks, I happened on a recipe for Koenigsberger klopps – Swedish meatballs. This household has a fetish for nearly all things Swedish – both a Volvo and a Saab in the garage, a bottle of Absolut in the freezer, and Dux to sleep in upstairs – and this Pre-Eisenhower recipe works well steamed potatoes and green beans.

Ingredients

Meatballs

• 1 pound ground beef
  
• 1 pound ground pork
  
• ½ half of a large onion, grated
  
• 5 egg whites, well beaten
  
• 1/3 to ½ cup breadcrumbs
  
• Sal, pepper, and nutmeg to taste
  

Sauce

• 3 cups water
  
• ½ onion grated
  
• 4 bay leaves
  
• 1 tablespoon of sugar
  
• 1 teaspoon of salt
  
• 1 tablespoon of peppercorns
  
• 1 tablespoon of allspice berries
  
• ¼ cup balsamic vinegar
  
• 1 tablespoon flour
  
• 5 egg yolks, beaten
  
• 1 lemon sliced
  
• 1 tablespoon capers
  

Boil the first six sauce ingredients for 30 minutes, then strain and bring to a boil again. Add the meatballs in batches and cook for about 15 minute. When they're done, remove them from the water and onto a warming plate. Once all your meatballs are done add the vinegar to the water. The add the flour slowly, whisking the mixture. Slowly whisk in the egg yolks until thick. Serve the sauce over the meatballs.

Looking back at this recipe, it's easy to see why people of that generation didn't live all that long. A nice meal like this, topped off with an unfiltered Lucky Strike, is not exactly the way to make it to triple digits. Still, it does spin the clock backwards offering a glimpse of what America was like when life was simpler and we weren't so jaded; a time when men wore hats, women wore dresses and the world in general and the dinner plate in high relief specific didn't seem so dangerous.




 

Dave's Rules of Restaurants -- v 1.0

“Smokey, this is not 'Nam. This is bowling. There are rules.”

 John Goodman as Walter Sobchak in The Big Lebowski

Ever since the advent of cable television, broadcasting stopped being broadcasting and started being narrowcasting. There are channels devoted to every tiny sub-slice of American culture. From Baseball only to Big Ten sports only, there’s a channel for that.

I had just moved back to The Triangle from Baltimore in 1994, when I first saw The Food Network. I had just come off a stint working in the hottest restaurant in town, Tabrizi’s. They were showing an episode of Cooking with Master Chefs and Julia Child was doing a spot with young and skinny Emeril Lagasse on how to deep fry a turkey. I remember thinking at the time: “who in the hell, other than me, is going to watch this more than a couple of times?”

How short sighted of me. The Food Network is a behemoth, launching dozens of celebrity chefs into superstardom. Emeril has his own line of cookware. Paula Deen and Rachel Ray each have their own magazines. Guy Fieri does Aflac commercials.

I begrudge them nothing. I’m glad they’re successful and I’m sure they inspired many that a life in the kitchen is a good thing. One can look upon The Food Network as the Genesis of The new American Culinary Tradition.

But that being said, there are plenty crummy restaurants out there. While there is plenty of talent, there are also plenty of wannabes and fraudsters. Separating the good from the bad can be complicated and difficult. Even if one can believe a published restaurant review, reviewers can very easily wrap themselves in whatever is the fad of the moment. Like Culinary Fashion-istas, they hop from the hottest joint in town to the next hottest joint, their entourage playing follow the leader down the road to foodie hipness.

It’s as simple as that. So there may be a hidden agenda in the subtext. Mine point of view is that I like Paleo-foods. It’s my take on the way food should be prepared – simple and without pretention. You may not agree with it but it’s out there in advance and you know it before you digest a word.

And that’s okay as far as it goes.

But the practical diner needs more than a review from a self-styled foodie that thinks he/she has found the next great thing. There is nothing worse than going to a recently reviewed restaurant to find that the kitchen is so slammed that they can’t get the food out the door and onto your table. Diner’s need a short list of do’s and don’ts so that they can experience the joys of discovering the next hot spot themselves. What diners need, is Dave’s Rules of Restaurants, a simple guide as to what to look for, and what to avoid. They are some general rules:

•  It’s foolish to defy a restaurant’s DNA. If the place is famous for burgers, don’t order the chicken.
• Food is not entertainment.
• Chefs, who do small things well, usually do big things well.
• Over tip breakfast and lunch waiters. I do.
• Sumner Redstone, the Viacom CEO, once said that a really good hot dog is almost as good as a steak. He’s right. Find your local joint and support it.

There are some definite things to look for:

• Anyplace that has a parking lot full of cab drivers and cops is doing something right. These cats have limited time and limited dough to eat so it’s got to be relatively cheap and relatively fast. This is one rule that’s never let me down, from Aruba to New York and everywhere in between.
• If you see a line outside of a road food truck, it’s worth a stop.
• Eating at the bar is good. Generally, you’ll get better service with a more relaxed atmosphere.
• You can usually get a reservation at the hottest place in town on Super Bowl Sunday, providing it doesn’t have a TV.
• Simple is generally better.

And there are some definite things to run away from:

• Never eat in any joint that has a “help wanted” sign on the door. They either don’t have the staff to cook for you, or the staff to deliver it to you, or both. And they’re advertising that fact on the door of their business. Run away.
• A chef being overly ambitious is a quick way to kill a good meal. Unless the chef has a serious reputation for running a tight ship, avoid overly complicated dishes. More ingredients equal more moving parts. More moving parts can lead to skipped steps and ingredients. That can lead to mediocrity and disappointment.
• Sunday brunch is where line cooks pretend to be chefs and bus boys pretend to be line cooks, since the A list chef is probably at home after working a busy Saturday night shift. While there are some exceptions (and Ali from The Hibernian I’m talking about you specifically), bail on brunch unless you can order from the regular menu. And when ordering, see rule b above.
• Mother Day’s is a bad day to go out to lunch. Everyone else in America is doing the same thing: taking Mom to lunch. Ditto Valentine’s Day. Stay home and cook something made with love.
• Regarding wine table service, don’t sniff the cork. You’ll look like an idiot and you’ll learn nothing. Do check to see if it’s moist, though. That means it was stored correctly and probably won’t be vinegar.

With a bit of luck and some perseverance, intrepid diners can find their own hidden gems without having to rely on professionals.

A perfect weekend breakfast – Northern California Style

At the behest of my beloved wife, my lovely  sister gave to me for my birthday Thomas Keller's The French Laundry Cookbook. It's beautiful, with extraordinary insights into the mind and professional acumen of one of the greatest chefs in America, if not the world. Indeed, no less than Anthony Bourdain once said he considered The French Laundry the best restaurant in the world.

So this cookbook was in the perfect place to be THE gift of the year, to be warmly remembered for years and years to come, its pages dog eared, with the entire house smelling of the gastronomical wonders of Thomas Keller and my mediocre ability to channel his culinary genius.

But alas, it was not to be. While the recipes looked fabulous and the photography borders on food porn, everything in it is just too complicated for even an experienced duffer like me to pull off. 

But this is not the first time I've waded into the waters of the Northern California restaurant scene by purchasing a cookbook and seeing if I can conjure that same magic in my own home kitchen. No, the last time I tried that stunt, I had a go at working the culinary genius of fellow Chatham High School graduate Alice Waters (class of 1963). Her restaurant, Chez Panisse, was the toast of the culinary world long before there was Food Network and Emeril LaGasse was just a skinny kid doing guest spots on Cooking with Master Chefs with Julia Child. For the record, he deep fried a turkey.

I don't what it is that makes these recipes so perfectly opaque. I can't seem to pull off any of them. Exotic ingredients coupled with high French technique leave me simply dumbfounded. Indeed, the only dish inspired by Thomas Keller that I can actually prepare with any competence comes not from his beautifully appointed cookbook, but from an extra feature on the DVD of the movie Spanglish.

Yes, that silly Adam Sandler movie, Spanglish.

In it, there is a scene where the Adam Sandler character, who plays a chef, is talking to his romantic interest in the film, played by Paz Vega. During a telephone conversation between the two, there sits in the chef's kitchen one of the most perfect examples of a breakfast sandwich ever made – The Spanglish Sandwich. The producers of the film wanted to give the Adam Sandler character something to eat  that a real chef would prepare after a long shift at the restaurant. For technical assistance, they went to – here's your time to guess – Thomas Keller of the afore mentioned French Laundry. During the scene, Adam's character looks at, but never bites into the sandwich.

So much for the willing suspension of disbelief. The thing is such as work of art that everybody watching the flick is waiting for a moment that never comes – the happiness of the first bite of the perfect late night / early morning breakfast.

Interestingly enough, this is actually easy to prepare and makes a wonderful weekend breakfast. It's basically a BLT, with an egg fried over easy with the yolk is just barely runny. Add toasted bread and a slice of cheese and you're off to the races. When you do make the toast, run the slice with the cheese under a broiler or  in a toaster oven to get that slightly burnt cheesy "au gratin" effect. Bibb lettuce works best for this and you can add some fresh basil if you have that on hand. I typically layer it from bottom to top: lettuce/basil, tomato, bacon, egg, cheese. Mayo or aioli is optional.

Bon appetite!