The aperitif hour: Marseille's panisse

Nice has its socca, those thin chickpea pancakes. Down the Mediterranean coast in Marseille the classic is panisse, or fried chickpea cakes. I love them both. And while I often make socca, I’d never tried making my own panisse until a few days ago. I hauled out my well-thumbed copy of “Made in Marseille: Food and Flavors from France’s Mediterranean Seaport” by Daniel Young (William Morrow Cookbooks, 2002).

The Francophile author explains that “panisses were particularly trendy in the 1930s around Marseille’s Old Port as a snack, or paired with a salad as a meal .... Prepared with a porridge-like batter of chickpea flour, the interior of a fried panisse is almost comparable to fried cheese in its creaminess.”

Basically, you’re making a chickpea porridge, stirring all the while just like you would for polenta, but in this case, it takes only 10 minutes, not 40.

I opted for the easy method of cutting them -- spreading the porridge out on an oiled baking sheet, chilling it for a couple of hours and then cutting it into shapes with a cookie cutter. 

You don’t need a deep fryer, just a good skillet with 1/4 inch of oil (I used grapeseed oil.) It’s really very easy. The only trouble I had was that my porridge was lumpy. Lumpy! So after it finished cooking, I passed it through a coarse sieve. I emailed Young to find out what I did wrong: Instead of adding the flour all at once as I did, the trick is to sprinkle it into the water, stirring all the while. [Recipe follows after the jump.]

Food FYI: Tomato's downfall, still more burgers, haute Israeli?

BETTER RED?

There a fascinating story from Gina Kolata at the New York Times about how the push for redness in tomatoes led to the downfall of flavor. A similar thing happened years ago with the Red Delicious apple, which was originally pink with pale green stripes and good flavor. As plant breeders focused on making the apples more red, the flavor deteriorated; it was found (too late) that the red pigment being produced actually had a bitter flavor.

MORE BURGERS!

Our great Battle of the Burgers wasn't enough? National Geographic has a book out on the 10 best of everything (yeah, I know, huh?), and it includes hamburgers. Local winners are In-N-Out (well, duh), and Apple Pan (have to confess, never understood the love). They also like the burgers at Gott's Roadside in St. Helena (used to be Taylor's Refreshers) and one of my personal favorites -- Blake's Lotaburger in New Mexico (the green chile cheeseburger is amazing).

IS ISRAELI THE NEXT THAI?

OK, maybe it's a stretch, but one of my favorite cookbook authors, Yotam Ottolenghi, has a book coming this fall on the cuisine of Jerusalem (look for an interview with him in the next couple of weeks from our own S. Irene Virbila). And one of my favorite food bloggers, Paris-based David Lebovitz, is positively paroxysmic over his meal at Haj Kahil in Tel Aviv. Do not look at his photos before lunch!

ALSO:

The French and their vegetables

Canned beer makes a comeback!

"Praise the Lard" aprons and T-shirts. Don't we all?

-- Russ Parsons

Photo credit: All-American Selections

Food FYI: Dying cows, old cookbooks and a welcome addition

DROUGHT, NOT GMO

Did you get one of those Facebook flashes a week or so ago claiming that a special genetically modified grass in Texas had started producing cyanide gas, which was killing hundreds of cattle? The estimable ag blog Grist tracked down the real story. In the first place, the grass in question was a conventional hybrid, not a GMO. And although it did produce poison -- prussic acid, or hydrogen cyanide -- that was a natural plant response to severe drought conditions, not the result of any chemical company shenanigans. Still, too bad for the cows.

SAGA OF THE AGA, REVISITED

Remember that British couple who while renovating their home discovered a hidden, fully equipped early 20th century kitchen? There was a passing mention in a couple of the stories about an old cookbook that was part of the trove. Food historian Cynthia Bertelsen found a copy of the book and wrote about it on Gherkins & Tomatoes.

BABY BLOGGER?

Popular Berlin-based food blogger (and upcoming author) Luisa Weiss left her thousands of fans hanging last month when she wrote that she was tired of waiting for her pregnancy to end. For weeks, no news (though Facebook friends were kept updated). Finally, on Tuesday morning she announced to the rest of the world, posting a photo of baby Hugo. Cute little rascal.

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Canned beer makes a comeback

Food events: Great wine, good cause

Online Paso Robles wine country trip planner

-- Russ Parsons

Illustration: From "Ideal Cookery Book" by Margaret Alice Fairclough, first published in London in 1908 by George Routledge and Sons, Limited

David Lebovitz's lemon quaresimali cookies

Yesterday afternoon, I decided to invite some friends over for dinner. One of them asked if he could bring dessert, and since I had a complicated day, I was thrilled to say yes.

I didn’t know what it would be, but yes, Rob showed up bearing biscotti. Not just any biscotti, but the lemon quaresimali cookies from David Lebovitz’s “Ready for Dessert,” a compilation of the Paris-based pastry chef’s best recipes. I’d had them at Rob’s house a month or so before and loved them. (I also highly recommend the book.)

This time, he’d made them with lemon and bergamot (the citrus that scents Earl Grey tea) from his garden. Wow, that little bit of highly fragrant citrus took these twice-baked cookies that one little step beyond. I don’t even want to know how many I ate last night. There were just these three left this morning.

Lebovitz writes “these cookies are like supersized biscotti, but, unlike biscotti, they’ve never gained wide acceptance outside their native Italy, probably because their name is a bit more of a challenge to pronounce. Thankfully, they’re just as easy to make, and every bit as good."

Cookbook Watch: 'Ripe' by Cheryl Sternman Rule, Paulette Phlipot

Celery pretty much equals boring, right? It conjures up images of stringy diet food or rabbit fare, and it's not exactly photogenic. Or is it?

If you flip to page 173 of the new cookbook, "Ripe: A Fresh, Colorful Approach to Fruits and Vegetables," you'll find a stop-you-in-your-tracks photo of celery that might best be described as a lovely, flower-tipped bouquet. Accompanying that is a suggested dish that probably isn't on anyone's diet plan: a braised celery gratin rich with butter, wine and Gruyere.

That's mission accomplished for the cookbook's authors, food writer Cheryl Sternman Rule and food photographer Paulette Phlipot, who set out to reset the nation's mindset about fruits and vegetables.

This is not a cookbook aimed at foodies -- although foodies will certainly find much to enjoy in its pages. Instead, Rule and Phlipot envisioned their audience as the very people who wrinkle up their noses at the thought of eating anything green and blanch at the thought of a meat-free meal.

"If I were eating broccoli or string beans boiled until they were gray, I would hate them too," said Rule, a Silicon Valley food writer and author of the popular food blog 5 Second Rule. "When people tell me they hate vegetables I ask them: 'How are you cooking them?'"

More often than not, she's met with blank stares. That's because they're not cooking their own vegetables, and have no idea where to start.

Enter "Ripe."

The apéritif hour: Chopped chicken livers on toast

When I got hold of April Bloomfield’s new book “A Girl and Her Pig,” I zeroed right in on the Brit chef’s recipe for chopped chicken liver on toast. Just looking at the picture, I could tell this would be a definitive recipe. And it is. I expected no less from the chef and co-owner of the New York City gastropub Spotted Pig.

I made the recipe, which calls for 1/2 pound of chicken livers, which is just enough to spread on four toasts yesterday. And I have to confess, as soon as I was done snapping the photo, I gobbled up two of them with a glass of white Rioja. The flavors are so pure, with just a backbeat of sweetness from the port and a bit of nuttiness from the Madeira. I can see these toasts with a glass of Madeira, too. A great way to stave off hunger if dinner is a ways off.

I’ll let Bloomfield explain the recipe: “A staple at the Spotted Pig, this creamy, still slightly chunky mash of lovely, iron-y livers on toast makes a fine snack, but it’s substantial enough to hold you over while you wait for a friend or a table. Just the thing too, with a glass of wine. The liver mixture is a touch sweet from the Port and the browned garlic and shallots, with a whisper of acidity from the Madeira. Best of all, it takes just a moment to make. Be sure you get a nice color on the livers when you cook them. (I like them slightly pink on the inside for this dish). Be sure to take in the aroma as they cook -- toasty browning liver is one of my favorite smells.”

“I’m not much for pomp on the plate, for presentation that says, 'Look how pretty!' ... I like food to look as if the arrangement were almost accidental, as if it all dropped from above and happened to pile elegantly on the plate.”

That said, it’s hard to make chopped chicken liver look like a beauty queen. It is what it is -- earthy and primal. And Bloomfield’s version is one of the best I’ve tried, right up there with AOC’s Tuscan-style chicken liver crostini. You might want to try both side by side to see which your guests like best.

Cookbook Watch: 'The Art of Cooking With Vegetables'

Alain Passard is teasing me. I leave for Paris next week, and the one three-star meal I have booked is at his restaurant Arpege. You might say I'm looking forward to it. Several years ago, he converted the restaurant to all fruits and vegetables, most of them grown on his own farm. What could be better for a farm-to-table geek like me? Well, Thursday I got a copy of his new cookbook "The Art of Cooking With Vegetables." That's what could be better. I'm taking it home this weekend as a warm-up, and I’ve already got half a dozen recipes I want to try.

It's a surprisingly slim book, an even 100 pages, but there are so many great ideas. Passard has the knack for making dishes that sound at the same time surprising and completely natural. Let's start with the way he cooks artichokes: slipping bay leaves between the leaves, wrapping the heads in plastic wrap and cooking until tender. Bay and artichoke -– I can taste that now. (See jump for the recipe.)

For something a little showier, how about serving beets on a pool of pureed blackberries flavored with just a little bit of lavender? Are you there? How about serving new potatoes in butter flavored with sage and green garlic? When the weather gets warmer, melon served with blue cheese and black pepper?

The one criticism is that each of these dishes sound like they must have some amazing presentation, but there are no photographs. Instead, there are very stylized color-block illustrations. Beautiful, to be sure, but I really want to know how he plates these dishes.

I guess I'll just have to wait until next week to find out.

-- Russ Parsons

Soup Kitchen: Deborah Madison's chickpea and farro soup

Yesterday, when I mentioned that my husband was making soup to try out our new La Chamba bean pot, I assumed he’d pored over cookbooks to unearth a recipe. Actually, he found a recipe for chickpea and farro soup from cookbook author Deborah Madison on the Toque Blanche website where he ordered the pot. 

To someone afflicted with an endless cold, I can’t tell you how good a bowl of this rustic Italian zuppa tasted. The flavors are clean and wholesome: it’s basically chickpeas, farro, tomatoes and a little onion and celery, garnished with fresh basil, a thread of extra-virgin olive oil and some freshly grated Parmigiano.

With no more ado, here it is:

 Farro and Chickpea Soup for Summer

(From “Vegetable Soups from Deborah Madison's Kitchen,” Broadway, 2007). Her most recent book is “Seasonal Fruit Desserts: From Orchard, Farm, and Market.” 

 Serves six.

“I love cooking in clay pots of all kinds, and the Chamba black clayware is no exception," she writes. "It’s a beautiful material, so soft that it makes me want to cook in a gentle manner, with extra care. But that’s not because the clay isn’t strong — it is. It just gives a different feeling than metal.

"Farro and chickpeas needn’t be relegated to the cold-season months — they make a fine summer soup too, and they needn’t be served hot. Room temperature is good, too.

"This soup takes about 15 minutes to put together, 30 minutes to cook, but it gains in flavor if it can stand for a few hours.”

Ingredients:

1 cup farro, soaked 4 hours in cold water
2 to 4 tablespoons olive oil
1 large onion, finely diced
1 celery rib, peeled if stringy, then finely diced
2 garlic cloves chopped with a handful parsley leaves
1 teaspoon tomato paste
1 cup finely diced or crushed tomatoes, plus their juices, fresh or canned
1 (15½-ounce) can organic chickpeas
sea salt and freshly ground pepper 

To Finish: 

1 small handful basil leaves, finely slivered
extra-virgin olive oil
freshly grated Parmesan cheese

Drain the farro. Warm the olive oil in a wide soup pot. Add the onion, celery, and garlic-parsley mixture. Cook, stirring every so often, over medium heat until the onions are translucent and starting to soften, about 7 minutes. Stir in the tomato paste then add the tomatoes, farro, 1 teaspoon salt, and 6 cups water.

Simmer 30 minutes, covered, until the farro is tender but still toothsome. Stir in the chickpeas and their liquid. (At this point the soup can sit at room temperature for several hours, giving the flavors a chance to meld.)

Reheat the soup before serving if you wish to have it hot, or serve it at room temperature. Stir in the basil, a few drops olive oil in each bowl, and grate a little Parmesan over the top.

 This could be the cure. 

 ALSO:

All natural: La Chamba black clay pots

Eat.Drink.Americano. debuts downtown

Found! Vintage juicer

-- S. Irene Virbila
Twitter.com/sirenevirbila

Photos: Farro and Chickpea Soup for Summer. Credit: S. Irene Virbila/Los Angeles Times.

 

Sang Yoon debuts Private Kitchen for Chris Cosentino cookbook

Sang Yoon is throwing a dinner party at his new Private Kitchen on May 31 in honor of chef Chris Cosentino's new cookbook. Cosentino, of Incanto and Boccalone Salumeria in San Francisco and Pigg in Los Angeles, has just published "Beginnings: My Way to Start a Meal" and will be there to sign books, which will be available for purchase.

A welcome reception will feature the Bloody Roman (Cosentino's take on a bloody mary with beer and an oyster) and passed salumi cones and lardo-wrapped fruit from Boccalone. The family-style dinner will feature several courses from the cookbook along with wine pairings: marinated sardine and nduja crostini; fava beans, strawberries and Pecorino salad; braised pork and clams; asparagus, spring potatoes, crème fraîche and caviar; warm cherries with saba zabaglione.

Held on the enclosed patio of Yoon's test kitchen at Helm's Bakery, the dinner kicks off an inaugural series of upcoming events. The dinner is $90 per person and takes place at 8:30 p.m. Limited seating; contact host@lukshon.com or (310) 202-6808 to purchase tickets. 

Sang Yoon's Private Kitchen Patio at Helm's Bakery, 8758 Venice Blvd., Los Angeles. 

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Found! Vintage juicer

First Impression: End of Communism at Rivera

-- Betty Hallock

Photo: "Beginnings: My Way to Start a Meal." Credit: Olive Press.

Cookbook watch: 'The Cookbook Library'

Anne Willan has written a lot of cookbooks in her career. OK, well, maybe not a lot by Martha standards, but for a non-industrial cookbook writer, she’s quite prolific. And her books have been good ones, too. I practically taught myself to cook out of "La Varenne Pratique." But I don’t think I’ve loved one of her books as much as I do her new "The Cookbook Library."

Written with her husband, Mark Cherniavsky, this is an absolute labor of love, the book her whole career has led up to. On the surface, it might sound a bit dry. Well, maybe a lot dry. A history of the cookbook? And, while it is true that “The Cookbook Library” probably won’t set many Food Network fans’ hearts aflutter (it ends in the early 19th century and, well, there are footnotes), if you really love cookbooks (or books in general) and you love history, this is a book you have to read.

Willan and Cherniavsky are longtime collectors with a cookbook library so extensive that they had to shore up the floor of their house in Santa Monica to hold the weight. But “The Cookbook Library” is more than just a bibliography. Willan’s careful tracing of the history of how cookbooks have evolved, and her witty take on those involved, bring the subject to vivid life.

There are so many examples I could cite, but just for one, the essay on religious feasting and fast days is impeccable, tying in the evolution of the Roman Catholic Church and the role of fast-day dispensations on bringing about the Reformation. She quotes Voltaire on theology and Martin Luther on olive oil (the French oil was so bad, he wrote, that “people in Rome would not use [it] to grease their shoes”).

OK, one more example: In a brief (maybe 1,000-word) essay on the history of bread, she covers differences in French and English loaves, what types of grains were used and what they signified, why bread baking was considered apart from cooking, and how the rise of the home oven affected baking.

I’m still only about halfway through, not because it’s slow going, but because this is a book to read and savor –- I’m parsing out a small section at a time and already regretting the day I finish it.

“The Cookbook Library” by Anne Willan with Mark Cherniavsky and Kyri Claflin (University of California Press, $50).

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Perfect cheese sauce

50 Italian soup recipes: The 'Zuppe' cookbook

Food FYI: David Myers to open Century City restaurant

-- Russ Parsons