One of my tips for adding richness to healthier dishes: caramelized onions and walnuts. Try them on baked chicken, mashed cauliflower or turnips, and lentils.

Coffee Granita

I know all of you are probably busy in your kitchens this week preparing beautiful feasts for your friends and family. So I thought I would help you  out by recommending a simple, no fuss dessert for your menu: coffee granita.

Granitas are a simple, semi-frozen Italian dessert consisting of sweetened, flavored liquid. They have a coarse, crystalline texture and an airier density than other frozen treats. If you happen to have an ice cream maker, then you can achieve a creamier texture by making your granita in the machine. I don’t have an ice cream maker, so my instructions will show you how to make the granita by hand.

For 6 servings, combine:

• 2 cups strong brewed coffee, made from high quality coffee or espresso beans
• ¼ cup freshly squeezed orange, blood orange, or tangerine juice
• ¼ cup sugar

1. Spread the liquid in a baking pan – a 9 x13 pyrex baking dish is ideal for this. DO NOT use a non-stick dish. Place the pan in the freezer and let sit until liquid begins to crystallize, typically about 30 or 40 minutes.
2. Once liquid begins crystallizing, use a fork to scrape the pan and break up the crystals. You want to homogenize the mixture, evenly mixing the frozen edges with the unfrozen liquid. 
3. Replace pan in the freezer for another 20 or 30 minutes. Scrape again with fork, breaking apart the crystals. Repeat this process for about another hour, or until the contents of your pan resemble frozen coffee gravel.  
4. Fluff mixture with a fork before spooning into stemmed glasses to serve. 

Optional, to be added to your frozen granita when serving:

• Few dashes coffee liqueur, like Patron XO or Baileys
• Drizzle of chocolate or caramel syrup
• Few dashes sweetened milk or cream
• Spoonful of sweetened whipped cream, my personal favorite
• Biscuit cookies of your choice, particularly nice to crumble them up and place at the bottom of your serving dish to absorb the granita as it melts
• A sweet roll, like brioche, would be very European of you

You can use the above proportions to make any flavor combination. In the summer, I’m particularly fond of combining sweetened hibiscus tea with lime juice. Any fruit pureed with a bit of water is also delicious. And I’m not ashamed to serve nearly any imaginable flavor with a dollop of whipped cream. It makes for a really delightful, creamy texture that reminds me of creamsicles.

Whether you granita this week or not, I hope you have a very Happy Thanksgiving :-)

Runner Up

I participated in a small cooking contest last night, San Francisco Sweet & Savory, which one of my lovely co-workers organizes. The savory winner was a togarashi clam chowder, made by one of the fine chefs from Google. I took runner up in the savory category for this scallop crudo, which I swear I was going to make for you guys anyways!!!! Participating in a food competition and also transporting your food is a pretty wild experience – more on that later. First, I want to talk about this dish!

The primary inspiration for this little bite was finger limes, which I found at the farmers market. They are small (about the size of okra), are very fragrant and have thin, dark skin like an avocado. Inside, they are filled with little pearls that you can just scoop right out like caviar. So from the finger lime’s visual similarity to caviar I hopped over to thinking about what kind of a recipe I would like to make with caviar.

I love caviar paired with something equally rich – something that’s worthy of a treat. What I really wanted to put together was a scallop and uni crudo, topped with these lovely little pearls. But none of the local markets had uni this past week because the waters were pretty rough so the fishermen weren’t able to bring many in. When I started thinking about how to replace the sweet creaminess of uni, I immediately thought about either crème fraiche or a nice greek yogurt. I settled on crème fraiche for this recipe mostly because it’s easier to physically manipulate in the kitchen (translation: I can put it in a squeeze bottle to manage smaller, more precise plating than I can with greek yogurt). From there I really just played with a few ingredients to play up the sweetness of the fish and ensure freshness of the bite. 

I’m not very precise with measurements, so this really isn’t much of a recipe.

• I used 1 scallop for 3 bites, slicing the scallop laterally into thirds. If you prefer to do a little tartare with this recipe instead of a crudo, then I think ½ scallop per person is a better proportion. If you are cooking for a smaller group, then you can size up accordingly. I was preparing spoons for 30, so you can be much more generous when you prepare this at home. Little tip for y’all: I find its best to freeze the scallops for about 45 minutes to firm them up before trying to slice or dice them. 
• For the vanilla salt, I mixed salt with vanilla powder (or fresh scraping from 1 vanilla pod per tsp salt if you can’t find vanilla powder) in a 4:1 ratio. So ¼ tsp vanilla powder per 1 tsp salt. 
• The Vietnamese cilantro is subtly spicy, so you can use 2-3 leaves per bite. If you can’t find Vietnamese cilantro, then you can replace it with a slice of Serrano or jalapeno pepper, about 1/8” thick with few or no seeds. 
• For the citrus juice, I combined orange, lemon, and lime juice with a small amount of honey—do this to your taste. 

To make each bite, I placed a few cilantro leaves on a soup spoon, topped that with a slice of scallop, topped with a pinch of vanilla salt, little squirt of citrus juice, little squirt of crème fraiche, top with 3 or 4 slivers of celery, then a nice spoonful of the finger lime. If you would prefer to make a nice little tartare with the same flavors, then you can do a fine dice of the scallops and celery and a little chiffonade with the herbs rather than slicing. Then I would combine all of the ingredients except the finger lime and serve on a rice cracker, nori, or some thinly sliced vegetable like radish or cucumber. Should be delicious!

I can imagine this dish so many different ways. I was surprised that my sweetie, who doesn’t usually eat fish at all, was such a fan of this little snack. I’m sure it will become a new workhorse in our kitchen and something that is really simple to put together when we have company over.  

Oven Ribs and a Gin + Jam

It’s finally feeling like summer here in the Bay Area, which has me longing for some Texas summer traditions. Like tubing. And barbecue. So, since I have a nice long weekend thanks to Christopher Columbus, I figured I would take advantage by making an attempt at one of my favorite things left back in Texas: pork ribs. Specifically, I get cravings for the coriander pork ribs from Lambert’s (I know, I know…but that fancy place has some dang good ribs, y'all). 

Since moving to San Francisco means giving up a backyard with a porch and nice grill, today’s ribs are done in the oven. Actually, since respectable barbecue is done “slow and low”, oven cooking is a perfectly suitable method for recreating most ‘cue at home. The crock pot is also a great method for other cuts, like a pork shoulder, for the same reason. The thing that is harder to recreate at home is the smoke. Texas barbecue is all about getting smoke to penetrate the meat whereas most other regional 'cues are about specific styles of saucing. To tackle the smoke problem at home, you will have to choose one of two methods: kick up your rub with smokey characteristics or add liquid smoke to your rub. I typically choose the former, but if you want to incorporate liquid smoke you should select a mesquite smoke if you are after Texas 'cue characteristics. One warning  about the liquid smoke: liquid smoke is derived from an actual smoke process, so (just like real smoked meat) it will contain carcinogens. 

I’ve already said that the flavor profile I was going for was close to the Lambert’s ribs, so ground coriander features prominently in this rub. And with any barbecue pork, caramelization is also key, so we need to incorporate plenty of light brown sugar, molasses, or maple syrup into the rub. I use these basic proportions for all of my dry rubs and just replace the fundamental flavors depending on how I want to push the meat. For example, for a spicy pork shoulder, you could increase the pepper and replace the mustard with vinegar. Or if you want a richer flavor profile, you could skip the mustard and replace the coriander with cocoa powder or finely ground coffee. The quantities below should make enough rub to create a generous bark for any standard slab of pork spareribs, beef brisket, or small pork shoulder, but you can also stretch it to cover two slabs of ribs. 

Texas Pork Rub:

Mix all ingredients together into a bowl

• ¼ cup ground coriander

• 2 tablespoons salt (I used cedar smoked salt to get that smokey flavor kickin, but you can use plain kosher salt)

• 2 - 3 teaspoons ground pepper (I’m pretty casual with the pepper grinder at home, and pork is very forgiving, so no need for formalities here. I take my pepper grinder and just grind that sucker until the whole top of my mixing bowl is dusted)

• 2 teaspoons smoked paprika ( smoked paprika, or pimenton, is important. DO NOT use regular paprika please)

• 1 teaspoon cayenne pepper (these proportions can tolerate up to 1 tablespoon if you like the heat)

• ¾ cup light brown sugar

• ¼ cup vegetable oil or other neutral oil like canola or grapeseed

• 1/3 cup grainy mustard

For the Ribs: 

• Using your hands, take that rub and coat the meat all over
• Place the slabs onto a prepared sheet pan and cover with plastic wrap or foil for at least 1 or up to 8 hours
• When ready to cook, preheat oven to 300F
• Cover ribs with foil (*see note below about oven methodologies) and place ribs meat-side-up in prepared pan on middle rack in oven
• You’ll want to cook a slab of ribs for at least 2 ½ hours, until the meat is tender and ribs pull apart from each other easily; I like to leave mine covered in the oven for 2 hours, then remove the foil and continue to cook for 1 final hour. This method reduces the liquids in the pan and allows the top of the meat to get nice and candied
• Remove from oven once cooked to your liking and allow ribs to sit, tented with foil, for 10 minutes before digging in
• If you like, you can use those 10 minutes of waiting to reduce any liquids left in the pan. Once reduced to your liking, pour back over the ribs

Oh! Also…

I paired the ribs with a gin + jam cocktail. The jam I used was a homemade spicy plum jam with thyme, but you can use whatever jam or preserve you like. For the gin, I recommend something not too herbaceous and not too briny – Recently I’ve fallen in love with the Terroir gin from St. George, but Beefeater would be just fine as well. For the cocktail, take 2 ounces of that gin, shake with ice, 1 oz lemon juice, ½ oz simple syrup, and 1 teaspoon of your jam. Then strain all of that goodness into a glass, stirring in more jam if you like. Once you’ve mastered that, you can swap the gin for tequila and use orange marmalade instead of jam and this same recipe makes a delicious brunch libation!

* A few notes on oven cooking your ribs: There are a few different methodologies out there, I keep it simple and just wrap a rimmed baking sheet with foil, place the ribs meat-side-up on the sheet and cover snugly with foil. Other methods include placing the ribs, tented with foil, on a drying rack placed directly on the oven rack with a prepared pan underneath. The idea behind this method is that it allows air to fully circulate around the ribs. I imagine that if you are bought into this tactic that you could accomplish the same thing with a broiling pan, placing the pan one rack below the tray.