Pomflower Cocktail

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Let’s talk hot, shall we?  I know that if you live south of the New England you are not really phased by the really hot temps.  But I am.  I’m kind of a pansy when it comes to all forms of extreme temperatures – below 20 degrees give me a book, a warm blanket and a cup of cocoa and tell me when it’s warm again.  When it’s stiflingly hot though – there isn’t a lot I can do aside from try not to move too much.  I know that there are actual ways to combat being hot (drink lots of water, take a cool shower, stand in front of the AC unit until your skin goes numb, etc) but these are only temporary solutions.  They seem to not really solve the problem.

The best way to “beat the heat” that I have learned this summer came on a whim of inspiration the same night I made that delicious focaccia bread.  The visiting friend hadn’t brought much with her when she came down since we had planned an epic day of cooking.  What she did bring though was crucial to our choices that evening – a bottle of prosecco.  Now I have a confession – I prefer cava or prosecco over actual champagne every time, I don’t know a lot about wine but I find a nice cava (Freixenet anyone?) far superior to most sparkling wines.

As we chilled the prosecco (she had brought Lunetta) I started to peruse my cabinets and fridge wondering about cocktails and mimosas.  I eventually settled on this cocktail.  I have heard a lot about elder flower liquor recently around the interwebs and on an impulse bought a nip of it to taste, also I thought the bottle was really pretty.  I tried it alone, not really sippable, but with prosecco and some POMWonderful it was divine.  The complexities of the elder flower liquor really shone with the sparkles of prosecco.  And the way the bubbles burst on your tongue makes these cocktails a lovely hot summer evening drink for me.  I found them indulgent and refreshing, a combination I plan to hold onto for a while longer.

Pomflower Sparkling Cocktail
Note: I made that word up.

1/2 oz Elder flower liquor (such as St. Germain)
1 oz pomegranate juice (such as POMWonderful)
2 oz chilled Prosecco or Cava (I love this with Freixenet but your favorite will probably work too)

Add the elder flower liquor and pomegranate juice to the bottom of a champagne flute and swirl them for a minute to mix.  Top the glass with the chilled sparkling wine.  Serve these with a crostini, or just some tasty bread, while sitting on a porch at sunset.  Marvel at the pinkness of the cocktail and share.

Note: POMWonderful gave me the pomegranate juice to use, but all the opinions here are my own and I would buy the POM juice again to make this cocktail alone.

Rosemary and Olive-Oil Focaccia

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Have you ever planned a perfect meal and gotten all of the ingredients only to realize at the last minute that you forgot something crucial?  Have you ever decided to forgo your whole meal because you forgot that thing, or worse go without?  I have.  And everytime I feel that way I yearn for the thing I had planned for.  This happened to me recently with a darling friend when she came to Boston for a day of cooking, visiting, and drinking (we made the most magnificaent mimosas which I will share soon).  As we wandered through H-Mart looking at quirky and adorable bowls and spoons I offhandedly mentioned my lack of eating much tofu in my life.  My formerly vegan friend immediately demanded we get tofu, coat it in nutritional yeast and make sandwiches with it.  I said fine and she went on a tofu and nutritional yeast hunt.  Do you know how hard it is to find nutrional yeast?  The only place I found it was Whole Foods on River St, seriously, why so anti-vegan?

We arrived home laden with bags of H-Mart shopping, China Fair (a kitchen supply store in Newton) shopping, and some groceries from Star Market.  But we had forgotten bread for our sandwiches.  We cursed our lack of wherewithal and I said that I would make some, since I had all the ingredients and I do so love to make bread.  Also we were done with the being out part of the day and just wanted to cook and in general make a big kitchen mess.

I pulled out my Flour cookbook and turned immediately to the Rosemary and Olive-Oil Focaccia recipe.  I bought this book at the end of April and I have already made this focaccia dough a handful of times (like 4) for pizza.  It is the perfect recipe for pizza dough with its soft airiness, and as a foccacia it was DREAMY.  I loved sandwiches on it, good thing too as I wasn’t such a fan of the nutritional yeast coated tofu (sorry, S – maybe if we had fried it up in some butter I would have liked it more).  We made our sandwiches with tofu and there was still half a loaf of bread, ooh excitement.  I saved it, squirrelled away in a big ziploc in the pantry and the next day made the most heavenly prosciutto sandwiches on that bread.  Who knew?

Please take the time to make this dough – you won’t be sorry and your dining companions will thank you.  Focaccia is a nice way to “swank” up those humdrum sandwiches you’ve been carting to work and it’s totally flexible; next time I’m going to stud it with sundried tomatoes and top it with some fresh grated asiago.  Swoon.

Rosemary and Olive Oil Focaccia
Barely adapted from the Flour cookbook by Joanne Chang, it’s practically perfect as is, and mine wouldn’t be at all adapted if I kept bread flour around.

1 3/4 cup warm water (about 110 degrees)
1 tsp active dry yeast
3 1/2 cup All Purpose flour
1 1/4 cup bread flour (this is my only modification, I don’t keep bread flour around so I used AP, it was wonderful)
3 tsp kosher salt
2 Tbs sugar
3/4 cup olive oil
Cornmeal
2 Tbs Rosemary, roughly chopped

Combine the water and yeast together and allow the yeast to get foamy (about a minute of sitting).  If your yeast does not foam and just sits at the bottom of the water try again with slightly warmer water, if your yest still isn’t foamy it’s dead and you need new.  Once your yeast is activated and happy pour it into the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the dough hook.  Add the flours (if you are using both, if not then just use 4 3/4 cup of AP flour), 1 tsp of the salt, and sugar and turn the mixer on low, allowing the dough hook to bring the whole thing together.  When the dough is a shaggy ball drizzle 1/2 cup of the olive oil into the bowl.  Continue to knead the dough until it is a smooth ball – 4-5 minutes on a low speed.  When the dough is smooth and supple turn the dough ball into an oiled smooth bowl.  Cover the bowl with a lightly oiled piece of plastic wrap and let it rise somewhere war (70-80 degrees) until doubled in volume.  Once the dough is risen you can do two things with it: either, split it in half and make two pizzas (NOMNOM) or make focaccia bread.  To make the focaccia bread turn out the dough onto a 10″x15″ cookie sheet spread with cornmeal.  Stretch the dough until it fills the cookie sheet and pock mark it with your fingertips.  Brush the top of the focaccia dough with the 1/4 cup of olive oil and sprinkle the salt and rosemary on top.  Bake the focaccia at 425 degrees farenheit for 30-40 minutes, until golden brown and puffed.  Eat this focaccia as sandwich bread, it’s one of the best things you will ever do.

Wagamama and Why I Don’t Write Restaurant Reviews Often

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I don’t write many restaurant reviews here and that’s not because I don’t eat out (I do, more than my bank account would like) but because a restaurant really needs to have a wow factor for me to acknowledge it here.  You don’t want to read about the meal I had where the steak was overcooked and the potatoes pitch perfect – anyone can write that for you, or tell you in 7 words, in real life.  For me to want to take my time to blog something I have to be over the moon about it and in this case I am.  Confession, I have always been a bit over the moon about Wagamama.  I like it as my guilty pleasure comfort food restaurant where the food is consistent and fresh, and like any other “chain” restaurant I can rely on my order, I like that sometimes.

MMM.  Wagamama Glazed Ribs.   Fall off the bone tender. 

My first experience with Wagamama was FIVE years ago in Convent Garden London on a warm evening.  I don’t remember my main course but I remember the ice cold Kirin in my hand and the way it commingled with the salty softness of edamame as I popped them one bean at a time from their pods and onto my tongue.  I remember adoring the big communal tables and the raucous rugby team that was sitting next to us (BF, BF’s Aunt and I) as we ate our big bowls of noodles and broth.  It felt right.  We ate at that Wagamama twice over our one week stay in London, twice.  When I came home I longed for the noodles I had had and the edamame.  We went back to our small college town in rural Maine gushing about Japanese noodles from our trip to London, when not six months earlier we had been in Japan (and had not come home gushing about the noodles, possibly I should return).

Suribachi Chicken Wings – Sweet and Spicy, FORTHEWIN

I waited patiently for my return trip to the lovely British city – I wanted more noodles, needed them.  Then on the phone with BF’s Aunt we were told Wagamama had opened a branch in Boston.  I lit up like a Christmas tree and we came down for a visit.  I ate lots of edamame and ginger-scallion noodles, perfect on that cold January afternoon.  Fast-forward a couple years, BF and I have just graduated from college and are looking into moving out of Maine, we chose Boston as it was familiar and we had family here.  Jobs were acquired and as we settled into a routine which included Wagamama, especially in the winter after a long day at work.  It was comforting food that left us full and happy without emptying our wallets or threatening late fees on our student loans.  It felt like an indulgence and wasn’t really.

Chicken Katsu Curry, the Katsu Curry is, hands-down, my favorite thing on the menu.

Now I am here, a blogger and occasionally someone who is lucky enough to get to eat those favorite things of mine for free and with favorite people.  Tonight was one of those times.  And when the hankering for Wagamama hits you just can’t ignore it, you might make those noodles or that curry feel neglected, and that, my friends, would be very sad indeed.

Bloggers Who Rock!  Megan and Amanda.  Aren’t they the cutest?

*Wagamama provided this meal free of charge to me but all opinions based here are strictly my own.

Pomegranate – Lime Chicken

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I love roast chicken.  It’s simple and requires minimal effort.  So I try to remember that and roast them occassionally.  This want to roast chickens is encouraged by my mom who manages to give me at least one bird everytime I see her, to be fair she has connections that leave me with a mighty tasty and local bird.

This is an especially simplistic chicken to cook and I love the method of cutting it down the breastbone and splaying it open.  I won’t lie I was entertained by this method simply becasue I learned of it as spatchcocking the chicken and it was a phrase that amused me greatly.  There’s something very fantastic and decadent about this chicken – but it’s neither, I didn’t even rub butter on this little bird before roasting it!  I roasted this chicken because a: I had it and it needed to be used up and b: I had a LOT of POMwonderful juice in my fridge (not that I’m complaining, that stuff is delicious).  I loved it.  BF loved it; which is an accomplishment as he so rarely likes chicken and, in general, thinks it’s boring.  This was a great mid week dinner paired with a simple side salad – seriously the simplest, some fresh greens (from Kimball Farms, keepin’ it local here) with vinaigrette on it.  But it felt decadent.

Since there’s only BF and I our meals are typically very small with few leftovers (well I aim for that, most of the time) and roasting a whole chicken always leaves the “but what about the leftovers” question dangling; but a pomegrante glazed chicken was just too tempting an idea to pass up.  We probably would have sipped the pan juices if we’d had the space after the actual food, they were that good.  And the leftovers made a fantastic chicken salad the next evening.

Pomegrante-Lime Roast Chicken
Note:  This is an entirely original recipe from ME!  But I encourage you to make it for yourself, maybe with lemon, or some thyme.

1-8oz bottle POMwonderful, pomegranate juice
1 Lime, cut in half
1/2 tsp coarse kosher salt
1- 4-5 lb roasting chicken, gizzards removed and cut down the breatbone

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  In a roasting pan, I like the oval ceramic dish I have from Ikea but anything that’s about 2″ deep and will hold your spatchcocked chicken will work a 13″x9″ pan should do it, splay your chicken out rib side down, so all the skin is facing up.  Rub the chicken all over the skin with 1/2 of the lime, making sure to squeeze all the juice out onto the bird.  Cut the second half of the lime into rounds that look like wheels (see my picture) about 1/4″ thick and place them all over the bird.  Pour the pomegranate juice on the chicken evenly making sure to coat everything with the juice.  Sprinkle the whole thing with salt.  Roast for 20-25 minutes per pound until the juices run clear, basting once about half way through with the pan juices.  When it’s fully cooked the chicken will smell delicious and doesn’t need any work, aside from eating.  Serve with the pan juices and a side salad of greens you got at the farmer’s market.

A bit from BF on Poutine and a Giveaway winner

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BF is an aficianado of all things French-Canadian, including poutine and slightly bastardized French (he frequently pronounces oui as “waaaaay”, though I am under the impression this is just to annoy me :p).  He was brought up in a tiny town in Northern New Hampshire where he could throw rocks across the border and spent a couple winter carnivals in Quebec City freezing his tuckus off and wishing he was old enough to drink a cane of liquor with his poutine.  We both went to Saus and ate delicious food recently, this is his review (ode really) of their poutine.

Occasionally, a US eating establishment will claim to serve that most elusive and seductive of Canadian dishes: poutine. Ever the optimist, I inevitably order the dish, only to have my skepticism validated by whatever laughable forgery is placed in front of me. For me, poutine is a sacred dish, and must not be desecrated by a chef’s “interpretation”. Because you see, just as there is only one true way to pronounce the dish’s name (hint: it involves Quebec’s singularly unique pronunciation of French syllables), there is only one way to prepare True Poutine: Fries, canned beef gravy, and cheese curds. No, you may not substitute for another “lighter” type of cheese. No, you may not use seasoned fries or “potato wedges”. And god help you if you try to use homemade gravy; it comes in a can for a reason. If you want to add any other ingredients, that’s fine, but don’t call it poutine. This is how my various Quebecois friends’ mothers had prepared the dish throughout the entirety of my childhood and if it was good enough then, it’s good enough now; gooey, health-ravaging decadence and all. The only flexibility in poutine preparation lies buried in the ongoing conflict between the schools of ‘thick-fries-absorb-gravy-better’ and ‘thin-fries-are-crispier’.



I mention all this because I had pretty much resigned myself to the idea that I would never taste the delicious glory of poutine without traversing the border into French Canada. But against all odds, Saus has thoroughly trounced that expectation and delivered unto the world a damn fine US-located poutine dish. They do opt for the aforementioned thin-fries-are-crispier philosophy, which is a little easier to manage than the more fickle ‘thick fries’ (which become soggy and disappointing if not cooked just right), but what really shines here is, unsurprisingly, their sauce. While they cover the wide range of tastes with their fry dips (see Kathy’s comments on these; I still long for the day when I can purchase bulk quantities of their garlic-and-butter-suffused “Vampire Slayer”), they resist the temptation to force these innovations on their poutine and instead present it as it should be: with traditional, thick, savory brown gravy, just the way Nature always intended. In fact, I’m seriously re-considering the ‘gravy must be canned’ requirement. About the only qualm I have with their poutine is their naming choice, implying that it is a Belgian dish. While I accept that continental cross-pollination occurs with cuisine as a regular course of action, I simply cannot think of poutine as anything other than firmly Canadian. But I won’t quibble over titles, because call it what they may, it looks, tastes, and just plain feels like the classic comfort dish of our northern brothers. And in my book, that’s an unprecedented feat.

Also, The winner of the Saus giveawy for a $15 gift certificate is comment 15!  Congrats Kimmy!  You should email/text/IM/DM/Tweet/smoke message me when you get a chance 🙂