New Year's in Belize

NEW YEARS IN BELIZE

This past week, I got to spend some much-needed family time in and around Ambergris Caye, Belize. The water and beach were my main agenda (ha!), but, of course, I couldn't leave without spending some time getting to know a bit more about Belizean cooking.

Susanna Arceo started the restaurant, El Fogon, in her home, built out to look like the kitchen she grew up in - a thatched roof, dirt floor, benches (to accomodate all the kids!) and, of course, the open, wood-fired grill. The food is super authentic, a lot of old school stews and beans cooked right on the fire (mangrove wood fueled with coconut husks!), and this is one of the few places that does it right in town.

Recado rojo is the main spice blend, a paste really with achiote, cumin, Mexican oregano, black pepper and tongue-numbing allspice (and some others) usually dissolved in a bit of vinegar, water and/or juice. That's the marinade for any of the meats that go on the grill or in the stews - chicken, pork, beef, venison, and even gibnut.

Just wanted to share some of the pictures of my experience there and about town over the holidays! Happy New Year's to you all!

Scenes From Roma

SCENES FROM ROMA

I was on my computer perusing my photos and came across these, photos I took while in and around Rome a few months back. For me, I always pull inspiration from my travels and looking through photos helps jog my memory - a smell, a dish I ate (or cooked), the vibrancy of the market.

Many of these were taken in Campo di Fiori, an incredible produce, fish and flower market that has been held daily since the mid- to late-1800's. I hung out with a fellow cookbook author that day - we shopped for groceries and went back to her incredible apartment in Trastevere to cook and chat. I run these scenes through my mind as I'm thinking up new dishes and go through my notes to figure out what I learned and loved.

I'm also posting these photos because I'm missing the market colors of warmer weather and can't wait until this winter breaks (first day of Spring or not...)! Enjoy....

Marrakech + Msemen

MARRAKECH + MSEMEN

Writing about Navajo fry bread a few weeks ago got me thinking about another fry bread I learned to make last year when I was visiting Marrakech called msemen (heh heh...). But first! I want to share some photos I took when I was strolling around the medina. This was my second time visiting, and the winding alleyways, colors and smells were still such a draw. (Hint: clicking on one of the photos will open up lightbox. Seeing them a bit bigger, you'll catch all of the subtle details, as they were meant to be viewed.)

Now, on to msemen. I spent a morning learning some traditional Moroccan cookery - few different tagines, some typical salads, briouats (cheese-filled pastries) and this gorgeous bread.

Msemen is a square-shaped, Moroccan pancake that's generally had for breakfast with a bit of honey on top. It's delicious, and although the dough is pretty simple, what puts it over the top is the folding process, where butter is spread between the layers. That's what gives it those flaky layers when it's cooked, not unlike puff pastry. It reminded me a lot of a flatbread in Indian cooking called paratha - with that same, flaky, buttery texture.

I'm still perfecting my recipe, but if you want to try some, Hot Bread Kitchen carries it at local NYC and BK retailers, farmers' markets and a few locations across the U.S. They have an online shop too, and in general, the company is just an amazing, amazing concept that supports people, culture and traditions.

Happy New Years + Navajo Fry Bread

HAPPY NEW YEARS + NAVAJO FRY BREAD

I know I'm a bit late with this New Year's wish, but really creating a new blog from scratch with all of your old stuff is so not as straight-forward as you think it would be! So please bear with me on the technical difficulties and bad links (and let me know if they go on for another month!).

In the meantime, I got away right before New Years and visited a ridiculously scenic part of the U.S. called the Four Corners – the only place where four states physically meet (Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, and Colorado). The area is rich with the culture and the traditions of the local Native Americans, the Navajo, and I wanted to share a few things with you from this trip.

A woman named Ingrid showed me this dish called fry bread. Food always has a history, and the story from Ingrid’s grandmother is that during the “Long Walk of the Navajo” (when they were forcibly relocated from Arizona to eastern New Mexico), bread was a staple based on the rations of flour that they were given. When the dough was accidentally dropped in hot oil, fry bread was born.

Ingrid’s mom used to make it by hand (though our batch came together in a stand mixer), and there is all sorts of lore around the bread. If there’s hole in the bread, it’s often told that you’ll have a bad marriage or be a bad in-law…harsh!

And though it’s typically eaten as a meal with a stew or beans, we had a yummy, sweet version of it with berries, ice cream and honey drizzled all over.

The trip was pretty amazing, and there was an unprecedented amount of snow the first few days I was there. It usually doesn’t snow out there, and people I spoke to said that they hadn’t seen this in 20 years. Either way, the scenery and snow made my photography skills comp to Ansel Adams (not) so I wanted to share some photos I took.

Jamaican Ackee & Saltfish

Recently, a friend of mine from Jamaica who happens to be an incredible cook gave me an impromptu cooking lesson. She showed me how to make Ackee and Saltfish, Jamaica’s national dish, and, although I didn’t write down exact measurements (given the impromptu nature of it all!), I wanted to share the experience with you guys and at least give you the building blocks…

First, let’s talk about ackee – it’s Jamaica’s national fruit, though it’s not really sweet and, in this dish, cooks up like a vegetable. Ackee starts out closed and green (and is actually poisonous in this state), and then it matures to red-orange and splits open to reveal black seeds and white-cream flesh (which is perfectly safe to eat). Obviously, finding the fresh fruit here in the States is pretty tough, but you can sometimes find it canned or frozen.

The second part of the dish is the saltfish, which is dried, salted cod. The cod can be soaked for a few hours to reduce its level of salt or used as is – a quick poach and flaked up, it’s ready for the dish. Ackee and saltfish is really a sauté, and, in our version, we started with some bacon, and then added sliced onions and peppers, a minced, killer Scotch Bonnet pepper, chopped tomato, and sliced scallions. We threw in the flaked saltfish and then carefully folded in the ackee and some fresh thyme.

Ackee can be boiled ahead of time or added into the sauté – it cooks up very quickly. It turns from a white to an egg-yellow when cooked and can crumble easily (so be ginger with it). We fried up some dumplings to go with the creamy, buttery ackee (the tradition), though rice, green bananas, yams or even fried breadfruit also go really well with it.

This is truly a breakfast (or brunch) of champions! Creamy, spicy, and deeply flavorful and beautiful paired with the crispy, fried dumplings. Thank you, May, for the ackee and saltfish tutorial!

Happy New Years + Shots from a Jamaican Market

Happy New Year to you all! Between the cookbook deadline, holidays and travel, I have been a bit MIA, but I wanted to wish you all a very happy and healthy 2013. AND I wanted to share some pretty cool shots from an open-air market I visited in Jamaica. This is a true local spot and gave me a great snapshot of what’s traditionally used in real Jamaican cooking.

This is fresh sorrel used to make a delicious, tart drink. You also may know this as hibiscus, if you’ve ever had the tea. I’ve always seen it in dried form, so good to know what it looks like fresh!

Talking that talk!

This is a major part of the cuisine, the national fruit of Jamaica, ackee. It’s often eaten with saltfish and related to the lychee and longan actually. Unripe, it can be toxic.

A little spice shopping – here is fresh nutmeg with its wrapper, mace.

The ubiquitous scotch bonnet pepper! I love it, but that heat is deadly. I was shocked by how much went into Jerk seasoning – such a key flavor.

Sal Rosada from Maras

When someone mentions pink salt, I tend to always think about the curing sort, with sodium nitrite. But finishing salts do come in all colors – black, pink, red, grey – and this pink salt I happened to pick up while I was exploring Peru. A lot of times during my spice stories I talk about unique ingredients and their extraordinary flavor. This salt I wanted to share with you more for the story and the experience it represented for me, less for its individual influence on cooking.

To me pink salt is pink salt and perhaps my palate is just not developed enough. My understanding is that the reason for (any) color in salt is due to the lack of a refining process, and so salts mainly differ in mineral content, size and shape of crystals, intensity and the way they disperse in foods. One exception I know to that is kala namak or black salt from India – this type has a distinct, sulphurous taste that makes it easily identifiable.

In the Sacred Valley, near a town called Maras, I visited these salt-evaporation ponds that the locals all referred to as salt mines. Here’s a photo – and it can’t quite do it justice. I was blown away by the site (it’s massive and intense) and particularly the fact that these have been in use from the Inca times, a way of capturing salt from a nearby, super-salty spring. I literally put my hand in the stream and minutes later my hand had dried with a thorough dusting of salt on it. The pans need only natural evaporation for the gorgeous salt crystals to form.

What I loved was how the ponds help support the locals according to people I spoke with from the area. Some of the pools have been passed on for generations; each family owns and harvests its own salt though it’s usually sold through the coop that manages the ponds. One thing is for sure – labor cost isn’t figured in…Carrying those heavy bags of salt at that altitude and that distance would be no joke!

Arroz Con Pato

A classic dish in Spanish and Latin culture is Arroz con Pollo or chicken with rice. It’s a family-style, one-pot dish, chicken cooked with onions, peppers, garlic, tomatoes (sofrito) and rice – some families add achiote, others saffron, cilantro, or culantro…whatever is that family’s tradition. One of the best dishes I tried in Peru was Arroz con Pato, where succulent duck replaces the chicken in the traditional dish. It was such a rich and elegant dish that I had to try my hand at it now that I’m back home in NYC. I’m so happy I did….

Two of the differences between arroz con pollo and arroz con pato (aside from the whole chicken v. duck thing) is that chicha, Peruvian corn beer, is used to cook the rice and duck in arroz con pato. Also, cilantro is blended with water and added to the braising liquid, so the color of the dish takes on a gorgeous, green hue. Beer, cilantro, and duck? A winning combination in my book!

I learned a number of dishes from a fantastic friend in Lima, Naguib Ciurlizza, a colorful and multi-talented gentleman who boasts poetry and painting as skills alongside his vast knowledge of Peruvian cuisine. He detailed to me how the original dish was made. I had to make a few twists and turns to accommodate what’s locally available here in the States (aji amarillo can be so difficult to find!) and to accommodate my own taste. So I use jalapenos in lieu of Peruvian peppers. I also substitute a good stout beer instead of corn beer and chicken stock instead of water. Traditionally, a long grain rice is used, but I went with a shorter grain rice that’s more of a paella tradition because I just love the texture. I also throw in some olives at the end for a salty bite.

I will be blunt – this is not something to be whipped up in 30 minutes. It’s a long, slow, loving cooking process, but I promise you the results are incredible and rewarding. Fall-off-the-bone duck meat in a flavorful rice infused with beer and cilantro, studded with peas, bell pepper, and olives. It’s a meal your family will love you for or that works for a great, casual dinner party (when you want to flex your Peruvian-inspired skills). I’m a cook, so I shouldn’t say this but…I was literally shocked by how delicious this version of the dish is! Enjoy!

Ingredients

Serves 4 to 6

Vegetable oil to coat pot

Duck, preferably 2 legs, bone-in with thigh meat and 1 breast, boneless split (approximately 3 lbs)

3 shallots, finely chopped

1 jalapeno, minced

2 tsps ground cumin

5 cloves garlic, minced

¾ cup stout beer

¼ cup Pisco liqueur (optional)

4 cups chicken stock

1 very large handful cilantro (no tough stems but soft stems are fine)

Bay leaf, dried or fresh

2 ½ cups Valencia, bomba or calasparra rice (paella rice)

¾ cup fresh or frozen peas

1 cup bell pepper, small dice (mixed yellow, red and orange)

Black olives (garnish)

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Procedure

Preheat oven to 350° F.

Start by prepping the duck. Dry the legs and breast and trim of excess fat. I like to reserve this fat to melt down and keep for cooking in the future. Prick the legs all over with a fork (this will help the legs render the fat easier) and season all over with salt and freshly ground pepper. Score the skin on the breast in a criss-cross pattern (again for fat-rendering purposes) and set aside.

Heat a large pot or dutch oven over medium-low heat. Add vegetable oil to coat the bottom of the pot and prevent the duck from sticking. Add the legs skin-side down. You want the fat to render out and the skin to crisp and brown. This should take 3 to 4 minutes. Turn pieces over and cook for another 3 minutes. Remove legs to a plate and set aside. Pour off (and keep!) any excess fat, reserving a few tablespoons in the pot for cooking the vegetables.

Add shallots, minced jalapeno and cumin and cook for 3 to 5 minutes until the shallots are softened and translucent. Add the minced garlic and cook for another minute. Pour in the beer and pisco, if using, and increase the heat. Scrape the bottom of the pan with your spoon to dislodge any brown bits and bring up to boil.

While the duck or vegetables are cooking, blend 2 cups of the chicken stock in a blender with a large handful of the cilantro, reserving a small handful to chop for garnish later. You want to blend on high for several minutes until the cilantro is totally pulverized.

Nestle the duck legs back into the pot, skin-side up. Add the chicken stock blended with the cilantro and a bay leaf, cover and bring up to a boil. As soon as it boils, place covered pot into the oven and cook for 1½ hours.

Take pot out of the oven, place on the stovetop and temporarily (and carefully) remove the duck legs. Add the rice, peas, and chopped peppers and season very well with salt now to avoid stirring once it’s cooked. Add the remaining 2 cups of chicken stock, stir and nestle the duck thighs back in. Cover and bring back up to a boil. Place in the oven for another 30 to 40 minutes until the rice is cooked through.

In the last 10 minutes of cooking, heat a skillet over medium-low heat. Season scored duck breast all over with salt and freshly ground pepper. Add a touch of oil to prevent the duck breast from sticking and place breast pieces skin-side down. You want to render all of the fat out, so as the fat accumulates in the pan, carefully pour it off (and keep!). Cook for 8 to 10 minutes until the skin has become crisp and there is no layer of fat underneath it. Turn breast pieces over, increase heat to medium-high and cook for another 2 minutes. This will yield a medium-rare breast – cook for longer if you like your meat more well done.

Remove the duck breast to a cutting board, cover loosely with foil and let rest for 5 minutes. Thinly slice the duck breast.

Serve the rice garnished with black olives, some fresh cilantro and sliced duck breast.

Catupiry

Because I live in NYC, when I travel, I tend to shy away from big cities and focus on countrysides and off-the-beaten-path destinations. I like to experience the physical beauty of a place while taking in the culture, and the rush of a city is the last thing I crave. But, literally, as soon as the plane landed in Rio de Janeiro, I felt an indescribable energy – a laid back beach culture combined with effortless sexiness and an urban edge. This is one big city I looove. Of course, cooking and food exploration was high on my list here, and I wanted to share with you one of the most delicious finds, a rich, creamy, spreadable cheese called Catupiry.

Catupiry is completely Brazilian, and the way it’s made is apparently a well-guarded secret of one family who created it in the state of Minas Gerais early in the 20th century. It’s a popular brand of requeijão cheese, a type of cream cheese that dates back to times of slavery in the country. The flavor is really mild, luscious, with a bit of tang, and I think it resembles a cross between mascarpone and fromager d’affinois. Because it’s local to Brazil, it is certainly not the easiest thing to find in the States. If you are in the NYC area, I know Rio Bonito in Queens carries it as does Seabra Supermarkets in Jersey.

Requeijão cheese is part of Brazilian food culture and is incorporated in family’s dishes on the day to day. It may be used in the country’s famous cheese bread, pão de queijo, as a breakfast spread, baked with shredded chicken in a pastry crust (that just made me hungry! might try that soon), simply enjoyed with guava paste (would be delicious in these guava cheese crepes), or, and this might be my favorite, as a pizza topping. I will certainly be making recipes with Catupiry soon and will make sure mascarpone works for them too for those who can’t find it!

A Twist on the Classic Pisco Sour

Happy New Year! As many of you know, I spent the past few weeks doing some serious culinary exploration of Peru and Brazil (so expect me to go a bit South American-crazy with my recipes in the coming weeks). I was blown away in Peru by the incredible produce – fruits, vegetables and herbs I had never seen or heard of. The cooking was super fresh, with Lima highlighting a lot of the country’s famous seafood dishes and Cusco showing me more of the homey, Andean classics. I thought I’d start this year with a cheers to 2012, a twist on a classic Peruvian cocktail (which I drank like water…).

Pisco is a clear grape brandy produced in the winemaking regions of Peru and Chile and is the national spirit of both countries. Both also lay claim to the pisco sour, but I’ve only experienced the Peruvian version, which I was taught has 3 parts pisco to 1 part lime juice. Throw in some simple syrup for sweetness, an egg white for a bit of foamy, creaminess and a dash of bitters and you have one of the most refreshing cocktails out there.

I saw a ton of different versions while I was there, everything from passionfruit to mint. But I thought I would make something a bit more seasonally appropriate, since this mid-20’s temperature makes “refreshing” the last thing you want to think about. This is sort of a cross, a pisco sour-apple really. I used a combination of fresh fuji apple juice and lime juice and infused the simple syrup with some mulling spices – cinnamon, clove, allspice, and a star anise for good measure. The result is a cold drink with warm spices that’s totally in the winter spirit…

A few things: For pisco sours, Peruvians use the juice of a local, small lime that’s extremely aromatic. I suggest using key lime juice to get as close to that flavor as possible. Also, if you are making these for a party, I suggest making them in batches to prevent the drink getting a bit bitter or the egg white from completely separating out. Enjoy!

Ingredients

Serves 4 to 6

Spice-Infused Simple Syrup*:

Yields about ¾ cup

½ cup white sugar

½ cup water

2 cinnamon stick

3 whole cloves

3 whole dried allspice berries

2 star anise

2 bay leaf

pinch of ground nutmeg

1 inch piece of meyer lemon rind

Pisco Sour Apple:

1 ¾ cups pisco

¼ cup lime juice (preferably key lime)

1/3 cup fresh apple juice

¾ cup spice-infused simple syrup

2 egg whites

ice

angostura bitters (garnish)

Procedure

For the simple syrup, bring all ingredients in a small saucepan up to a boil, stirring so the sugar dissolves. Remove from the heat, cover and let steep for 15 minutes. Strain and cool before using.

For the pisco sour apple, pour pisco, both juices, and the simple syrup into a blender. Blend briefly. Add egg whites and blend for another 10 seconds. Pour into glasses over ice and add a few dashes of angostura bitters to each. Serve immediately.

*Feel free to use your favorite mulling spices here and make this your own. I used meyer lemon rind because I had some sitting around and felt it would work well with the lime juice. Orange rind is great too.

Patois

Whenever I travel, I do a slightly obsessive nerdy cross-referencing of sorts to make sure I have the ultimate eating experiences on my trip. Between friends’ suggestions, write-ups, locals’ thoughts and general meandering, there’s nothing more joyful than finding a little place that embodies the spirit of a geographical location or a part of the culture. Before heading to New Orleans, a friend mentioned Patois, where the food is “classic French cuisine with a patois, or local accent.” I was so sold…

Like the other resto I visited on this trip, Patois has had a James Beard nod with the chef earning a semifinalist spot for Best Chef: South for the past three years. The place is so unassuming and homey, a seamless building in a residential Uptown neighborhood, that the fact that chef Aaron Burgau is turning out deliciously modern-NOLA-Southern-French-Mediterranean food may just sneak up on you until you are stuffed and happy and think “wow, that was good.”

And it really was. All of the ingredients are, of course, locally sourced, and the menu changes often, seasonally driven. I visited Patois on the last day of my trip, the Sunday I was leaving, for a delicious lunch-brunch. Ponchatoula strawberries with creole cream cheese, beautiful potato gnocchi with crawfish, ramps, edamame and a dollop of mascarpone, and the crumbly house-made muffins were just the start of it. I’m still dreaming about the gnocchi’s buttery sauce…

We moved on to the almond crusted gulf fish, succulent grilled lamb ribs with green tomato relish and finally (my favorite!) the fried Mississippi rabbit with a biscuit, eggs, and sausage gravy…eating light in NOLA is an impossibility. I also HAD to sample the grits (as I did everywhere I ate), and these were the best of the bunch – creamy, buttery, peppery, and gorgeous corn flavor.

I did go light on dessert with a beautiful strawberry sorbet, but, seriously, there was no room after the previous feast and my diligent grits taste-testing. This is definitely the type of place I’d go back to if I’m lucky enough to travel again to New Orleans…

Cochon

So if you happen to be on my Facebook or follow me on Twitter, you know all about the trip I took a few weeks back to the Big Easy. New Orleans was hands down incredible – food, culture, fun. I planned the trip well in advance and luckily made a reservation at Cochon before it was nominated and won (!) the James Beard Award for Best Chef : South 2011! I can say after my painfully delicious meal there, that award was so well deserved…

Donald Link, who also helms Herbsaint, and Calcasieu, and Stephen Stryjewski, who officially won the JB Award, conceived Cochon and wanted to highlight Cajun-style, regional cuisine using local ingredients. The restaurant is in the warehouse district in New Orleans, and they followed it up with Cochon Butcher (also fab) next door, which has more of a sandwich / charcuterie / bar food / butcher menu with a lovely wine selection as well. Yes, a butcher that serves wine.

Cochon has an open kitchen layout with simple banquettes and tables. The focus is all food – which is homey, rich, and flavorful. The menu is an all day one, so I went for lunch my first day in New Orleans (and it was packed!).

We started with the amazing wood-fired oyster roast, drizzled with this spicy, soppable garlic butter. The fried gator with chili garlic aioli, spicy grilled pork ribs with watermelon pickle, and fried boudin with pickled peppers were also really killer. Boudin is originally a French, pork sausage. The NOLA version eschews casing the sausage in favor of rolling it into a ball and crisp, batter-frying it. I never said this was a light lunch.

For the mains (I know. can you imagine we ate this much?), we had the oven-roasted gulf fish “fisherman’s style”, smoked beef brisket with horseradish potato salad, mac and cheese, and the most buttery, black peppered grits I’ve tasted. Smoked brisket, by the way, like gumbo or etouffee, is a rite of passage down there. We were sufficiently comatosed from just how filling, perfectly seasoned, well-cooked, and all around delectable the meal was. Oh, and the fresh-baked bread hot out of the oven? Out. Of. This. World.

We obviously couldn’t leave without dessert, and the black bottomed brown butter banana cream pie was the best version of banana cream pie I’ve ever had. Hands down.

This place is a NOLA must and WILL be a stop the next time I head down there!

Mimolett

I’ve talked a bit about my trip to Turkey and what an extraordinary culinary destination it is. But what I haven’t mentioned are the personal trials and tribulations I experienced getting there – 2 days stuck in JFK (folded over chairs and publicly toothbrushing), missed connecting flights, luggage that apparently never left JFK (we found out in Cappadocia…), and, most importantly, lost time that pushed back the whole trip and my packed food schedule! By the time I got to the second city, Istanbul, I was exhausted and debated staying in for the night rather than visiting this stunning restaurant, Mimolett. So happy I went…

Photo: Mimolett

First, the restaurant is in the Picadilly Circus-equivalent of Istanbul. It qualifies as destination dining. But if you can get past that (and you should), the space is ridiculously unassuming and decadent all at the same time. A classic bar, descent into a double-height dining room in warm neutrals with dark wood, an intimate chef’s table outside an open kitchen, a wine boutique with tasting room and beautiful outdoor seating with breathtaking views of the Bosphorus.

Photo: Mimolett

I had the opportunity to chat at length with the chef, Murat Bozok, who has a compelling story. After getting his business degree in Istanbul with the family’s hopes that he would work for their textile company, he decided to uproot, move to the States, and get his culinary degree. He worked for a few big hotels after but had his eyes on fine dining and learning from the best chefs in the world. He sought out the likes of Pierre Gagnaire, Gordon Ramsay and Joel Robuchon – and ended up working for them all! Perfect training grounds for his eventual return to Istanbul and the opening of his flagship restaurant, Mimolett.

Photo: Mimolett

And the food is executed with the detail he picked up at all of these incredible places. Delicate soups laced with truffle, rabbit meatballs he adapted from his friend’s mother, lauded foie gras. I’ve chatted with him since my amazing meal there, and, he’s pushed beyond his French repertoire and created a Turkish-focused degustation menu for which I’m sad I haven’t gotten to experience.

Murat is building a brand for the future and has upcoming appearances on Masterchef. Watch out for him to become the first Michelin-starred chef of Turkey!

Savoi Plantation

My trip to Goa a few months back was packed with so many different culinary adventures, and one of my favorite experiences was visiting a 200-year-old, organic, spice plantation called Savoi . The farm was about an hour outside North Goa in an area called Ponda, and I ended up making that trek TWICE. I was rained out the first time (of course, the rain started when I was five minutes away) and walking the grounds in mud was not an option (why did I wear flip-flops?).

The first time, I ended up staying for lunch inside the tree house-like pergola. After a greeting of cool kokum juice and some biscuits, a feast ensued! Deliciously-stuffed, fried pomfret, fried shrimp, fresh salads and pickles, lentils, spicy crab, sour plum masala, finishing with cool, vermicelli pudding, and cucumber cake. The experience was pretty magical – watching the rain pelt down in the middle of lush, misty forest, in India and stuffed silly. Amazing.

The plantation has crops like coconuts, pineapple, jackfruit, and betel nut along with intercrop spices – black pepper, clove, cardamom, curry leaf, turmeric, and vanilla bean to name a few. Walking around the plantation, you learn where all the spices originally come from, how they are grown, and medicinal qualities to the different plants.

Betel nuts, by the way, are the seeds of a type of palm and are widely chewed (wrapped in betel leaves) because they’re a stimulant. The telltale sign that someone is chewing is a blood red-stained mouth. Check out how dangerous betel nut picking is!

Although there are a few other spice plantations nearby, many (shadily) offer commissions to taxi drivers, which Savoi doesn’t do. There is a pretty cool temple 15 to 20 minutes away called Mangueshi Temple – a great day would be driving out to see this temple in the morning, followed by lunch and walking the grounds of Savoi, and then heading back to North Goa to hit the beach for the afternoon…

Kadikoy Market + Ciya Sofrasi

Over the holidays, I took an eye-opening, culinary trip to Turkey visiting the region of Cappadocia, Istanbul, and Bodrum. You couldn’t have picked more different landscapes, and each came with regional specialties and stylistic differences in cooking. It was, in sum, amazing, and I can’t wait to share some of my Turkish inspired recipes over the next few months.

But first…while in Istanbul, I spent the morning of New Years roaming Kadikoy market, a serious culinary destination on the Asian side of the city. I spoke with a few home cooks and chefs, and this is THE place to shop for all of your food needs with everything from (ridiculously) fresh fish, fresh produce, spices, cheeses, prepared foods…you name it. As the morning went on, the area became frenzied as people picked up their last minute provisions for the night.

There were some firsts for me…like being invited to have tea while in an offal shop. Staring atkokoretsi, a lambs’ intestines specialty, or brains, or the tripe (that is stewed for a signature hangover cure there) while sipping sweetened tea was new! I also drank an entire (well…almost) glass of pickle juice, which is to say the brine used to pickle different vegetables; it’s quite popular there for health purposes and is said to ward off sicknesses. Finally, I tasted an unexpectedly delicious Turkish cave cheese and spooned a stuffed mussel from a street vendor into my mouth.

After much taste-testing (I’m a double-roasted pistachio Turkish delight kind of gal) and food shopping, I ended my tour of the market with lunch at the famous, Ciya Sofrasi and a chance encounter with the incredible Chef Musa, a visionary in the culinary world. Chef Musa has developed what you could call an anthropological approach to his cooking – visiting the far reaches of the country to learn regional specialties and true home cooking from the diverse ethnicities that populate Turkey. He also sources purveyors from around the country to find only the best, regional, seasonal ingredients – using everything from mountain greens to local wild mushrooms.

The restaurant is very casual with all of the salads, soups, stews, and desserts laid out for the picking. We had a mountainous mezze plate with the best yoghurt and eggplant dip I’ve tasted, flavorful dolmas and fresh zaatar salad. Then, on to the fresh sausage, a flurry of stews including my favorite lamb and quince, and an elegant dessert plate with what I can only describe as candied olives. Delicious.

Both the market and any of the three Ciya restaurants (within a few feet of each other) are a must for a visit to Istanbul. For the best in sweets, check out Beyaz Firin, which has everything from traditional Turkish desserts to French pastries and macarons.

Amigos

I am not going to do this post, this place, this experience justice in my writing. But I will still try.

Under the Nerul bridge in the Bardez district is a small, unpaved road that rolls down and loops around dead-ending into this amazing little restaurant, Amigos. Across from mangroves and right at the Sinquerim river’s edge (umm, not the easiest to find), arriving there gives you the feeling that you’ve happened upon a little slice of sublime privacy, cut off from the rest of the world. The restaurant is family run, helmed by Chef Sabitha, the matriarch of the family, and represents Goan home cooking at its finest.

This was to be the first (and best!) of a few restaurant experiences I planned during my trip. I arrived the first day excited to see what culinary delights were in store for me. I overzealously brought a chef’s coat and shoes, while the guys in flip flops and loose t-shirts expertly crumb-frying looked at me a bit skeptically. But then…the power went out! Day 1 was foiled.

I came back a few days later (more casually dressed mind you) and spent the day delving into Goan cuisine. Sabitha and I became fast friends, and I found myself somewhere between guest chef and guest – her tying my apron on me as I’m triple-washing the greens and tea breaks to chat about her daughter’s desire to travel the world.

With 18 years of running this restaurant under her belt, Sabitha is fastidious, focused on the quality of her masalas and the freshness of the ingredients. All of the recipes are her own – no training or cookbooks could teach her what she knows. Her palate is expert, so that even when I came back to teach her a few dishes (my favorite part of the trip), she could identify when the spiced pumpkin soup needed more acidity or how much sweetness should be in the dark chocolate pudding we made. And her speed? Let’s just say working quickly because you never know when there’s going to be a power outage makes you lightning fast…

The fish recheado is judiciously made – tangy, spicy and sweet. Recheado really means stuffed, and it’s a vestige of Portuguese culture. The whole fish is split open and stuffed with a deep, red masala that includes kashmiri chilies, sometimes onions, garlic, ginger, cumin, cloves, cinnamon, sugar and vinegar. I loved it rava-fried; in Goa, they use semolina instead of bread crumbs to fry, and it’s delicious.

Amigos is well-known for its fish, which is brought in fresh daily. I know first-hand – a flapping fish unnerved me more than once when I was chopping… And the crab masala is to die for! You have to call ahead or stop by and give them notice a day or two in advance. You will then have some of the most delicious crab you’ve ever eaten.

This is a must if you are in Goa. It’s where the locals go to get amazingly high quality, casual home cooking. Gazing at the river, with an ice-cold shandy, and a plate of rava prawns…it doesn’t get much better. I’m a huge fan of Sabitha, so please say hello for me if you do happen to make it there.

Amigos

Tel: +91 832 2301123

Below Nerul Bridge, Nerul, Bardez-Goa

Ritz Classic

I’m back from Goa and reflecting on all of the amazing food experiences I had while I was there. I’m incredibly thankful I stayed with family – it allowed me to get a completely non-tourist perspective on everything from what restaurants locals really go to, typical foods that are cooked at home, and even what the best markets are for food shopping. I packed in a serious culinary schedule over the last two weeks (and have the extra lbs to show for it…).

Ritz Classic was just one of these restaurants located in Panjim and I went there for lunch during the first few days of my trip. Now, don’t let the décor fool you. The yellow crown molding, palm trees painted on the walls, waiters in bow ties – it’s all part of the charm. And, besides me of course, I did not see a single tourist in there. The food there is a trifecta – authentic, delicious, and cheap.

Since this was one of my first few days, I went all-in and ordered the pork vindaloo. For those that don’t know, vindaloo is one of the hottest curries in India and is actually a Portuguese tradition – tangy, serious heat, and a touch of sweetness. The waiter brought out some sort of rookie vindaloo, which I didn’t find hot at all, and I had to level with him. I told him I can take the heat, and he should give me what he serves the locals. So he came with the thunder and brought out the real vindaloo. I seriously sweated through the rest of the meal – it was, if I’m being honest, almost too hot for me, but I couldn’t fold after all the fuss I had made.

My aunt goes there for their crab, which she claims is the best in Goa, and given my crab obsession, I had to try it. I made the HUGE mistake of going into this feast wearing silk. Why? The flimsy little paper napkins were no match for the flying, masala-coated crab, and I finished the meal satisfied though grease-stained.

Shrimp-stuffed papads were first out and were flavorful and perfectly crisp. Fried, “rawa” fish, a Goan specialty using semolina in lieu of breadcrumbs, was ridiculously fresh with the perfect amount of crunch. Of course, the pork vindaloo was rich and spicy and painful…and the crab was perfect. Particularly since I’ve never eaten that much crab for something that converts to around $3!

In fact, the whole meal for the four of us came out to something like $14. It was insane. This is definitely a first stop for anyone visiting to get a true taste of Goa…

The Ravenous Pig

I went down to Florida a few weekends ago to visit my parents, and it was a complete eating fest. Whenever I visit, our days literally centralize around food – what, where, when – and between my mom and I in the kitchen and different restaurants we visit, I always leave beyond stuffed. This time they took me to a pretty cool gastropub that has opened up in a part of town called Winter Park. The Ravenous Pig was such a unique departure from the usual big chains (though please…I do NOT hate on Cheesecake Factory…) that I had to write about it.

This restaurant literally felt like I was in some market-driven, casual pub in the West Village. The restaurant was founded by a couple who trained at the CIA, worked in a number of restaurants on the East Coast, and returned to their hometown to open a quality resto. They do all of their charcuterie themselves, and the list is diverse – everything from porchetta to lardo to vindaloo curry salumi. All of their pastas are house-made as well, and the menu changes daily.

We started off with the house-made gruyère biscuits with smoked sea salt…buttery, fluffy with puff pastry-like layers of doughy goodness. Then, we moved on to a kobe steak tartare with shallots, pickled green tomatoes, and a curry aioli. Again, flavorful and delicious. We wiped the plate clean. For the entrees, there was a lamb loin with farro-risotto and a carrot puree, a Niman Ranch flat-iron steak with truffle fries (can you go wrong?), and a crispy skate with braised veal cheeks, charred radicchio, and parsnip puree. All of them were amazing.

Dessert was s’mores pie! A gooey marshmallow topping over dense, fudge-thick chocolate ganache served with the most amazing chocolate sorbet I have ever had. They must have cheated – it was too good to be sorbet! If you happen to find yourself in this area, you must try this place. It’s too good to be missed and is head and shoulders above most other restaurants in the area…

Bar Mut

During my trip to Barcelona, I tried to keep all of my food experiences varied – traditional & authentic, hole-in-the-wall, uber-luxe, and this was my hip & chic choice. Bar Mut was our dinner spot our last night in Barcelona. It reminded me of Balthazar in NYC except a quarter of the size, more modern design, no tourists (except us…) and all marble top bar-style seating. Ok, so really it reminded me in that it was packed until late, a bit see-and-be-seen, tough to get into, and good food.

The food style is all tapas – delicious items listed on a chalkboard as well as a seasonal, ever-changing selection. Extraordinarily fresh seafood – we had the simple, grilled head-on shrimp. Before I continue, we went to several places, and I can’t understand why the seafood wasn’t cleaned anywhere we went? Whyyyy? I must admit my husband impressed me with his deveining skills at the table though – I think he’s been hiding them so I won’t put him to work in the kitchen! Back to the food, an egg carpaccio (see: raw egg yolk) with crunchy noodles was pretty comforting, and a tuna belly over tomato was good but could have benefitted from a more rare approach. My favorite dish was the foie – seared with balsamic and cherries and served with a sweet, moist bread that worked perfectly. Loved it.

I decided to forego dessert here in favor of these luscious waffles I had been eyeing on the pier. There were several carts all along the waterfront, and we headed over there promptly after – I seriously can’t resist street food…

The wine list was pretty amazing, and any place that serves my favorite champagne, Champagne Billecart-Salmon Brut Rose, is good with me. It’s located in the Eixample district, a hop, skip, and a jump away from Gaudi’s Casa Battló. I would suggest stopping here for a small plate or two and a glass (or two…) of wine to steal away from touring and enjoy a chic, local experience.

Dock Kitchen

When I travel, I work with this really awesome trip-planning service I’ll have to discuss in more detail later called Trufflepig. The guys there are into creating tailored, bespoke travel experiences. In any case, they put me on to this site, A Small World, which is where I found out about the restaurant Dock Kitchen.

The story behind Dock Kitchen is really interesting. The chefs, Stevie Parle and Joseph Trivelli, met while at the River Café. But it’s Stevie’s story that was intriguing to me: he started off by going to culinary school in Ireland. And then just travelled all over the world to cook – Tokyo, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Mexico. He’s also spent time at the Spotted Pig in NYC and Moro (also fantastic) in London before the River Café.

The restaurant started off as a series of pop-up supper clubs (apparently they are everywhere out here) called the Moveable Kitchen and now taken up (semi) permanent residence at the Portobello Dock in Ladbroke Grove. The space was very cool, loft-like, and I’m really kicking myself for not taking better pictures.

The cuisine is an homage to the chefs’ global travels. The food is seasonal, with a lunch menu that changes daily and a dinner menu that changes periodically based on inspiration. My eyes grew big when I saw a chaat on the menu, and influences ran from Indian, Sri Lankan, to Lebanese and Italian. Rainbow food – I love it. The chaat, I have to admit was tasty with fresh mangoes, curry leaves and chickpeas, but lacked the characteristic black salt. Lusciously tender octopus simply seasoned with oil and parsley on thick toast was delicious as were the tomatoes with sumac and fresh za’atar.

I have to admit I was a bit disappointed by the rabbit biryani. Biryani is a food I literally grew up on. And I’m (clearly) all for twisting and turning tradition on its head, but the flavors have to be there, have to represent. I just didn’t get this one. The Cornish mackerel with Lebanese freekeh was tasty as was the roasted trout. None of this matters though because the menu has moved on.

The space and food are definitely worth visiting. I think it’s amazing when a restaurant approach is minimalist and comes from a place of passion and inspiration. And their inspiration for menus does run the gamut. The guys there are doing a Claudia Roden (one of my favorite cookbook authors!) series next – wish I could transport myself there just for that one.

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