14th Street NW

The bustling 14th Street corridor is also adding some interesting food stores and my intrepid neighbors venture across the park to explore them.

Smucker Farms, located in the Amish country of Pennsylvania's Lancaster County, has opened an outlet at 2118 14th St. (at V), which carries meat, dairy and baked products from the Amish farms, and the usual assortment of jams, pickles and other farmer's market products. I got some uncured bacon, a slab of ham, and other goodies for a surprisingly high tab. I'm sure the quality is good, and I know you have to pay premium prices for these small-production foods. But I do have a bit the feeling, as I do at the Dupont Circle farmer's market, that the vendors are testing the upper limits of what they can charge. We'll see how prices develop here as time goes on.

There is also a nice little bakery, Le Caprice, at 3460, worth further exploration.

It is of course in these gentrifying neighborhoods that interesting new shops will spring up. It certainly bears monitoring.

I'm still waiting for a real butcher -- someone who displays the meat in the case and to whom you can talk about getting odd cuts. For instance, Molly Stevens has a porchetta recipe that calls for a boneless pork loin with the belly flap attached and the skin on. She readily concedes you can't get this from your normal supermarket butcher, and I'm betting that this is yet another test Wagshal's will flunk. Nor have I been impressed by the two "butcher shops" in Alexandria. There is a meat renaissance going on in the real food meccas but it looks like we still have to wait here in poor old DC.

Penne with red and yellow pepper sauce

From The Italian Farmer's Table again, super simple: Brush 2 red bell peppers and 2 yellow bell peppers with olive oil and roast 30 min. in 425-degree oven. Put in plastic bag for 20 min. and peel and cut into strips. Saute 2 peeled garlic cloves in 2 Tbl olive oil until golden then add pepper strips for 5 min. Put all in blender to purree. Return to skillet and add 1/4 c. heavy cream, salt and pepper and warm through. Cook and drain the pasta. Drain and toss with the sauce, adding 1/4 c. parmesan and topping with 1 Tbl. chopped oregano.

Blue44, Take 2

At a neighbor's insistence, we tried Blue44 again and I have to say the neighbor was right. It deserved a second look after a rather desultory experience last spring when it first opened. Perhaps it is the new chef, or simply hitting their stride.

The menu had a number of appealing items on it, but I started with something that does not appear on the menu and which was really terrific -- the gumbo soup. The chef is from New Orleans and this is a flavorful, spicy concoction with big chunks of chicken and andouillet, hot peppers and onions and, presumably, gumbo filet. It is offered, when available, as a soup of the day, and that's one diem that should be carpe-d at every opportunity.

Then the dilemma of what to do next, because it is a filling starter. One in our party who also had the gumbo wisely chose another starter, a homemade merguez on baguette. It was a modest portion but looked very tasty. Another gumbo eater wisely chose the half-sandwich option available only for the grilled cheese of the day -- in this case with braised beef as well as cheese between the toasty bread. This looked more ample and surely would have completed a meal for a normal appetite.

I rather unwisely, from the point of view of quantity, chose the black velvet chicken, a sandwich so named because a breaded chicken cutlet is topped with a truffled goat cheese and a fig jam on baguette. The chicken needed salt -- and this is hard to correct on a sandwich -- but it was a great combination and I managed to do it justice by leaving some of the bread. I will say that the baby back ribs ordered by another in our party, smoked with a dry rub and glistening with a non-tomato sauce, looked very tasty -- and were devoured with great relish by the lucky recipient. It means that I will have to go back again soon to try them.

It was rainy Saturday lunch so that even though the restaurant was surprisingly full, it was not overcrowded or noisy. The decor and ambiance are pleasant. There is a certain amount of distraction and noise that will be unavoidable in a family-friendly neighborhood restaurant, but I think it can be a good target late on weekday evenings or for this type of Saturday lunch. The quality can compete with Buck's and the menu offers a great deal more variety.

Risotto with caramelized onions and gorgonzola

This was another recipe from The Italian Farmer's Table, also simple enough for a weekday. It is a rich risotto and very tasty. The trick is to caramelize red onions by taking 3 thinly sliced red onions and putting them into a skillet with 3 Tbl melted butter, coating them and letting soften over medium heat for 5 min. Then you add a pinch of salt, reduce the heat to low, cover and cook for about 30 min., stirring occasionally. Then you raise the heat to medium high, add 1 c. ruby port and let the onions simmer for another 25 min. They reduce quite a bit in volume and the liquid completely evaporates.

During this last part, make the risotto. This recipe has you saute 1 finely "diced" medium yellow onion in 2 Tbl of butter in a 12-in. saute pan for 8 to 10 min., then add 2 c. arborio rice and cook for another 2 to 3 min. You then pour in 1/2 c. dry vermouth and let that evaporate before you start to add the 1 qu. chicken broth, ladle by ladle. I don't do risotto often enough and my technique still needs some work. The rice was cooked al dente but too dry; I needed to add more liquid to keep it creamy at the end.

To finish, you stir in 1 more Tbl butter, 1/4 c. parmesan and the caramelized onions. You serve and top with 4 oz. crumbled gorgonzola. It's a great dish if you like caramelized onions and risotto (and gorgonzola!) as much as we do.

Roasted pork tenderloin with grape sauce

Pork tenderloin has got to be one of the easiest, best-tasting cuts of meat to cook, but acquiring it has become something of an art here. Whole Foods gets its delivery on Wednesday, but, as one of their butchers patiently explained to me some time ago, the relatively small shipment of pork tenderloin has to be allocated among all the WF stores in the city.

As a result, the tenderloin is almost always gone by the weekend. This effectively means that if you want tenderloin, you have to shop for it on Wednesday or Thursday. Last weekend, for instance, our first choice was tenderloin, but no dice, so we had to settle for rack of lamb (sigh).

So when I was shopping Thursday I got a single tenderloin for us and tried a simple little recipe from The Italian Farmer's Table by Matthew Scialabba and Melissa Pellegrino, which purports to have gathered home recipes from farms in Northern Italy that host paying guests.

I actually used the roasting technique from Molly Stevens' Roasting, which is the recipe that caught my eye last weekend. She browns the tenderloin on all 4 sides over 8 minutes and puts on a sheet pan to roast at 350 degrees for 15 to 20 min (she actually says 13 to 18) or to 140 to 145 degrees. The other book has you brown it on one side, then turn over, put two pats of butter on the cooked side, and stick the skillet in the oven. Six of one, etc., but I liked the idea of actually browning it on all sides. Scialabba and Pellegrino specify grapeseed oil for the browning and since we had a small bottle tucked away in the pantry, I used that.

In both cases, you salt and pepper beforehand. Stevens even recommends seasoning several hours beforehand, but I didn't manage to do that. Let me parenthetically add that I've become a true believer in sea salt (as opposed to kosher salt) and believe it truly does enhance the flavor. It was Sara Jenkins who made this point forcefully in Olives and Oranges. There are some people who think it doesn't make any difference, but I'm pretty sold on it.

What I liked about the Farmer's Table recipe was the grape sauce. You take 1 c. of grapes (red, green or mix) and put them in the skillet with a little salt for 3 to 5 min., until they start to give up their juices, then you swirl in 1 Tbl honey mustard, 1 Tbl warm water and 1 Tbl chopped thyme and cook together for 1 min. When the tenderloin is done, you let it rest a few minutes, then slice and spoon the sauce over the slices.

The photo in the book (I often start using a new cookbook by taking the ones that are photographed first) showed what looked like sauteed apple wedges on the plate as well. I could have just sauteed some apple wedges but I sneaked a quick peek at a tenderloin recipe in Anne Willan's Regional French Cooking, which she accompanies with caramelized apple rings. You don't peel the apples, but just core them and slice into thick rings. You dip one side in 2 Tbl of sugar and put into a skillet with 2 Tbl butter, cover and cook at high heat for 3 to 5 min., then sprinkle the top side with more sugar, turn over, cover and cook (be careful, the second side cooks much faster and mine got a little dark).

We had with a green salad and a Mondavi fume blanc.

Chicken baked in yogurt with spinach

I haven't done too many specifically Greek dishes and I'm not sure Modern Greek by Andy Harris is as kitchen-tested as some of the bigger names in cookbook writing, but this was a pretty good recipe.

It calls for 4 bone-in chicken breasts (meaning halves of course) that you brown in a skillet where you have sauteed 2 sliced onions in 2 Tbl. olive oil and removed them with a slotted spoon. You put the browned chicken breasts with the onions into an oven proof dish and cover that with a yogurt mix.

Now Harris either has runnier Greek yogurt that I got at Whole Foods or he has cheesecloth that's much more porous, because I got nowhere with his direction to strain 2 lbs (4 c.) of Greek yogurt through a cheesecloth. I don't think a steamroller could have gotten that stiff yogurt through the cheesecloth. I finally was able to strain it through a sieve (and not my finest sieve), though since he gives no explanation of why you strain it I'm not sure what it achieved. Just beating it would have smoothed it and made it more fluid, if that was the objective.

So anyway you add 2 cloves finely chopped garlic, 3 Tbl. all-purpose flour, 2 tsp. dried mint, 1 tsp. ground cumin, salt, pepper, and 2 lightly beaten eggs to the yogurt and mix well. This is the mix you spread over the chicken and onions. You sprinkle 2 Tbl. of grated parmesan (or kefalotiri if you happen to have that) and pop it into a 350-degree oven for 40 min.

As always, these breasts from WF were huge, so I left the chicken in the oven nearly an hour and the yogurt mix was just set and browned. I could only guess how much salt to use in the yogurt mix and I erred on the low side; next time I think I would just salt and pepper the chicken directly after browning. My mint flakes were evidently 10 years old because they contributed nothing.

The recipe also calls for 2 bunches of steamed fresh spinach as an accompaniment. This was great and we had a green salad, too.

Roasted rack of lamb with spiced honey glaze

What a special treat! We liked the double rack pork rib roast so much we wanted to try another recipe from Molly Stevens' new book, Roasting.

For this one, you combine 1/4 c. honey, 2 Tbl. butter, 1 tsp. paprika, 1 tsp. cumin seed (toasted and ground), 1/4 tsp. ground ginger and a pinch of cayenne. You sprinkle the 2 1 to 1-1/2 lb. racks (8 ribs each) with salt and pepper, brush half the glaze onto the racks and put into a 425-degree oven. After 10 min. baste with the drips of glaze and check temperature every 5 min. to get to about 135 for medium rare.

Add 3 Tbl. lemon juice and 2 minced garlic cloves to the remaining glaze in a saucepan, bring to a simmer and reduce to a syrup, season. Rest the racks of lamb then carve and dribble with glaze syrup and sprinkle with chopped mint. I carved double chops and used chopped parsley because I couldn't find mint.

This was a very special meal, which we paired with her vegetable suggestion, quick-roasted sugar snap peas with sesame salt.  You take 1 lb of the sugar snap peas, pull of strings as necessary, spread on sheet pan and toss in olive oil. You roast them about 12 min. in a 475-degree oven, until blistered and blackened in part. You prepare the sesame salt by toasting 2 Tbl. of sesame seeds in a skillet, mixing with 1/4 tsp. sea salt and grinding to a coarse mixture. When peas are ready, put them in bowl and sprinkle with the sesame salt.

For wine, we had a very nice Bordeaux I had been saving for a special occasion.

Chicken Thighs with Pineau des Charentes

I first discovered Pineau des Charentes during a camping trip through Charente-Maritime. It is a mix of cognac, the famous product of the region, with lightly fermented grape must and can be drunk either as an aperitif or a dessert wine. To my surprise, Paul's actually carries it and they kindly offered a discount.

This lovely little recipe is from a newly acquired Paula Wolfert cookbook, The Cooking of Southwest France. While it may technically be part of the Mediterranean region, SW France seems to use more animal fat and dairy products than olive oil. In any case, this recipe, with its abundant amounts of butter and cream, would be right at home in Normandy, too, though probably with Calvados instead of Pineau.

You start by crumbling 1/2 oz. dried porcini in a strainer and rinsing with cold water, then put the pieces in a bowl covered with 1 c. hot water and let sit at least 30 min. Then you take 6 to 8 chicken thighs, about 2 lbs, and put them skin side down in a large skillet where 3 Tbl butter have melted and come to a sizzle. You sprinkle with salt and pepper and brown them, not turning, for 5 min. or so. You drain off most of the fat, add 1 c. of Pineau and quickly light it while it's warming up. The flames lasted a good minute, a testimony to the alcoholic content of the Pineau! Once they have subsided, add 1 Tbl of chopped shallot, cook for 1 min., turn over the chicken pieces (there's still a considerable amount of liquid), cover and cook over moderate heat for 25 min.

Meanwhile, clean and quarter 1 lb. of cremini mushrooms and drain the porcini through a coffee filter and strainer, reserving both the porcini pieces and the soaking liquid separately. When the liquid in the skillet has reduced to a glaze and the thighs are cooked through, turn the chicken once again to glaze the skin side and remove to a plate. Wipe out the skillet (I actually had to use a new skillet because my nonstick skillet was too encrusted), melt 2 Tbl butter and sautee the mushrooms and porcini for 5 min. Add the reserved soaking liquid and cook for about 10 min until that reduces to a glaze, then add 1/2 c. heavy cream and cook for another 5 min. to reach a sauce consistency. Put the thighs back in, skin side up, partially cover skillet and gently reheat. Sprinkle with chopped chives and parsley to serve. We had noodles and green salad with it. It's quite a spectacular little dish, for being so cheap and easy.

Oddly enough, Whole Foods was selling its thighs with a back portion attached. What is the use of this? Is it just a way to increase the weight? I removed the back portions and froze them for my next batch of stock but it's a step I could have done without.

Mourayo

The new-fashioned Greek restaurant opened a few years ago at Dupont Circle and has doubled in size since my last visit there. I've been wanting to get back and a business dinner presented the perfect opportunity. It turned out to be ideal -- the charming mahogany decor was warm and welcoming on our first snowy day. Mourayo means "safe harbor" and the decor, they say, is inspired by the inside of a Greek yacht. The weather kept the Restaurant Week crowd at bay so that the place, which is probably not too noisy even when busy, was quiet for a conversation, even though a birthday party of 9 or 10 came into our corner midway through.

The food was great. I remembered they imported their own Greek olive oil and was eager to taste it again after learning so much from Extra Virginity. It had that bitterness, fruitiness and peppery taste a really good oil is supposed to have. I had one of the three ouzos they import (no flights this time!) and we had a bottle of Santorini white (it might have been the Sigalas, I didn't order it) with the meal.

My starter was grilled octopus and it was plenty fresh, sitting nicely in an inky sauce and accompanied with humus. I also took the opportunity since we weren't in a hurry to get the whole fish baked in salt. It was branzino and it was delicious. The waiter expertly broke open the crust and filleted it at the table, so it was warm and moist and flavorful (I drizzled some of that olive oil over it). I had some nicely roasted potatoes (hot!) and fresh cooked spinach as sides. My companion ordered the duck moussaka and raved about it.

To finish, we split their jarred feta with what was supposed to be honey, though it tasted more like jam to me. It was a nice way to round out the meal but nothing special. They actually were able to muster up a decent Greek coffee and we tried the mastic liqueur from Chios as a digestif (a little too sweet and masticky for my taste -- I'd try their "marc" after dinner drinks next time).

El Centro DF

Had a very nice time at this new Mexican on 14th Street. Sitting at the bar waiting for our table and watching the food come out of the open kitchen, I fell in love with the Chicken Zarape, a moist chicken breast blanketed with chipotle sauce, topped with a sprinkling of cheese and accompanied by creamy rice and refried beans. It just looked great and I was not disappointed when I actually tasted it. I rarely order chicken in a restaurant but this was well-justified exception.

The grilled skirt steak huaraches and shrimp ceviche appetizers we shared at our table were both good. The churros were a big disappointment, heavy and clearly not freshly made, but the accompanying chocolate and caramel sauces were fine.

What threatens to steal the show at this place is the tequila selection. On the helpful recommendation from our waiter, I got a "vertical tasting" flight of Corzo tequilas. His reasoning was that you can get Don Julio and Herradura everywhere, but Corzo is a little known producer of very fine tequilas, he said. I can't disagree. The tastings of blanco, reposado and anejo were all excellent, though, as is the nature of these small servings, left me wanting more. Another time!

Broiled salmon with bacon and peas

From Jenkins' Olive and Oranges: Her tip is to broil the salmon fillet skin side up after salt and pepper on flesh side and then brushing skin with olive oil and lightly salt and pepper that side too. It takes about 10 min. until skin is blistered and black in parts and flesh is done through.

For the accompaniment, you render three strips of thick cut bacon at low temperature (in what seems to be a rare mistake, Jenkins gives no direction to cut the bacon cross-wise into strips, though this would be the only sensible way to do it for this dish). After 10 min. add 1/3 c. minced onion and render it for 10 min. You can stop here. When ready to broil fish, add 1/2 c. water, bring to a boil and add 1 lb. sugar snap peas (snow peas) and cook until tender, about 8 min. Stir in 1 Tbl. butter and 1/4 c. chopped mint (I used parsley). Spoon over pieces of broiled fillet.

This was totally delicious and easy to fix for a weekday. You can also use regular fresh peas and I was ready to use frozen peas.

Mediterranean Diet

I'm using diet not in sense of a weight-loss program but in the more general sense of a type of eating. Inspired by the virtues of olive oil extolled in Extra Virginity, and author Tom Mueller's general remarks about the healthfulness of the Mediterranean diet, I thought I would make an effort to focus on this cuisine in the next couple of months.

Not surprisingly, I have a couple dozen cookbooks on Mediterranean cuisine from all the leading authors -- Paula Wolfert, Joyce Goldstein, Claudia Roden, et al. The books range from general "Mediterranean" to Jewish to Middle Eastern and to specific national cuisines like Italian, Spanish, Greek, Moroccan, Turkish. I'm not sure how much of French cooking belongs in this category. And of course there are a number of other trendy cookbooks with Mediterranean-inspired dishes.

I won't be too strict about it anyway. I'll also be doing dishes from other types of books. But I will post these dishes under the "Meddiet" label just to keep track of them.

Extra Virginity

My review of Tom Mueller's Extra Virginity: The Sublime and Scandalous World of Olive Oil appeared today in The Washington Independent Review of Books:

It’s everywhere. In recipes, on supermarket shelves, in restaurants — everywhere you turn you encounter extra virgin olive oil. In fact, you virtually never see any kind of olive oil except extra virgin. What seems even better, it’s cheaper than ever. You can now get a big bottle of EVOO (as it is known to its friends) for less than $10.

All this is not necessarily cause to celebrate, as Tom Mueller makes clear in this fascinating book, which somehow manages to be magisterial in a very compact space. The oil you buy with the extra virgin label may very well be the high-quality oil produced solely by mechanical means from fresh olives that it is supposed to be. But in an industry in which standards are vague and enforcement is lax, it may well not be.

In fact, Mueller concludes, extra virgin olive oil you buy in the supermarket has a good chance of being cut with refined olive oil (produced with solvents and/or heat and chemically “deodorized” to remove defects) or even with seed oils produced by these same chemical methods.

Mueller, a writer for The New Yorker and other publications, in effect tells us that we have to spell “caveat emptor” in capital letters when it comes to buying olive oil.

First of all, ignore the “extra virgin” in the label — it has become ubiquitous and so lost any meaning. Second, forget everything you ever heard about “first pressed” or “cold pressed.” These terms have become obsolete as most producers have switched from presses to centrifugal means of production.

The only sure-fire way of knowing whether the oil is truly extra virgin is to taste it. But here comes the biggest surprise of all — you are looking for tastes that may seem counterintuitive to your idea of what makes a great olive oil.

The truly good, high-quality extra virgin oil should taste bitter — this signifies a high level of antioxidants, one of the qualities that make olive oil so healthful. The other two taste characteristics of premium oil are “pungency,” indicated by a peppery taste, and fruitiness. (By the way, don’t look to the color of the oil as an indication of fruitiness; at tastings, the oil is often in tinted containers so participants don’t even see the color.)

Many of us may have found bitterness and pungency off-putting in an oil and preferred a milder, blander, if still fruity, version. In fact, one purveyor of supermarket oil advertised its product with these qualities, implying they were the signs of truly fine oil. Not so, our author tells us, and there is every chance that these milder oils are not pure extra virgin.

Extra Virginity is a passionate book. Mueller, who lives in Italy outside Genoa, preaches the gospel of olive oil with the zeal of a convert. He interviews some of the leading figures in the olive oil industry, whose own enthusiasm is infectious. The author’s blend of historical tales and reporting on contemporary innovators in oil production and marketing makes for a heady blend of oil euphoria.

Mueller sees hopeful signs as well as clouds on the horizon. New producers are making finer oils than ever and consumers from Italy to California are developing new appreciation for high-quality oil. But massive fraud in production of substandard oils that do not merit the “extra virgin” moniker are driving down prices and forcing producers of true extra virgin oil out of business.

“Are we witnessing a renaissance in olive oil, or the death of an industry?” the author asks. “Will extra virgin olive oil become the next premium food phenomenon … or will it sink into the anonymous mass of fat that is the legacy of our post-industrial food supply?”

As a reporter, Mueller does not answer that question, which is anything but rhetorical. Despite the advent of oil bars, the growth of New World production in California and Australia, and the effort of traditional producers in Italy and Spain to adopt innovations and maintain premium quality, the battle for good oil is far from won.

In the end, Mueller suggests, it is the consumer who will supply the answer. Only if consumers are educated as to what constitutes good oil and are willing to pay premium prices for a premium product will non-fraudulent producers be able to stay in business.

The author provides a “buying guide” as an appendix, but don’t expect a list of labels you can go out and look for. Rather, he says, the best way to buy is at a place where you can taste the oil and learn where, how and most important, when it was made, because olive oil deteriorates rapidly in quality with age.

Mueller also advises that it is better to buy a bulk oil that has been kept in proper conditions, or failing that, oil in dark bottles (light hurts quality) that has the harvest date, not an expiration date, on the label. The author provides numerous sources of research and information where a devoted consumer can keep up with where and how to find good oil. He also has a website, www.extravirginity.com, though for some reason, this was still largely under construction when the book was published in December.

This may require more commitment than many people are willing to make. But for anyone who has developed a taste for the fabulous Mediterranean cuisines, or who loves cooking these flavorful and healthful dishes, or, indeed, anyone who reads this book, with its passion for the history and benefits of genuine extra virgin olive oil, the choice to help support that renaissance will be easy.

Darrell Delamaide, a Washington, D.C.-based journalist, took courses at Cordon Bleu and other cooking schools when he was stationed in Paris. He is the author most recently of The Grand Mirage, a historical thriller.