Long beans, aka Chinese long beans, can be found in most Asian markets. If you’re lucky enough to live in NYC, you can pick them up from just about any vendor on the streets of Chinatown for very cheap. You’ll get a lot of bean for your buck, too — even when cut into thirds the beans are waaaaayyy longer than anybody needs. I’m a fan of cooking them at a very high temperature for a very short time, maybe with a little garlic and chile. The texture of long beans in different than the traditional green bean — they are much firmer, so they can withstand longer cooking times as well. Just make sure you season them well — they have a harder time absorbing flavor than even wax beans do.
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left: chocolate chihuahua, right: booster (photo by donny)
We recently got an email from someone over at Martine’s Chocolates, wanting to let us know about one of their products. We get a few emails like this, but somehow they knew exactly what to send — a photo of a chocolate chihuahua! I don’t know how it tastes, but it sure is cute.
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For my last post of 2008, I thought I’d go back and post about a place I’ve been meaning to write about for a while. It’s not a fancy place, or even a restaurant at all — there are no chairs or tables at Russo’s Mozzarella and Pasta. What they do have is great food.
I used to live a few blocks from Russo’s in the East Village (at E. 11th St), and stopped in occasionally for Italian cheeses and pastas. I walk to work past the Park Slope location, but for months I didn’t really bother — I have another Italian specialty store much closer to my apartment. But then I noticed the poster out front that advertised sandwiches, and I decided to stop there on my next lunch break. I was particularly intrigued by the broccoli rabe sandwich, as I am a huge fan of broccoli rabe.
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For my birthday, my friends J & E gave me a gift certificate to Sur la Table. I hadn’t heard of this upscale cooking store until I got the gift certificate, but I love getting new toys for the kitchen, so I got really excited when I headed to their SoHo branch.
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Introducing a new feature here on Eat to Blog! In the “Secret Ingredient,” we will examine a specific item and its uses. it may be something unusual, something seasonal, something essential, or something else entirely.
I’ve been watching the Sopranos in chronological order again, and recently I saw an episode where Artie treats the wives to a special appetizer of burrata on green beans. I was happily surprised, because only a week or so before I had tried burrata for the first time myself. The wives on the Sopranos complained that it tasted like mozzarella, but burrata is so much more than that.
Burrata starts with mozzarella, which is then mixed with fresh cream. This rich, creamy concoction is then tied up in a case of more mozzarella. I had heard about this Pugliese specialty for a while, but I was not sure where to get it. It’s an extremely perishable product, and so most places don’t carry it. I was shopping at the new Union Market when I came across burrata in their enormous cheese case, and decided to buy it despite the hefty $10 price.
When I opened the plastic bag, the first thing I noticed was the yogurt-like smell which came wafting out. I was a little worried that it had gone bad, despite the fact that the expiration date was still two days away. The mozzarella casing was slippery and wet, and a little bit of cream came dripping out. I ended up dropping the whole thing in a bowl so as not to lose control of the thing. I gently tore open the cheese and exposed the rich interior. I sat down with a piece of baguette and tucked in.
I needn’t have worried about the cheese. The texture was something I had never experienced; firm and liquid at the same time, slightly stringy from the mozzarella and luscious from the cream. There was indeed a faint yogurt tang to the cheese, which suited it perfectly. I can’t imagine cooking the cheese — it seems there are a few recipes which call for the burrata to be mixed with hot pasta to melt it, but raw seems to be the way to go. Why spoil a such a perfect thing?
Posted by Howard
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