Reconsidering The Donut

If someone were to ask me what my favorite sweets are I'm not sure donuts would rank very high. Sure, there's cake and its more portable cousin the cupcake, pain au chocolate, ice cream, cookies in all their various forms, cobbler and its stupider cousin pie...but donuts? Unless it's fall and they're made with apple cider I can take them or leave them. However, I've recently realized that my issue isn't with donuts themselves. The problem is that I've been eating crappy ones. I blame the ubiquitous Dunkin Donuts for this development. They have saturated the donut market here in New England with their bland, crumbly donuts for too long! We need to rise up and demand hot, fresh donuts, the donuts we deserve. Where did this new found interest in donuts come from, you ask? 

A buttermilk cake donut at 11 pm is always a good decision

Last month James and I visited my cousin in Martha's Vineyard and then headed up to Maine for a few days. We also happened to eat a fair amount of delicious donuts. Martha's Vineyard Gourmet Cafe & Bakery came up with the brilliant/evil idea to sell fresh donuts out the back from 7:30 pm to 12:58 pm for the after bar crowd.

A post-donut walk around Oak Bluffs aids digestion

Back Door Donuts offers a variety of cake and yeast donuts as well as apple fritters bigger than your head (seriously). And if that's not enough you can also get your gigantic apple fritter topped with ice cream for maximum caloric consumption. Luckily, we only stayed two nights, otherwise I would have been forced to continue eating hot, fresh, delicious donuts at 1 in the morning and we can't let THAT happen. 

Several days later we were in downtown Portland, Maine and walked by The Holy Donut, which purported to sell potato donuts. By this point there was absolutely no hesitation on my part: "Oh, that place sells donuts? LET'S GO THERE." At first I thought they meant potato flour donuts but once inside we realized that they were made from real Maine mashed potatoes. I had the chocolate sea salt and James had the chocolate coconut. They were crispy on the outside and cakey and moist on the inside with just the right amount of sweet.  

Over the next few days we mentioned this place to friends and family who lived in the area and each time the reactions were intense: "Oh my GOD. I love that place. What did you get?" The more we talked about the donuts, the more we wanted, well, more. On our way back to Connecticut we made sure to stop at their original location. We got a savory cheddar and bacon-stuffed donut, a maple donut, and another chocolate sea salt because why not. 

However good you imagine this was, I assure you it was even better

I should have followed my instincts and gotten two of the cheddar bacon donuts, but I was dissuaded by James, who does not share my penchant for gluttony and thought it would be "too much." Note to self: never listen to James. 

Local Woman Marries Cookie. Film at 11

Yesterday was just one of those days. You know the kind: Things are going swimmingly for a while until one thing goes wrong, then another, and another until suddenly you're breaking out into a cold sweat with a tension headache coming on and that stupid dog next door just WON'T STOP BARKING.

You know, one of those days. 

So I took a much-needed breather and made Dorie Greenspan's World Peace cookies for the first time. Baking relaxes me. I like being able to follow step by step instructions that guarantee results. I've been burned by a few bad recipes in my day (I'm looking at you, Pinterest) but Food52 never disappoints and Dorie Greenspan is a baking legend. So naturally, I expected a lot from these cookies. I didn't expect to fall madly in love with them but, well, you can't predict these things. You bake a cookie, you're overcome by its deliciousness, and then all of a sudden its "What should we name our kids?" and "Would you ever consider converting?" 

The name comes from the idea that world peace would be possible if everybody ate one (or six) a day. I'm not sure these cookies will prevent a nuclear holocaust, but they definitely improved my mood. Even better, double the recipe and keep a few logs in the freezer. World peace may not be within reach, but the antidote to the day from hell sure is. 

The Best Roast Chicken I Have Ever Made

I'm not much into New Year's resolutions. For instance, this year I'm pretending to learn how to play Careless Whisper on the saxophone (though if anyone feels like teaching me how to play we can make this really happen) and actually sort of trying to use Twitter more. However, my friend Pete is determined to learn how to cook for himself this year and he enlisted me to help him achieve this goal. It has been an interesting exercise for both of us because he gets to ask all sorts of questions while I'm making something and I have to actually figure out how to answer them. In doing so I've realized just how much of my cooking skills came from watching my relatives. I've also come to really appreciate the fact that I grew up in a family where cooking and, well, food in general was kind of a big deal. If you aren't exposed to that on a regular basis I can see how cooking can be a bit of a mystery. 

So far we've made lasagna, marinara sauce, and roast chicken. I'm going to talk about the roast chicken because oh my God, it was amazing. Now, you may be thinking "What? A roast chicken? I've made that before. It's no big deal." Which is my point. This chicken is a big deal. This chicken will change your life. Ok, maybe not. But, if for some reason your life revolves around not being able to make the best roast chicken of all time, then this actually will change your life.

I actually have been interested in perfecting my roast chicken technique ever since I saw those lovely golden birds while in Paris last year. I could always make a perfectly serviceable bird, but it was never quite right--the skin was too soggy or the breast meat was too dry. Well, I'm proud to say that this chicken had a wonderfully golden, crispy skin along with the moistest meat (worst word combo ever) I've tasted. So I'm just going to go ahead and belatedly declare this my New Year's Resolution. Status: Accomplished.

Recipe Notes

I combined two recipes from Thomas Keller and Ina Garten and the result was the most golden, moist, and flavorful chicken I've ever had. I like Keller's method but it lacked any seasoning besides salt and pepper. I've made Ina's famous engagement chicken before but I liked this simpler recipe for lemon chicken which still makes use of the lemons and onions which provide the base of the incredible sauce that is served with the engagement chicken. Instead, this recipe includes home made croutons as an accompaniment, which I made using some bread I had baked earlier in the day.

For this recipe I used a kosher chicken which comes basically brined (more on that here). If your chicken isn't kosher I would strongly recommend brining it yourself (good how-to here) in order to get the moistest bird possible. In any case, make sure you spring for the highest quality bird you can get, as it really does make a difference. I also used my trusty grapeseed oil instead of the butter in Ina's version and the nothing in Keller's. I think it gave the chicken a nice, even golden brown color. 

Ingredients

1 3 1/2-4 pound chicken unwashed, at room temperature, with giblets removed

1 medium yellow onion, thickly sliced

1-2 lemons, cut into quarters

Kosher salt

Pepper

Grapeseed oil

Butcher's twine

Preparation

Preheat your oven to 450 degrees.

1. Dry chicken using paper towels both inside and out. Make sure to really dry the chicken as much as possible as any excess moisture will make your chicken skin soggy. 

2. Sprinkle inside and outside of chicken liberally with salt and pepper. 

3. Stuff cavity with lemons and onions

4. Brush chicken with grapeseed oil

5. Truss chicken with butcher's twine (great video here)

6. Place chicken breast side up on the roasting rack of a roasting pan and pour about a 1/3 a cup of water  or a couple of ice cubes into the pan. This will help keep your oven from getting too smokey during the cooking process. 450 degrees is super hot and my oven got pretty smokey from all that sizzling fat, but the water or ice cubes should help combat this a bit.

7. Cook chicken for 50-60 minutes, until the internal temp is 165. Try not to open the oven during the roasting process as that increases your cooking time and can dry the chicken out.

8. Remove twine and let rest for 15 minutes before serving.

9. Carve that sucker up and enjoy the BEST ROAST CHICKEN EVER.

I have a terrible aversion to leftovers but even I thought this chicken was still great the next day. Of course, after that I cracked and set about turning the Best Roast Chicken Ever into the Best Chicken Soup Ever, but that recipe will have to wait for another time.

P.S. I have a piece up on The Toast that I'm really proud of. Give it a read!

Food, Glorious (Trip) Food

It should come as no surprise that food is an integral part of my travel experience and even though I wrote a fair amount about some memorable culinary delights, there was still a lot I left out. The foods mentioned here (broken down by city) shaped my trip as much as strolling along the Seine or climbing to the top of Saint Paul's. 

London

As you may know, I started off my trip housesitting in North London for a great family with the most wonderful dog ever. Before the fam left I was invited to dinner where I was exposed to British-style oven roasted potatoes. 

This sounds so stupid because, I mean, I've definitely had oven roasted potatoes many times here in the states, but these were different. Thanks to a dusting of cornstarch and some good fat these crispy potatoes come closer in taste and texture to french fries. I knew from the first bite that I wanted to make my own when I got home and I found a great recipe here on BBC Good Food. I subbed grapeseed oil for the goose fat instead of olive oil because it has a higher smoking point. (That basically means that grapeseed can withstand a higher temperature than olive oil.) It worked like a charm when I made these with a roast chicken last month and they are by far the best potatoes I've ever made.

Paris

I've already talked about the croissants and the duck confit and the rotisserie chicken so I'm just gonna plug the pastries here. What kind? Doesn't matter. Try them alllll. Laduree's famous macarons were amazing as were the tarts from Eric Keyser, although I'm sure anything from either of these two places is divine. Check out this pistachio-apricot tart: 

So pretty! 

It's worth a trip to Laduree just to see the store (I got scolded for taking this photo). We bought eight macarons and they were gone within an embarrassingly short amount of time. Rose petal, violet, and orange blossom were my favorites just because they were so different, but the more traditional flavors like pistachio and caramel were equally delicious and intense. 

Munich

I'll admit: I wasn't expecting a whole lot food-wise from Oktoberfest aside from giant beers, sausages and strudel but I was pleasantly surprised by a couple of things:

Cheesy Spatzle, which is the egg-noodle-meets-gnocchi dish pictured on the right (also notice the half-chicken. I finally had one!) and knodel, grated potato dumplings served in the most delicious dark beer sauce were revelations:

Unfortunately, both of these dishes involve a maddening level of steps and require tools (ricer, spatzle-maker) I don't have so I won't be recreating either of these any time soon. However, James and I plan on checking out the Munich Haus in Chicopee, MA at some point and if they have even passable versions of these dishes you'll be the first to know. 

Prague

Like Munich, Prague is a part of the Bohemian region and thus shares many of the same foods (meat, potatoes, bread, repeat). For our first meal we wanted something authentic so we checked out local favorite Hastalsky dedek. I had the (crazy cheap) duck which came with two different kinds of weird dumplings (think canned bread) and some absolutely delicious red cabbage. I'd eat a bowl of it if I could. In addition, the menu's English translations were...interesting. 

I came for the red cabbage, but stayed for the pig-slaughtering bread. And of course, a trip to Prague would not be complete without this: 

THERE CAN ONLY BE ONE.

Vienna

We're still in the land of meat and potatoes, people, but now we have Austrian coffee. Viennese coffeehouse culture is a huge part of Vienna and is even listed as a UNESCO Intangible Heritage so yeah, it's a pretty big deal. 

I chose the Ubersturzter Neumann, or Upside down Neumann, partially for the name and mostly for the whipped cream, which is put into an empty coffee cup while a double mocha is poured over it. 

Many Austrian coffees have very specific instructions for their preparation and presentation, which can seem a little overwhelming at first but is all part of the fun.

During our visit to the famous Cafe Sperl our waitress gave us a little booklet called the ABC of Coffee which helped explain the extensive offerings while making Starbucks look like McDonald's dollar menu. 

Budapest

Confession: I had a pretty bad cold during our two days in Budapest so I didn't really experience much in the way of Hungarian cuisine. I did make sure to have goulash for dinner on our first night and, from what I could taste, it was good and spicy. But my appetite was rather wain for most of the trip. However, we spent a nice afternoon at 1000 Teas, a cozy tea room with the largest tea menu I have ever seen. I had a pot of elderberry tea which was supposed to help with colds and I was good as new within a few days.

We also had some pretty great Thai food on our last night night, which was a welcomed break from the meat-and-potatoes express.

Dubrovnik

I've already rhapsodized about the wine, bread, and cheese so now I'm going to talk about the ham. Specifically, Dalmatian ham:

A thick-cut, smoked ham reminiscent of prosciutto, Dalmatian ham is a Croatian specialty and was featured on nearly every menu we saw. 

Dubrovnik also has a great selection of high end restaurants (many of which were out of our price range) but we had a particularly memorable meal at Lucin Kantun, a Mediterranean tapas-style restaurant that included a delicious stuffed squid and beef carpaccio. 

For our last meal in the walled city we decided to try something different and checked out Taj Mahal, a misleadingly named Bosnian restaurant. The food was a bit of a mix between Turkish and Greek--lots of spiced mets, phyllo, and yogurt. Katie ordered the sausages pictured above, which were a highlight, along with the teeny baked potatoes topped with thick yogurt.  

Rome

Oh Rome, I could write about your food forever. Instead, I'm  limiting myself to only three things:

We stopped at a random cafe for breakfast on our way to the Colosseum and happened upon the best breakfast pastry of the trip: coronetto (little horn) alla marmellata--a sort of Italian version of the croissant filled, in this case, with some kind of red jam or jelly. I'm not exactly sure what it was, actually. Marmellata can refer to what we think of as orange marmalade along with jam and conserves, but it didn't distinctly taste like raspberry or strawberry. If anything, it was some kind of mysterious red stuff. And man was it good. My cousin and I each had one and then we each got another before we left because well, when in Rome! 

We had the BEST meal at Nipotino del Solitario, a tiny traditional family-run restaurant in the Esquiline neighborhood. Everything was fresh, home-cooked authentic Italian food at a very reasonable price, but the carbonara was outstanding. So, so good. I still dream about this dish. I'll be dreaming about it for the rest of my life. In fact, I need to go make some carbonara right now....

(Twenty minutes later)

Nope. Not as good.

We had our second best meal at Piccolo Arancio an inventive and reasonably priced restaurant near the Trevi fountain, an area that can be a bit of a tourist trap. I had lasagna with saffron and zucchini flowers (a long-standing obsession) which was light and flavorful. 

Despite all this indulgence, I actually lost weight on this trip thanks to the hours of daily walking. But even if I hadn't it still would have been totally worth it.