off the eaten path

Eggs are such a staple in my house. They are handy for a quick meal, essentiall for certain dishes and desserts, and have such a happy shape.

I’ve recently grown fond of eggs bought at the Dupont Circle Freshfarm Market. The farmers at the market (many of whom use organic and/or no-pesticide growing methods) sell the most lovely eggs, with deep, golden yolks that create egg dishes that are simply radiant.

So my recipe is simple, something almost anybody here has probably done, but is so essential to my life.

Distressed Eggs with fresh herbs and Tobasco

4 large eggs (for stronger egg flavor, use goose or duck eggs)
5 fresh basil leaves
1/2 tsp fresh thyme leaves
1 tsp garlic chives, chopped
1/2 small shallot, finely minced (could substitute spring onion or sweet onion, or omit)
salt to taste
fresh ground pepper to taste
Tobasco sauce to taste
1 tsp butter (unsalted preferred), separated into 3/4 tsp and 1/4 tsp amounts

1. Heat a small pan (preferably seasoned cast iron or nonstick) over medium-low heat for 3 minutes or until water drops immediately sizzle off surface of pan.
2. Add 2/4 tsp of butter and melt to cover bottom of pan.
3. Add shallots and sauté for 2 minutes or until tender (not until burnt).
4. Break eggs into pan, using spatula to break yolks (thus the “distressed” label). Stir to mix in shallot.
5. Add salt and pepper (to taste) while egg mixture is still liquid and cook eggs for 3 to 4 minutes.
6. Add basil, chives and thyme to eggs, letting them sit on top.
7. Use spatula to ensure eggs are loose from the bottom of the pan.
8. Fold egg “patty” in half, like an omelette and reduce heat to low (nonstick pan) or turn heat off (cast iron).
9. Let eggs sit in pan for 2 minutes to allow inside to cook a little.
10. Cut into halves and serve, drizzling Tobasco over eggs if desired.

Serve with toast or bread of your choice. Serves 2.

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Tonight I want to make aloo saag, an Indian spinach and potato recipe. Unfortunately, I didn’t have some of the right spices in my pantry. What to do?

Enter Cook’s Thesaurus, a great site that serves an important purpose: finding substitute ingredients when you are missing that certain, special, essential ingredient. In this case, I was missing asefetida, a spice that falls somewhere around an onion and garlic mixture. It turns out that I can use onion powder and/or garlic powder as a substitute - recipe saved!

(Note: I’m working on fixing the links along the sidebar, as we have lots of good sites that deserve a link - like Cook’s Thesaurus. This will be fixed shortly.)

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For my inaugural posting here on off the eaten path, I thought I’d take a stab at this month’s Sugar High Friday. Redbeard from life in flow had chosen the theme of tarts for June. I have never cooked a tart. I usually don’t even make pies. But I’m game for an adventure, so I went out and bought myself a tart pan.

Then I hit the hard part of the process: what to cook. I thought I’d delve into some of the cookbooks I’ve bought over the years but never baked from. After consulting several, I decided on the recipe for Lemon Chiffon Tart from Marie Simmons’ the good egg.

I am pleasantly pleased to report it was not nearly as hard or as scary as I thought it would be. It wasn’t even as time consuming as expected.

And the best part is that it’s tasty. And very, very lemony.

The crust is delightful. Rudi compares it to a graham cracker crust, because it’s flaky and crunchy. According to Simmons, the dough for this tart crust is known as pâte sucreé in France and is used to make homemade butter cookies as well as tart shells. And I could see why. This may be the only pie crust I’ve ever had that I would consider eating on its own. (Sorry, Gramma!)

The filling is light and fluffy. It tastes a lot like a lemon merengue pie, which, essentially, it is. Rudi describes it as tart and creamy.

This is definitely not a healthy dessert, but I would argue it’s excellent for the soul. And especially good with a cup of tea late at night.

(more…)

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Looking for a Saturday topic, I decided on salad for the summer (or at least until it proves too much of a challenge).

On a hot and sticky summer day, a cold salad is often the best form of light fare. When you already have a diminished appetite due to the human tendency to shut down when it’s oppressively hot, the salad is a welcome delight. The summer brings with it a lot of green salad-friendly ingredients: lettuce of all shapes and sizes, tomatoes in various hues, cucumbers, radishes, carrots, bell peppers, avocado, endive, berries, edible flowers… this list could go on and on. The Dupont Circle Freshfarm Market is a sea of flavors and colors during the summer, with local and semi-local farmers displaying a cornucopia of incredients, many of which would be most tasty in a salad.

So what I’m looking for is salad recipes. It could be a green salad, an egg salad, a new twist on a tuna salad, or possibly a Utah-friendly Jell-O salad. Anything goes - have fun!

And please post your recipes in the comments section! Don’t be afraid - we don’t bite.

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Welcome to the first “Free-For-All Friday” entry. The category comes from my sheer lack of any good ideas - probably due to the heat and humidity that currently envelops DC like a plague.

At any rate, I figured I’d give a rundown of my preferences in Coca-Cola brand cola drinks. In this review, I’m steering clear of the flavored versions in the rundown list (though I will visit them at the end of this post).

1. Coca-Cola Classic. This is very closely related to the Coke of my childhood. I’m still convinced that the “Classic” version is not the exact recipe that Coca-Cola tried to retire in the 80s, but it’s close enough for now. Perhaps the taste change is due to the switch away from glass bottles to the current polyethyene models. But it’s still what I like: the sugar that’s not too sweet, the clean aftertaste.
2. Caffeine-Free Coca-Cola Classic. They manage to make this taste remarkably similar to the caffeinated version, though this particular version is often hard to find at most retailers.
3. Diet Coke Sweetened with Splenda. Sam turned me on to this, and it’s not bad. The taste comes remarkably close to my beloved Classic Coke, though the sucralose doesn’t present the same liquid texture as the “full octane” version. Also, the aftertaste is still odd to me. But it gets the job done: the taste is quite similar to Classic (though it’s easier to detect the cinnamon in the recipe than with the sugar-sweetened variants), and it’s less sugar in my diet. Also quite hard to find in a lot of retail outlets.
4. Coke C2. This is Coke’s “half-and-half” drink: half of the sweeteners are sugars, the other half is aspartame. As such, it’s not bad, but there’s still a bit of aspartame aftertaste that’s unnatural, and the texture is more akin to a sparkling dry wine. The taste is also a bit different than the first three, as it doesn’t seem to be purely derived from the Classic formula. If I were a higher-up at Coca-Cola, I’d switch out the aspartame for sucralose for a better taste and texture. This used to be easy to find (summer and fall of 2004), but has since become difficult to find.
5. Diet Coke. This drink is very popular with people at my workplace (2/3 of the slots in the Coke vending machine are reserved for Diet Coke, with the others divided between Classic, Cherry, Diet with Lemon, Diet with Lime, Sprite and Diet Sprite). Sweetened with aspartame, I truly dislike this variation on the Coke formula. Aspartame is so sickeningly sweet and just tastes like a chemical to me. I just can’t quite get over it - blech!
6. Caffeine-Free Diet Coke. Why does this exist? First you remove the sugar, then you remove the caffeine? If people drink this for the taste, fine - but it tastes awful.

As I mentioned before, there are flavored variants of the Coca-Cola family. I like Coke with Lime (sugared version) and Cherry Coke (sugared version) quite a bit - they’re old standbys, though homemade cherry Coke is much more flavorful and rewarding. Vanilla Coke tastes wrong to me, mainly because the vanilla flavor seems very unnatural. There are diet versions of the Lime, Cherry and Vanilla versions, as well as a Diet Coke with Lemon. All rank really low with me.

As you can probably tell, I’m no fan of artificial sweeteners. Firstly, they’re chemicals that have little-to-no long-term exposure facts to review what harm they do to the body. Yes, sugar isn’t great for you, either - especially refined sugar - but at least it’s naturally derived from a plant. Sucralose is derived from sugar, and actually seems to taste okay, though I’m not about to start substituting it for th real McCoy for things other than soft drinks.

Any thoughts? Please share them in the comments.

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Welcome to the first official post for Off The Eaten Path. Yeah, it’s rough around the edges, but what can ‘ya do?

Anywho, here’s the entry for WBW 10. The challenge: review a white pinot. It can be a pinot grigio, pinot gris, pinot blanc - basically any white wine featuring the pinot grape.

Vintner: San Camillas (Italy)
Type: Pinot Grigio
Vintage: 2004
Purchased At: Best Cellars at Dupont Circle
Price: $7

Review:
I’ve had this wine before - sprite likes the label, and Best Cellars is very good for her, as she doesn’t drink wine. The BC store is organized by wine “style,” from fresh, to bold, to light, etc.

The nose of this wine is one of citrus, with golden raisin as well. It’s very light, with an almost greenish tint, and goes down so smoothly. The taste is surprising: lots of flavor, without being overbearing. The in-mouth experience has a distinctive grape flavor, with a hint of pepper (a tiny hint), and bubble gum, of all things.

This wine is perfect for sultry summer evenings, when the air is thick and all you want is something cold and refreshing to wash down your throat and cool you off from the inside. It also goes with quite a few favorite foods, from pizza to pasta, stir fry to seared tuna. I’ve even had it with Boca Burgers and GardenBurgers - it’s really a good utility wine.

Now this wine is not the one to dig out for a special occasion, but it’s a favorite around The Burrow. We always seem to have a bottle on hand for any ‘ol occasion.

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