What I Ate For Dinner

Some recipes shouldn't be fiddled with. When simplicity is best, modification means degeneration. Perhaps this is never more true than when it comes to caramelized onions, beef stock, red wine and a crouton. It seems unthinkable that French onion soup could ever be improved. And since it's so easy to make, there's no reason to deviate from the mainstream at all. At all! Whereas some staples of the bistro menu are quite toilsome to prepare at home (pommes frites, for example), French onion soup operates on the opposite end of the work-to-reward index as a simple dish that always delivers. That's probably why it was one of the first things I loved cooking. Even with little experience or technique, the sublime virtues of an impeccable French onion soup were immediately within reach. So why corrupt it, even a little?

I'm sentimental about lots of things, but food isn't typically one of them. And yet, this time I feel like I'm bludgeoning something I truly love. But I gotta. I guess somewhere around the 543rd time I made French onion soup, I got tired of something. It's too heavy, too onion-y, too much of one (very good) thing. And the cheese always burns under the broiler, which is cool to some people, but less cool to clean up. So I wondered if a bit of balance might make the onion shine even brighter. I thought of carrot: mild flavor, great color (which this hoary specimen could use) and not too much of anything else to blot out the onion. And then I thought I'd tone down the onion a bit, too, by going with shallot instead. I figure shallots are more pungent, have a finer texture and are lighter than onions. They also caramelize a lot quicker (thanks to their small surface area, I suppose). And there you have it, the makings of a new-school French onion soup (of sorts). To do this the old-fashioned way, just use onions and leave out the carrot.

If you've never done this before, you probably need a lot more shallots/onions than you think you do. By the time you cook them down, you'll be left with about a quarter (or so) of the volume that you started with. That's a guess, but the point is that these guys will disappear on you. So put a bunch in even though we're trying to lighten things up. I probably add about a cup of raw chopped shallot per serving. Check the video for the visual.

Then caramelize the shallots. I mean really. They need to be about as close to burned as possible, without, of course, crossing the line. Something like a milk chocolate color--deep brown--is what you want. Some of the edges on a few shards may even go over to the dark side. That's ok since deep cartelization is absolutely essential. A big pot with lots of surface area on the bottom will help--something like a sauté pan is a good idea. Season as you go with salt and pepper. I noticed that my shallots got there in about 15 minutes (two servings), much quicker than when I've used onions.

Once the shallots are close to fully caramelized, add the half-inch dice of carrot. Your call on how much, although I'd say you need about the same volume of raw carrot as you have caramelized shallots (if not more). Move them around the pan and let them get a bit of color before rolling in with the liquids. You can add a few (go light) shards of beef at this point if you have some to use up; it's a good addition, though not of the essence.

As for the liquids: start with beef stock and follow up with a few good glugs of red wine. Dust it off with a few sips of balsamic. Season with salt and pepper and allow the liquids to reduce on a medium simmer for at least 15 minutes, but preferably longer.

You'll know it's done when it tastes right. I like some sweetness from the aromatics, and palpable body from the stock and wine, too. I guess balance and body are the key terms here. It should be full flavored, so keep reducing if the taste remains too thin. You'll know when you're there.

Traditionally, you pour the soup into an ovenable crock, top with a hunk of bread, utterly overwhelm with cheese, and then slide the whole deal under the broiler. And this works. But an easier way to do it is to slice a baguette lengthwise, place the bread on a cookie sheet, top with Gruyere or Emmentaler Swiss, and bake until the cheese melts. A vegetable peeler is good for shaving off thin slices of cheese. Easier cleanup, lighter food, similar cheesy result.

All soups are basically a lie. The best and the worst, the patrician and the plebian, all originate from a fundamental dishonesty. Soup represents cheap, scrappy, gnarled hunks as (somehow) full-flavored, colorful and balanced bites. Making soup is like laundering dirty food: you know what you put in there and where it came from, but you hope no one asks because you're trying to disguise it. The keys to good soup are choosing chunks and knobs of meat, vegetables and herbs that work well together, (hopefully) having some good stock around, and seasoning it all right. To be a good soup maker, you have to think like a good counterfeiter: the final product is all that matters, but it has to appear to be a carefully considered, cohesive morsel even if its constituents are no more than scraps that have passed their peak. People gotta believe that your soup comes from nothing but the best, and the best soups taste like they do (even when they don't). You can't be indiscriminate in combining your ingredients, though, or you'll get caught. After all, soup isn't a trash heap; it's a crucible. Take the beef and barley variety, for instance. It's a marvelous example of how a few basic staples available fresh year-round can produce a result exponentially better than the sum of its parts. And the ingredient line-up with this one is open to interpretation: corn would be good,for example, and the roasted bell peppers, though excellent, are not the difference between success and failure.

Start by tossing chopped bell pepper and tomato in salt, pepper and olive oil, and then roasting them at 450 degrees for about 15-20 minutes. The pieces on the edges might get a bit burned, but most should only darken and soften. Be careful about this: once a burned flavor shows up in a soup, it never leaves.

While the peppers and tomato are roasting, sauté shallot and carrots in a sauté pan until the shallots are blonde/brown. Then add the roasted bell peppers and tomatoes, barley, and beef cut into (roughly) one-inch cubes (I used tri-tip since that's what I had, and I wouldn't use anything more expensive than that for this soup. Sirloin or chuck would also work). Finish with chopped fresh sage or rosemary, and season with salt and pepper.

Now add your liquids: beef stock (about 1qt per two-three portions), a healthy glug of full-bodied red wine, and some balsamic vinegar. Simmer on low to moderate heat for about a half-hour.

After a half-hour, taste it. Reseason as necessary. Optionally, you can squeeze a few drops of lime juice in at the end to brighten the flavors and bind the soup. Serve it up with a toasted baguette.

Bisque is something of a beautiful liar, which is probably why I adore it so much. Sashaying smooth and hearty, a well-tended bisque transcends the homely profile of its constituent parts to become a most toothsome morsel on par with any of the bistro all-stars. But like so many sexy beasts, its graceful appearance camouflages a truly desperate, brutal and violent past. Screaming crustaceans. Crunching skeletons. Sharp whirling blades. Gelatinous magma. These are the steps along the way, classically, to one of the titans of polite cuisine. And what with high-priced lobster and a boiling column of tornadic puree, the opportunity for calamity and ruin has always followed closely those daring enough to attempt this most noble of soups. Tonight, I offer a small adjustment that I hope will make bisque, so deserving of affection, a bit easier to dance with at home. Instead of lobster, shrimp or crayfish bisque (classics, all), I announce instead: clam bisque.

Clams rarely appear in bisque, a scene dominated instead by shrimp and lobster. There may be industrial reasons. After all, if you owned a restaurant that served shrimp cocktails and surf 'n turf entrees on Saturday night, then you might wonder if you could make a buck or two (or 13) at Sunday brunch with all those unsightly shells you had to trash in the name of a pristine primetime plate. It follows that, classically, shrimp and lobster bisques metabolize kitchen waste. The base of bisque is the flavor extracted from pounds of shrimp or lobster shells that would otherwise be discarded. Then, one adds a few whole pieces (that is, shell-on) of the crustacean, purees the whole deal, strains it through cheesecloth, and brings it back up to temperature with a touch of cream. Only then is shrimp or lobster bisque served to a gleeful diner with studs of the eponymous seafood.

There are at least two obvious problems with this method for the at-home chef. First, who'd ever pay for a whole lobster with bisque in mind? You're probably not swimming in lobster at home, which means you've gotta buy fresh ones destined for bisque. Such would be counter to the spirit of things, for, clearly, lobster bisque grew out of the need to somehow make saleable "stiffs" (recently deceased lobs). Restaurateurs would never dream of droppin' a high-dollar lobster in soup, so why should you? Second, unless you have an industrial-grade food processor, you might have some trouble pureeing whole lobster, shell 'n all. Traditionally, mind you, the whole shebang gets ground up. So, I'd say that the restaurant method is fine--for them. But I've got a cheaper, easier, more sensible method for the rest of us.

Use clams! Sure, you won't be able to steep their shells for flavor extraction as per traditional bisque protocol, but your soup will be blessed with the wonderful flavor of the clam liquor that accrues in the shells. This will more than compensate for skipping the usual shell steeping step, and render an otherwise unwieldy preparation much simpler. And clams are almost always cheaper than lobster, and sometimes cheaper than shrimp. The following is sort of based on a recipe for shrimp bisque in The Professional Chef.

Start by sautéing chopped shallot and carrot in butter until the shallots are blonde-brown. Then add a chopped clove or two of garlic, and continue sautéing for a minute or so on medium heat. Once the garlic gets some color, add in some tomato paste--a few good spoonfuls. Stir that up and, as with the demi and stock, allow the vegetables to turn a rusty brown color as the tomato paste cooks. Deglaze with enough cognac/brandy to put a good coat on the bottom of the pan. Once the cognac has mostly reduced down, throw a few handfuls of flour over the veggies to make a simple roux. Stir the thick, pasty result over medium heat for a minute or two.

Now deglaze with fish stock and add the clams (along with their all-important liquor). For four portions, I used a quart of fish stock and one pound (before shucking) of clams. Check this page if you need a few pointers on clam shucking. Add fresh herbs at this point, too, if you feel like it. Season and reseason with salt and pepper. Bring to a boil and then adjust the heat so that you just have a slow, even and relatively gentle simmer. Allow the bisque to simmer like so for about 30 minutes. Then cool until lukewarm-ish.

Transfer the (at least mostly) cooled bisque to a food processor or blender. Get the lid on there. Good. I mean real good. Put your big paw on it, too. You do not want bisque going everywhere when you flick the switch. Puree until smooth.

Put the pureed bisque back in the pan on the stove. Whisk in some cream--perhaps a half-pint 'er so for four portions? I dunno, I guess I used a little less than a half-pint. Anyway, it doesn't take that much. Bring the bisque up to temperature slowly, on low heat, while whisking occasionally. If it's not thick enough, whisk in a simple uncooked roux (made from mixing equal parts oil and flour) until you get 'er where you want 'er.

If you'd like a handsome escort for your bisque, you might consider an olive tapenade spread over a toasted baguette. The tapenade can be made in a food processor or by hand. In either event, start with black olives, capers and sardines. Chop--either with a trusty shank or in the food processor. Mix that with olive oil, fresh chopped herbs (sage is great) and fresh cracked pepper. Hold back on the salt--sardines are usually salty, as are capers and sometimes olives, too. Finish 'er off with some fresh lime juice, and mix it up caveman style. Then spread over the baguette.

The French call stock one of the "fonds de cuisine," or foundations of cooking. Without it, many soups, sauces, braises and the like would be unthinkable. A lovingly made stock will reward its producer with color, aroma and flavor unattainable by any other means. What's more: stock requires little expense, technique or equipment. All you're doing is transferring flavor from solids (vegetables, bones, meat) to a liquid (water). Over the centuries, a few helpful do's and don'ts have emerged, making it a pretty-close-to-fail-proof operation, but it does take a hell of a lot of time. Mostly unattended, but time nonetheless. The following preparation would work for veal or chicken stock, too, with the only difference being a substitution of bones.

If you could make only one stock, it would ideally be veal stock. That's the versatile, classic French brown stock, as well as the traditional base of demi-glace, the versatile, classic French sauce. The thing is, unless you have a caged calf or two in your backyard that you feel like slaughtering, you may have some problems getting your hands on the eight or so pounds of veal bones requisite for stock-making. Call around to butchers and see what they're charging. For me, veal bones are out of the question if they're going to multiply the cost of the stock by several times. Stocks, after all, are supposed to be cheaply had as the metabolism of kitchen detritus (veggie scraps, knuckly bones, etc). Paying a butcher several dollars a pound for bones seems to violate the spirit of things.

The CIA's cookbook, The Professional Chef, tells us that "bones from younger animals [like veal] contain a high percentage of cartilage and other connective tissues that break down into gelatin during simmering and give the stock body. Knuckle, back, and neck bones are good for stock making." If you have all manner of bones to choose from, heed this sage advice. If your goal is to make a stock that uses up kitchen scraps, though, you might try to make something the night before that will yield a stockable bone or two. Roast a whole chicken, for example, braise some shanks, or roast a rack (or two) of beef ribs. Any of these will provide you with a bunch of bones to use for stock. Slow and steady more your pace? Then "stockpile" bones in your freezer like a serial killer. You want a lot of bones: eight pounds of bones per gallon of stock would be a ballpark number, but in practice, you basically want as many bones as will fit into your stock pot. A little meat on those bones is good, too.

Once you have your bones in order, rinse 'em, dry 'em and roast 'em. You want a deep brown color, but no burned blackness. This should take around 30 or so minutes at 350.

Then, place them in a stock pot and fill 'er up with enough cold water to slightly submerge the bones. Leave some clearance for the vegetables you'll add later, too. You must use cold water in stock. Cold water is more limpid than warm or hot to begin with, and second, cold water allows for a slower rise in cooking temperature, thereby allowing impurities in or on the bones to float to the surface where they can easily be skimmed off.

While the bones and water are heating up, sauté mirepoix in a separate vessel (mirepoix is a rough dice of 50% onion, 25% carrot and 25% celery). You want to sauté these until the onions get some good golden coloration. Once the mirepoix is well colored, slather a few spoonfuls of tomato paste over them and cook for a minute or so. As the tomato paste cooks, it will give a rusty, burnt orange color to the mirepoix.

At this point there are two schools of thought. The Professional Chef says that you should deglaze the mirepoix pan with enough simmering stock water to submerge the vegetables, and then simmer the mirepoix and bones in liquid separately for five hours. With this method, you only combine the vegetables and the bones for the last hour of simmering. Says the august cookbook: "adding the aromatics [to the pot of simmering bones] at this point [after five hours of separate simmering] will allow enough time for the best flavor to be extracted but not so much time that the flavor is broken down and destroyed."

The CIA is probably right and we should probably simmer two separate pans for five hours. I cheated, though. After adding the tomato paste, I deglazed the mirepoix pan with a bit of water from the stock pot, ran a wooden spoon around the bottom to release as many of the encrustations as possible, and added the mirepoix to the stock pot with the bones immediately. Whichever method you use, add a few sprigs of thyme (well rinsed), and a few whole peppercorns once you have the vegetables and bones in the same pot. Bay leaf would be a good idea, too.

There are a few things to keep in mind while simmering your stock. You want the lowest simmer possible. A few bubbles breaking the surface from time to time, and that's it. A vigorous boil will disperse fatty globules throughout the stock, lending a greasy feel to the final product. If you keep it on a low simmer, you'll be able to easily skim off the fat that floats to the top. Skimming the scuzz is only necessary about every hour or so. Never add salt.

Let the stock simmer for about 6-8 hours, if not longer. For beef stock, some recipes say to go as long as ten hours. I let mine go for around seven. Taste it regularly to get a sense of how the flavors are coming together. When you're done simmering, you need to filter out as much particulate as possible. Particles in the stock not only detract from its clarity, but also shorten its shelf life because they turn sour. To strain, sling a scrap of cheesecloth over a colander set atop another stock pot. For extra peace of mind, secure the cheesecloth with a rubber band or kitchen twine. Remove the bones before straining. Then pass the liquid through the cheesecloth and into the second pot in a slow, steady stream. Repeat this two or three times to maximize clarity. Any remaining fat will float to the top under refrigeration and can be easily skimmed off as a solid.

Stock, as you've probably noticed by now, is not the sort of thing you'll feel like making everyday. Having some on hand is a great asset, but when you don't, you still want to make sure to steer clear of canned or dried bullion if at all possible. Those guys are just too salty. If you're interested in shorter cooking times, consult Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything. He has an expedited chicken stock, for example, that he says can be done in an hour. I've never tried it, but since time is the only thing between you and great stock, it might be worth a shot. Another shortcut: find someone who sells good stock. Anything commercially packaged (either in cardboard canteens or cans) is bound to be of inferior quality, but some butcher shops sells passable (if not better) stocks. If you happen across one, try it out to see if their stock is worth a damn.

It seems to me, though, that some flavors can only emerge with time. There remain few shortcuts by which to imitate the depth and complexity of a sauce or soup made with a slow-simmered, lovingly tended stock.

The Baron and I took a little holiday in Carmel, California this weekend. Carmel is a wonderful, relaxing spot for a vacation, although the median age of visitors does seem to skew to the over 60 crowd it embraces. It also pretty much maxes out on the "how-bourgeois-can-you-be" index, so there's a bit of vacationland overkill to deal with. Not to mention that we've had a few problems in the past (insolent maitre d's, redonculous prices; mediocre food; unconscionable bar-tending shortcuts) in Carmel. That said, Carmel still has great weather, a great beach, and a beautiful downtown.

The goal this time was to strategize: instead of seeking out the "best-of," we tended toward the affordable (as inflated as that can be in a tourist town), meaning, for all practical purposes, places with lots of entrees under $15-20, good appetizers to share, and friendly and attentive service. Carmel seems at times to struggle in providing these, but I think we found some keepers.

Also, it bears mentioning that hotels come down in price quite a bit in the tourist off-season (roughly the winter months through April 1). We found a 30% off any night of the week promotion, and another that was 15% off for one night, 25% off two nights, and 30% off a three night stay. Another hotel had a stay two nights, get the third free deal. It seems that since vacation destinations are often close to B&B saturation, off-season accommodations can become nearly as affordable as anywhere.

Friday night, we went to A.W. Shucks, a seafood restaurant/oyster bar. It's a good value for the money, and the service is very friendly and attentive (not a given in Carmel, where service varies widely). We started with the clam chowder, and I have to say theirs wasn't as good as the Baron's. You can really tell the difference when you use fresh clams--but what can you do? We also had the fried calamari, which was excellent (so good, in fact, that we went back for a calamari snack again on our second night). Look for a post soon on a homemade Baronial edition.

Saturday morning, we had breakfast at the Village Corner, which we go to at least once on every trip to Carmel. The service is good and the prices are very reasonable. The patio seating is a plus, especially when the weather is as perfect as it was on this trip. I had the breakfast burrito and the Baron had the Eggs Benedict. Their coffee is better than you usually find in a breakfast place, too.

Saturday night, we decided to get some firewood and have a picnic on the beach. Patisserie Boissiere has a picnic lunch menu, which is quite good and downright cheap. The Baron had the cold roast beef and I had the Carmel Garden Sandwich. Their desserts looked very good, and their restaurant menu was quite nice, so I suspect we'll be going back on our next trip.

I've included some pictures of the sunset and the fire below. Carmel lets you have beach fires below 10th Avenue and until 10 p.m., and alcohol (and even glass) is allowed on the beach. Lessons learned from this trip: bring twice as much wood as you think you'll need and build the fire as far away from the ocean as you can, because high tide comes up higher than you'd think.

As for accommodations, we spent the first night at the Monte Verde Inn, where we've stayed before. Our favorite room is #11, which has a gas fireplace and a shared deck with a good view, especially at sunset. Room #12 also shares the deck, so it's a good second choice if #11 is taken.

The second night, we stayed in the Tree-Top Room at the Lamp Lighter Inn. A big nice room, although the private deck faces away from the ocean. The staff at was very friendly and attentive. They brought us a bottle of white wine and went out of their way to provide a towel and fire starters when they heard we were going down to the beach.

Clam Chowder is a simple soup, though often outrageously overpriced. I was in New York recently and stopped in on a brisk afternoon in Times Square for a bowl and it set me back half the price to see Plácido Domingo at the Met. Granted, I only paid $25 for a standing room ticket; but still: we're dealing with one of the cheapest shellfish, some root vegetables, a bit of stock, some milk and half and half. Needless to say, making it yourself will not only save some cash, but in all likelihood, will also yield something better than what's commercially available. Bon courage!

Now, dealing with the clams is no doubt the toughest part of this preparation. The best option is to buy fresh clams and shuck them yourself. This takes a bit of technique. The video I reference while cooking in my video has since been removed from Youtube. This is a shame, since it was quite informative, but rest assured that there are several different methods for opening and shucking a clam, many of which can still be found on Youtube or in cookbooks.

The basics of clam shucking are pretty straightforward. There are two muscles attached to the top and bottom shell, and these are what you need to sever to remove the clam. Ideally, you'll be able to get a shucking knife in the front of the clam (that is, the rounded side, not the flat area in the back where the joint is). You need not pry the whole clam open, and remember not to spill the the liquor. Once you've inserted the shucking knife into the front of the clam, scrape it along the top of the shell, cutting both muscles that attach the clam. Then open or twist the top shell, and run the knife along the bottom, again releasing the clam from the two muscles attaching it to the shell. This can take some practice, and as I mention, there are all sorts of methods of entry explained elsewhere online, in cookbooks and on Youtube.

But please be advised: you should use a folded towel in your non-shucking hand (that is, the hand holding the clam, not the knife) for safety until you get the hang of it (and maybe even after that). You can also open the clam from behind by inserting the knife near the joint, although this is less elegant than approaching from the front and can lead to more shell debris.

At any rate, I think you'll find it's pretty straightforward once you've knocked a few out. The important part is to avoid sand and shell debris, and conserve the wonderful liquor that accrues in the shell of the clam. That way, you'll have some great clam meat as well as some additional clam flavoring. You can, if you must, use those strange clams that grow in jars, too.

After that, it's about as easy as it can be. Here's the recipe, based on Mark Bittman's (How to Cook Everything, pp. 69-70):

1. Render the fat out of diced bacon. Remove bacon solids, leaving the rendered fat for the vegetables. Sauté shallots, sweet potatoes and corn in the fat until soft and colored.
2. Add a thick dusting of flour and chopped fresh herbs (rosemary, thyme, etc.) on top of the vegetables. Add enough stock--chicken, veggie, or fish--to submerge vegetables. Stir, allowing the stock to reduce and cook the potatoes until soft. At this point, turn off the heat and allow the pan to cool, so as not to scald the milk.
3. Add one part half/half and one part milk, as well as the clams with their liquor (I usually go with about a half pound per portion). Turn heat back on low or medium-low, allowing the soup to subtly simmer. Add balsamic if desired. Stir regularly.
4. The soup is at its thickest when it "boils." This doesn't mean a rolling boil, like water on high heat, but a few bubbles on the surface as the soup simmers.
5. If you would like a thicker soup, add a simple roux (equal parts olive oil and flour). Mix in roux and simmer until you achieve desired consistency.
6. Before service, reincorporate diced bacon. Garnish with herbs and diced bacon. Serve with a well-toasted baguette.