The Underground Lobster Pound: A Purist, An Apartment & The Perfect Lobster Roll – *food curated* from SkeeterNYC on Vimeo.

In the meantime: Check it Out! Special “Food” episode.

Toppers from the Layer Cake Shop.

I had been wanting to use these toppers, but hadn’t really been wanting to eat cupcakes. So today I decided to make bran muffins for breakfast and dab a little powdered sugar frosting on top and place on the toppers. SO cute.

I am addicted to the Layer Cake Shop. I have ordered so many toppers from them. 

See more images on my flickr page.

The Morning News has a put up a gallery of Justine Reye’s beautiful still life photography.

On a recent brunch trip to Lula’s sister restaurant Nightwood, we discovered one of the simplest, most addictive incarnations of the potato we’ve ever experienced: the Nightwood Tater Tot.

So what makes these things so good? They’re crunchy (but not too crunchy). They’re fried. There’s nooks and crannies where coarse sea salt is hiding. And then you bite into it. The inside is soft like mashed potatoes. But not cold or weird. Just right. It’s really like hashbrowns in a ball. Pretty far removed from what I would have called a “tater tot”…but whatever. I had to figure out how to make these.

Cut to the same afternoon: A recipe for home made tater tots.

What I liked about making these is that its essentially one ingredient and a lot of prep/cooking variables. I’ve made these a half dozen times now and while they’re always tasty, they are a challenge to make exactly the same each time. I can’t imagine they cut these by hand at Nightwood. The grater attachment on my food processor sucks, so I never really tried simply blanching/frying the shredded potatoes.

I used some leftover purple potatoes…I would imagine something starchy like a russet would work even better.
I tried several ways of preparing the potatoes into their “tot” shapes. I tried making a sort of rough batter, using grater (hand and food processor) – but each of these approaches was too perfect. I decided to thinly slice the potatoes on a mandolin, then quickly blanch the slices and finally julienne the resulting slimy slices:

About 3 minutes in unsalted boiling water. Any longer and you wont be able cut them. Any less and they’ll be too crunchy after frying.

The blanched and subsequently sliced potatoes:

To form them into balls I tossed the potatoes with a few tablespoons of flour. I experimented with adding salt, mustard, oil, etc., but it really wasn’t necessary. I found that the trick to making them shape nicely is to wet your hands and really squeeze the shit out of them.

Fry in 375 degree sunflower oil until golden brown. If you don’t have a deep fryer, I highly recommend using a thermometer and waiting for the oil to reach the right temperature. Frying is deceptively complex. (did I really just say that?)

When they’re done frying, roll them through some coarse sea salt while they’re still oily.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The Random Recipe Generator, via seriouseats

A variety of free online cooking videos from Rouxbe

Biodynamic (hint: British) Pheasant

Underground Mexican Pizza Delivery

]]> http://www.foodcrypt.com/2010/01/743/feed/ 0 http://www.foodcrypt.com/2010/01/chickenless-or-not-chickenless-chicken-pot-pie/ http://www.foodcrypt.com/2010/01/chickenless-or-not-chickenless-chicken-pot-pie/#comments Wed, 13 Jan 2010 17:58:02 +0000 Chris Roeleveld http://www.foodcrypt.com/?p=734

Our dear friend and cooking muse Keighty has cobbled together this gracefully crude (we mean that in a good way) pot pie recipe. We cheated (or didn’t cheat?) and added some chicken we had leftover from a roast. The creamy potatoes with parsnips and carrots + crispy cheddar/chive biscuit topping is amazing.

Try it and tell her what you think…

When a blog announces proudly that it finally “has a twitter” – as if they accomplished some sort of feat – I usually become extremely cynical of said blog. It’s expected these days – which is probably why we didn’t even bother thinking about it a year ago.
But that was then and this is now. Like making your first pot of ramen on a hotplate in your freshman dorm, we proudly serve you the new @FoodCrypt.

Picture grabbed from here.

www.balance-ph-diet.com