Tag Archives: cheese
Middle Eastern Feast With Sausage Arayes
In these quarantimes, when we have friends over for a socially-distanced hangout, I want to feed them but I absolutely do not want to spend the whole time cooking – especially when I have barely seen other humans in a week. This is true during regular times but especially true now.
The solution? If in doubt, outsource. Half of this Middle Eastern feast was purchased from a tried-and-true stand at the John Jay Farm Market called Irvington Delight, and the other half homemade. If you feel overwhelmed by cooking, don’t hesitate to leave some of it to the experts.
Methodology: Find a good source for freshly made Middle Eastern food. Buy everything that’s time-consuming to make: grape leaves, babaganoush, tabbouleh, even hummus should you so choose. These things keep for several days in the fridge.
Before people arrive, make a yogurt sauce for the arayes: 1/2 cucumber, peeled, seeded and grated, 1 garlic clove, finely grated, 1/2 cup plain yogurt and 1/4 tsp salt mixed together and chilled for at least an hour.
Gather your serving bowls – you will need many. Take the salads and grape leaves out of the fridge about an hour before meal time and keep in a cool place. Slice the halloumi cheese horizontally and have a couple lemon wedges ready.
When guests arrive, distract them with wine, babaganoush, hummus, pita chips and veggies. Light the grill if it’s a charcoal grill, banking the coals on one side to get hot and cool areas.
When you’re almost ready to eat, assemble the arayes. This is based on a Lebanese recipe that I found can also be made with any kind of good sausages – lamb or even chorizo, as unorthodox as that may be. Slice open about 1 1/2 lbs spicy sausages, gather the meat and roll into balls a little larger than golf balls. Smush them into 8 pita halves, making the meat layer quite thin, and brush the pitas with olive oil.
Bring out the arayes and halloumi and start with the arayes on the cooler side of the grill. Toast them about 4 minutes per side, until the pitas are lightly charred and feel firm to the touch. Set on a platter and loosely drape with a sheet of tin foil to keep warm. Bring the salads, yogurt dipping sauce and grape leaves out to the table.
Grill the halloumi over medium heat about 4 minutes per side, carefully flipping it with tongs as soon as each side hardens up and releases from the grate. (I use a grilling basket.) Add lemon wedges and serve immediately from six feet away, outdoors.
Which half did you make and which did you outsource? No one will care, and no one will leave hungry.
Note: you don’t need a grill for this feast. You could also make the arayes and halloumi on a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat.
Posted in food, recipes
Tagged cheese, Middle Eastern food
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Milk & Hops
Wedged between a Starbucks and a Chase Bank is an unlikely interloper among the chain stores on lower Broadway: Milk & Hops, a sliver of a market and bar dedicated to all things cheese and beer.
This space has bottled beer and packaged food for sale on one side and a long marble bar running down the other. Here you can order up various spins on grilled cheese sandwiches, plus a selection of seasonally rotating cheese and beer. On a recent visit, there were some trusty cheese standbys like Bayley Hazen Blue and Kunik, but also a few rarities like Red Dragon, a Welsh cow’s milk cheese made with ale and studded with mustard seeds. (more…)
Posted in American, Cuisine, food, Greenwich Village, Neighborhood, New York restaurants, restaurants
Tagged bars, beer, cheese, pretzels
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Red Gravy
Saul Bolton’s casual Italian restaurant sits on a stretch of Atlantic Avenue that used to feel desolate not so long ago, when the border between Cobble Hill, Brooklyn Heights and the wilds of Red Hook was home to only a few solitary bars and take-out joints. But now the long-shuttered Long Island Bar has reopened, Colonie set up shop across the street, and Bolton of the Michelin-starred Saul, now relocated to the Brooklyn Museum, opened Red Gravy. In the give-the-people-what-they-want school of thought, he has definitely succeeded, stepping into a vacuum and creating just the sort of approachable neighborhood place the neighborhood never knew it needed until now. (more…)
Posted in Boerum Hill, Brooklyn Heights, Cuisine, Italian, Neighborhood, New York restaurants
Tagged burrata, cheese, gelato, pasta, ramps, Red Gravy review, steak, veal, wine
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Distilled
A popular, relatively new place on the main drag of Tribeca, Distilled fills up on a weekday night with people who seem to have made it their neighborhood canteen. Indeed, Distilled’s motto is “redefining the public house.” With its soaring ceilings, big glossy dining room set with casual four-tops and a bar that runs along the entire side wall, it has the feel of a modern day dining hall. But this isn’t just the place to load up on drinks and grub on your way to somewhere else. Distilled has the kind of food that merits a special visit. (more…)
Posted in American, Cuisine, food, New York restaurants, restaurants, Southern
Tagged bourbon, brussels sprouts, cheese, cocktails, Distilled NY review, duck, restaurant reviews, scallops
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Murray's Cheese Bar
How can a city so obsessed with cheese not have a cheese bar until now? That is the main question that comes to mind with Murray’s Cheese Bar on Bleecker Street. New York has wine bars galore, cheese stands in the Greenmarket and specialty cheese counters popping up in so many groceries, but Murray’s is the first NYC wine bar specifically dedicated to cheese. (more…)
Posted in American, food, New York restaurants, restaurants, West Village
Tagged bars, cheese, New York, wine bars
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Gastronomie 491
One of the things I miss most about Milan and Paris is not, as you might expect, fancy restaurants. What I do miss are the numerous coffee counters in Milan when you could just step in and get an excellent-quality espresso or macchiato for a couple of euros and down it in an instant. In Paris, I miss the gourmet take-out shops right near the Saint Paul metro stop: Aux Désirs de Manon for bread and quiche, Au Sanglier for beautiful terrines, and Pascal Trotté for cheese. There was never any reason to cook anything, even though I had a kitchen there, when there was so much tempting food to take home.
Finally New York is catching up to Europe with the introduction of Gastronomie 491 to the Upper West Side. This little shop has all kinds of salads, meat, fish and sides you might like for a home cooked meal – if you actually felt like cooking. But why bother when chef Steven Gutterman can do it for you, most likely with much better results?
Posted in food, French, Italian, New York restaurants, restaurants, shopping, Upper West Side
Tagged cheese, food news, New York
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Hard Cider Revival
A sustainable-farming organization may seem an unlikely force behind a trendy new alcoholic beverage, but that’s exactly what’s happening with the Apple Project, an effort by the Glynwood Institute to help Hudson Valley apple growers stay in business by diversifying into hard cider.
Once one of the most popular beverages in America, hard cider fell prey to the Prohibition and urbanization, never quite regaining ground after the Prohibition was lifted. But the delicious new varieties being produced now will make you wonder why it ever fell out of favor. During Hard Cider Revival Week in New York, Americans and a few French cider producers have banded together to market cider with the same zeal normally reserved for Bud Light with Lime. (more…)
Brooklyn Larder
Whenever a magazine publishes a guide like “The Best Unsung Food Shops,” as Time Out NY did recently, it begs the question of what other gems have been left out of the collective New York food consciousness. Brooklyn Larder, on the border of Park Slope and Prospect Heights, is one of the few specialty food shops in New York that succeeds with flying colors in several categories and across several cultures.
The cheese counter is tightly edited and wonderfully curated, with several interesting cheeses available every day as samples. We picked up a wedge of Irish Gubbeen cow’s milk cheese (first sampled at a Joy of Cheese tasting) and a rare American sheep’s milk “Magic Mountain” cheese from Woodcock Farm, VT. (more…)
The Joy of Cheese at d.b.a. Brooklyn
Wine isn’t the only thing that pairs well with cheese: Beer is a great match too, especially if there’s plenty of it, as there was at the Joy of Cheese tasting at d.b.a. Brooklyn on a recent night. Cheese expert Martin Johnson and d.b.a. owner Ray Deter joined forces to present seven rounds of beer and cheese, with a special focus on holiday brews.
Standouts among the cheeses were two English selections, a Spenwood and a clothbound Montgomery cheddar, and the Gubbeen washed rind cheese from Ireland. (more…)
Murray’s Melts – A First Look
The humble bacon, egg and cheese sandwich may never be the same.
Can you ever go back to a deli sandwich with a too-big roll, meager egg, and supermarket quality bacon and cheese after one of Murray’s breakfast sandwiches? The answer is unclear, because Murray’s combination of farm egg, fontina cheese, gourmet bacon on a thin English muffin that perfectly frames the ingredients within is pretty redonk, even for someone who thinks they’ve sampled the best bacon, egg and cheese in the land.
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Tagged cheese, food news, Murray's Melts
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Murray’s Melts
Stop the insanity – or actually, please don’t: Grub Street reports that Murray’s Cheese has just opened a sandwich counter, Murray’s Melts. Imagine the deliciousness of Murray’s taleggio, maple leaf smoked gouda, or double creme brie on Blue Ribbon Bakery bread, sandwiched next to sopressata, roasted turkey, or prosciutto, then topped with caramelized onions, sauerkraut, or cornichon then grilled to crunchy melt-in-your-mouth goodness. That and so much more now exists! There are 14 cheeses to choose from at this sandwich counter, nine meats, eight veggie toppings, and five fancy condiments. They even do breakfast sandwiches. Sandwich prices start at $3.99. (more…)
The Joy of Cheese: Good Cheese for Hard Times
Last night Marie Fromage and I went to another tasting for the Joy of Cheese at Ten Degrees – this time focused on inexpensive cheeses for the rest of us. The depressing packaged cheese section at Trader Joe’s notwithstanding, just because you’re on a budget doesn’t mean you have to forgo good cheese. Our host and fromagier extraordinaire Martin Johnson, who now also teaches at the 92nd Street Y, brought out a few of the best. “There are lots of great cheeses for $25 a pound or less,” he told the group of about 15 at the tasting. Plus, as he pointed out, cheese, bread, some sort of charcuterie and a salad can make a great summer dinner.
- Camembert Mons. This was one of our favorites – silky, slightly funky, vegetal and mushroomy. A pasteurized Camembert, yes, but it’s produced by acclaimed affineur Herve Mons. You can’t go wrong with cheeses by this guy. Available at Whole Foods Fromagerie (on the Bowery) and the Bedford Cheese Shop.
- Pecorino Rosellino. The Italians are known for thowing all sorts of things into their wine, and it turns out the same thing is true with Italian sheep’s milk cheese. In what was originally a controversial move, cheesemakers started rubbing classic Italian pecorino with tomatoes – doubly blasphemous because tomatoes actually originate from the New World. But the result is an excellent pecorino, with a softer, fruitier, more complex edge. Available at the Bedford Cheese Shop. (more…)
La Superior
One of the worst things about eating Mexican food in LA is coming back and eating it in New York. The New York version of Mexican food is almost sure to disappoint after you’ve had the vibrant, spicy food at a random hole-in-the-wall in an LA strip mall. Even the most successful NYC Mexican restaurants don’t source traditional ingredients like goat, and they get the cheese all wrong – Vermont cheddar is surely not a staple south of the border. Most Mexican food in New York is what Italian food was here in the mid-’80s: dumbed-down Mexican-American, not authentic Mexican.
That’s why it was such a relief to discover La Superior in Williamsburg after reading Pete Wells’ $25-and-under review. As soon as the first dishes landed, we knew: they got the cheese right.
La Superior’s requesón is a mild but cheesy cheese, fresh, with the consistency of a crumbly cottage cheese. Though it’s said you can use ricotta as a substitute, I don’t find the taste the same at all. (One close flavor you can sometimes find is Mexican Cotija cheese – not at high-end cheese stores, but at corner bodegas.) Here it is sprinkled on top of the flautas de pollo, which were very crisp and topped with bright, fresh greens and salsa that contrasted with the creaminess of the cheese.
Gorditas, typical Mexican street fare, are highly addictive little corn buns, split and stuffed with chorizo, lettuce, and more requesón. La Superior’s taste a little like huitlacoche, the surprisingly tasty weird corn fungus. If you want to spice up the gorditas some more, the green salsa served alongside does the trick.
The quesadillas also come street-style, more like heftier empanadas than a mere fried tortilla. But for me this amount of bread overwhelmed the filling.
Their tacos are amazing little delights, each one a separate burst of flavor. (This too is where so many other NYC Mexican places get it wrong – all Mexican dishes shouldn’t taste the same.) Clockwise from top, these are the camarón al chipotle (very spicy shrimp tacos), the carne asada (smoky grilled skirt steak), the carnitas (pork confit topped with sweet white onion), and the phenomenal rajas, roasted poblano pepper strips cooked with that fabulous cheese. This was a really intriguing combination. Usually you think of a creamy cheese as something to quell the spiciness of pepper, but when they’re cooked together, the cheese has the effect of drawing it out.
Alas, there may be a shortage of authentic Mexican food in New York, but if you can locate Cotija cheese, here’s a recipe for a Mexican salad for you. But if you’re going to La Superior, here’s your strategy:
- Arrive early (7-ish). If there’s a wait, you’ll have to wait in line – they don’t take cell phone numbers.
- BYOB! There’s a bodega around the corner with a good selection of beer.
- Prices are crazy cheap.
- Their idea of “decor” is a single string of colored lights. You’re not here for the romance.
- It’s much easier to get a table on busy nights as a party of two than as a larger party.
La Superior
295 Berry Street
Williamsburg
Brooklyn, NY 11211
718-388-5988
Posted in food, Mexican, New York restaurants, restaurants, Williamsburg
Tagged Brooklyn, cheese, New York
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Mexican Poblano and Tomato Salad
Mexican Cotija cheese isn’t for sale at New York’s fancy cheese emporiums, but you can find it in some corner bodegas. If your hunt for authentic cheese is successful, here’s a recipe for a Mexican salad for you. It ran many years ago – in the LA Times, of course.
Mexican Poblano and Tomato Salad
4 poblano chiles
2 tomatoes, diced
1/2 cup thinly sliced red onion
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp. dried Mexican oregano, crumbled
3 tbsp. chopped cilantro
3 tbsp. lime juice
1/2 tsp sea salt
1 head butter lettuce
1/4 cup crumbled Cotija cheese
wedges of lime dipped in chile powder, for garnish
Roast the chiles on a gas burner or grill until charred all over. Place them in a Ziplock bag and close. Let them stand until cool, then slough off the charred skin. Core and seed them, then cut lengthwise into thin strips.
Toss the chiles with tomatoes, onion, garlic, oregano, cilantro, lime juice, and salt. Cover and let sit for 30 minutes. Arrange butter lettuce on four salad plates, top with pepper mixture, and sprinkle with Cotija cheese. Serve with lime wedges.
Serves 4.
Variation: If you can find requesón cheese, try substituting it for Cotija. Combine a 1/2 cup of requesón with the chili mixture, and instead of letting it all sit, heat it gently on the stove for about 5 minutes, until warmed through. Serve on top of cool butter lettuce, garnish with limes. Think of it as a salad version of La Superior’s rajas.
Posted in food, recipes
Tagged appetizer recipes, cheese, Mexican recipes, salad recipes, the copycat chef, vegetable recipes
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The Joy of Cheese
Did you know that “artisanal” refers to a cheese that’s been made from the milk of a single herd? That it’s useless to walk into a cheese shop and just ask for “tomme,” because then you’re asking for “from the land of”? That there’s an underground American movement for unpasteurized milk?
Most people don’t know these things, but Martin Johnson, one of the city’s best and most experienced fromagers, does and is happy to teach you. When he’s not working for the Bedford Cheese Shop in Williamsburg or writing about basketball for the New York Sun, he’s conducting cheese tastings at 10 Degrees on St. Mark’s Place. For $30, he’ll take you and the rest of the group through about 12 excellent, hard-to-find cheeses of a certain type.
In March, it’s cheese that goes with martinis. The theme came from an inadvertent challenge from Max McCalman, who said to Johnson one night, “You can’t pair cheeses with vodka, can you?” Turns out you can. We tried a number of interesting, unusual hard cheeses, like Coolea, a gouda from County Cork, Ireland; Foja Di Noce, a Tuscan cheese that’s rubbed in hazelnuts as it ripens; and Ouray, a wonderfully sharp, crumbly cow’s milk cheese from Poughkeepsie. It’s an entertaining way to develop your palette: As the tasting progresses, Johnson throws in “mystery cheeses” related to the rest of the bunch, then asks you to guess what country it’s from and whether it’s cow, goat, or sheep’s milk. With the right crowd, the competition becomes amusingly cuttthroat.
To sign up for class, which is on Tuesday nights from 7 to 8:30, you need only email Martin Johnson at thejoyofcheese@yahoo.com. Schedules and themes – April is “All About Chevre,” May is “Viva Italia,” and June is “the Young Americans” – are posted on the Joy of Cheese blog and site.
Coolea, Niman Ranch salami, and a Bombay Sapphire martini
Ascutney Mount, Foja di Noce, and Tomette Chevre
Mystery cheese #1! (An aged goat gouda.)
Lavort, Doddington, Lessino
Mystery Cheese #2! (Some kind of Roquefort.)
Ouray, Mimolette, Stanser Schafkase
