April 2007 Archives

One of our greatest fears — right up there with the fear that one of our favorite restaurants will pop up on a Rachel Ray show (it’s happened twice) — is that the recipes we toss out here become eye candy rather than useful recipes. Sure, it’s fun to ogle food, ours included, and we firmly believe that talking about food can be very much a sharing of ideas. But if you’re hungry, reading through two pages of recipe directions probably isn’t going to help you out much.

The point is that these recipes we write should, we hope, get used, recreated, even improved upon by readers, friends, cooks in other kitchens. And sometimes we wonder if that’s happening. Or are we just pimps posting food porno for vegan people?

That’s why it warmed our little pairing knives to receive pictures recently from two different dinner parties, on opposite sides of the country, knocking out a Hot Knives recipe in their kitchens. And dutifully taking pictures in the process! So let this be a shout out to them and their stovetop antics.

One group of cooks in Washington D.C. and the other in Portland, both seized on the jalapeño popperz recipe we posted a couple months ago, a favorite fried item. From what we understand, Team Dinner Portland complimented the peppers with our Pa-Tofu Tacos while Team Dinner D.C. served them with the apple-leek pork loin. Both fine choices, people.

Some interesting differences, discrepancies and innovations arose, judging from pictures. For instance, Team Dinner Portland was working with an electric coil stove, whereas the roasting of the pepper, as we describe it in the recipe, is written with a traditional gas stove in mind. To make the pepper both more pliable and more zesty, we stick it in the flame of a stove burner to blacken it thoroughly. Obviously, without a flame this proves difficult. Including alternate directions never occurred to us, but apparently Team Dinner Portland rolled with the punches.

Their peppers, though certainly less charred-looking, must have burned enough to slip the skins off. However, the photos seem to show that they weren’t pliable enough to slit them lengthwise as we suggest. It appears as if they got away with just slicing the peppers at the top and stuffing the fake cream cheese in from there. Nice thinking. Team Dinner D.C. by contrast seems to have attained a perfectly roasted pepper shell, sliced them lengthwise and rolled them up that way. We can only speculate as to how the tastes differed, but we might imagine that Team Dinner Portland’s peppers had more snap and crunch to them from cooking, probably not a bad thing at all.

No photographic evidence currently exists of the batter and breadcrumbs process for either party’s preparations. We’re left to judge that by pics of the end product. However this shot of Claire after the fact betrays an absolutely necessary, reckless abandon to the gooey tempura bath. Fuck yeah! One definite bonus for Team Dinner D.C. was their pan set-up. The wok they were using to fry the breaded peppers looked about a thousand years old, like it had seen it’s share of grease. That’s added flavor.

The finished peppers from both of these kitchens look as cute, delicious and unstoppably poppable as the batch we experimented with. The crispy skins of panko crumbs are expertly browned with little glimpses of charred green skin. The other telltale sign of a proper popper: an occasional hint of creamy white cheese just beneath the surface. We hope that part of their success was that we were sober when we wrote the recipe, and did a decent job of explaining the thing. But no recipe is worth anything without kitchen teamwork and ingenuity and we can tell both were in abundance here.

To be honest, it was uncanny, almost disarming, to see our sweet little poppers in the hands of others. It was our first experience seeing our written words followed dutifully and to awesomely recreate the meal. It was a bit of a postmodern reality check for us. And a nice reminder of why drunk nerds like us spend time penning food blog posts: to share the love.

Any other recreated recipes, feel free to send them to hotknivez@gmail.com

Anyone who giggles at the abbreviation "pot salad" hasn't worked in a commercial kitchen where space is so tight, and time so scrunched, that to write out "potato" on your masking tape-Tupperware label would be unthinkable. Suffice it to say neither of us much misses reaching an arm, all the way up the elbow, into a veritable Tupperware keg of squishy mayonnaise-y potato salad to refill the mise en place.

Now that "making lunch" is a leisurely weekend hobby where we get to painstakingly craft a sandwich for ourselves half naked, instead of a lightning-paced, rent-paying necessity, we love to labor on things like potato salad. Here's a recipe that changes mildly every time it gets made, but always makes use of the same killer staples: strong mustard, vegan mayo, sweet pickle brine and fresh garden herbs.

Pot…ato Salad

1 Tbs. sea salt
8 purple potatoes
1/8 cup vegan mayonnaise
1 Tbs. nutritional yeast (optional)
1 Tbs. extra virgin olive oil
3 cloves garlic, minced
1/8 cup Dijon or whole grain mustard
3 Tbs. pickle juice (bread & butter pickles)
1 tsp. pickle jar gunk (fennel, mustard seeds etc.)
1/4 cup flat leaf parsley
2 Tbs. fresh thyme
1 Tbs. fresh rosemary
Salt and black pepper to taste

1. Bring a large pot of water to a boil, salt and toss in the potatoes. Lower to medium heat, cover and let cook for 8-10 minutes.

2. In a large mixing bowl, combine vegan mayo, nutritional yeast and garlic and whisk thoroughly. Once fluffy and uniform, add mustard, pickle juice and whatever pickle jar spices you can dig out, and continue whisking. Set aside

3. Check potatoes by forking them: potatoes should give way without falling apart. Drain and run under cold water to cool. Let sit another 10 minutes before cutting them. Cut into rough dices.

4. Add cut potatoes to mixing bowl and toss with dressing and leftover ingredients. Coat thoroughly. Let chill in the fridge for at least 2 hours to let flavors develop.

Soundtrack: Air's Premieres Symptomes
Beverage: St. Bernardus Tripel

Number three in an ongoing roll call of L.A.'s best beer buying bodegas. This, for the record, was our first home away from home: our first beer store in California.

On York and Ave. 57 there is a modest Mecca where over 450 types of beer have a regularly stocked home. Inside, past 500 different types of soda pop and tonics, past a now defunct set of produce bins filled with retro candies, there are is a long row of shelves brimming with brew from every conceivable country of origin. Mexican craft beer, authentic German Rauchbeir, and a daunting array of 750's from Belgium stand as a quieting gauntlet to the would-be-buyer. Shoppers slowly step down the aisles, silent in thought, contemplating their inevitable purchase... purchases.

Galco’s Soda Pop Shop has an arresting amount of beer. The specialty grocer is L.A.’s oldest and has been heralded all over the country as the place to buy specialty pop. We've known it as a soda oasis for the seven years we’ve been Angelenos. These are the floors where we've spent hundreds of dollars, discovering some of our favorite beers.

We've even made friends in the beer aisles of Galco's. In 2002, Alex was lugging a shopping basket full of high ABV bombers when he ran into this guy. Mike Meanstreetz and Mr. Brown babbled about beer for fifteen minutes and parted ways - only to meet up again at Evan's house a month later. (Look out for Meanstreetz's write up of Wine House in Culver City in the next two weeks.)

Recently we paid Galco's a visit to pick the owner's brain about L.A. and suds. John Nese has been in love with carbonated beverages since childhood when he used to daydream about piping soda pop into his elementary school's drinking fountains.

Galco's has been around for over 100 years, but the move towards strict soda and beer sales has been policy for about 11. John saw large soda and beer companies completely dominating the shelves and robbing customers of the variety of choices he remembers as a child. “40 years ago, if you walked into a grocery store and they didn’t have 30 to 40 different kinds of soda; you’d walk out the door and shop somewhere else.” So he stopped selling Coke and Pepsi, and started buying direct from a litany of pop producers. Then he did the same thing with beer.

Talking with John led to some simple but astounding realizations: namely that store owners from Albertsons franchisers to Whole foods specialty reps have visited his store to take notes and pick his brain about how to stock their shelves. “They all ask the same thing,” he says with a knowing grin, “what are your top sellers?” Not surprisingly, John told us that essentially all of our familiar beer venders have been to his store seeking education. He never refuses advice, but he believes in Choice (note the capitalization), and offers the same answer to the ubiquitous top ten quandary: "Whichever ten you decide to sell."

According to John, the reason why L.A. isn’t a serious beer city is simply because “nobody has made it that way.” With the constraints that even the most forward thinking of beer store owners face, in terms of shelf real estate and the risky turnover of high priced specialty beers, its no surprise.

Stocking awesome beers can be stressful for a small business owner, unless it's all you sell. John's pretty relaxed. While beer might play second chair to soda in his store, you will find dozens of beers that you have never had and want. Each beer is priced by the each, which will be a little more expensive than some stores (probably because they price their bottles after visiting Galco's), but you can taste more each time you visit. If you make this store a regular stop when you forage for drink, the small selections at most other stores might make you want to walk out.

Staff: John knows his stock.
Refrigeration: Very limited in relation to the size of the inventory. No cold bombers might bum you out.
Split Six Packs: Absolutely. This dude invented it.
Belgians: Might be the best in the city.
Microbrews: Huge selection, but not super streamlined. Good source for seasonal releases.
Special Powers: Choice.
Achilles’ Heel: Equality: Not all of the 450 are really worth buying.

Avery's Hog Heaven

The term “Barley Wine-style” is a new one on us. We like to think the guys at Avery Brewing Co. were making hand quotation marks as they seized on the phrase. That’s cuz Hog Heaven is hardly the malt bomb that you’d expect from a bottle with “Barley Wine” on the label. Most powerhouses in the Barley Wine class, like Stone’s Old Guardian or Anchor’s Old Foghorn, are heavy on sugary roasted malts and can knock you out with a boozey left hook. In a class of beasts and brutes, Hog Heaven is the Oscar de la Hoya of the Barley Wine world.

Avery, if you’re not familiar, are brutes themselves, specializing in the huge and hoppy. Stone’s strongest beer never exceeds 12% Alcohol By Volume, whereas Avery brews at least three that exceed 15%. Which is why it’s kind of insane that these monoliths’ only attempt at the Barley Wine is one of its weakest beers at “only” 9.2%.

On first pour the beer looks caramel red and opaque and deceptively “smooth.” The nose is there; it certainly smells like a Barley Wine — all alcohol and sugar. But the first sip shatters that impression. We were reminded of a super sweet IPA, think Lenny’s RIPA. Like an IPA, it was exceedingly drinkable, not merely sip-able like most Barley Wines tend to be. There was little head, but it stuck around. The burnt, amber booze flavor slide down the gullet rather than sticking to your tongue. Misnomer or stroke of genius? We don’t know. Either way the bottle needs to read “Barley Wine-style” along with a sticker that reads: DANGER: Thirsty Beware.

Dairy Pairy: MouCou Creamery’s ColoRouge
Soundtrack: Danzig/II

When our dear hooligan friends The Nodzzz blew through L.A. on a little lightning tour recently, we had the pleasure of test running some dishes for them. After our recent manifestation of a French celery root remoulade hit our stomachs and hearts so hard, we though or refitting celeriac for a cross breeding of two Thai favorites: Som Tam and PadThai . What post-Ramones-gutter-twee gang wouldn’t love celery root noodles dressed with a coco-peanut chili sauce, carrot ribbons, and fistfuls of cilantro?

Salad:

2 Celeriac roots
2 Cups Spanish peanuts
6 Smaller carrots
1 Bunch cilantro

Sauce:

1 Cup smooth peanut butter
½ Can coconut milk
2 Tbs. sambal olec
1 Tbs. honey

1. Prepare the celeriac as you would for our recent version of celery root remoulade.

2. While you wait for the water to boil for blanching the roots, heat a medium sauté pan on medium heat and dry roast the peanuts for about four minutes. Agitate them in the pan often to avoid burning.

3. Using a vegetable peeler, shave the carrot into fettucine-esque ribbons, then place ‘em in a bowl of cold water. Pick the cilantro of all its leaves, and add to the carrots.

4. Toss the toasted peanuts, cilantro, blanched and cooled celery root, and carrot noodes with the coco peanut cream.

Serve with sriracha and sprouts.

If you do a good job, follow all our instructions, and are lucky enough to have a spit-master like Sean Paul Presley eating from your table, you'll elicit a reaction something like this:

Beverage: Reutberger Klosterbier St. Josefi-Bock (made by nuns)
Soundtrack: The Nodzz. Playing in your backyard, on your roof, or under your bed.

This is the next installment in an on-going series highlighting some of the best, and brightest, beer fridges in Los Angeles. Beer heads muttering “7-11…WTF Hot Knives?” please read on!

We’ve always known there was something strange about the 7-11 at Figueroa Street and Avenue 52 in the L.A. neighborhood of Highland Park. For one thing, there’s always extremely loud satellite radio being cranked from the stereo’s surround sound system. The loud music at all hours has earned it a moniker in the area as “The Rock ‘n’ Roll 7-11.” Rumor was, the owner just liked his classic rock playing whether he was there or not.

Well, in the last 2 months a much more promising abnormality has surfaced at this store — one that is starting to earn it another nickname and hopefully some regional fame. Our 7-11 is now a microbrew 7-11. We say “ours” because it lies both conveniently close to Evan’s casa and halfway on Alex’s bike commute from home to work. Needless to say, we’ve contributed a bit of business to the slowly growing beer section (about 100 bottles), but we honestly can’t take any credit for the trend. At all.

Charles is not your average 7-11 owner/manager. He’s a middle-aged, suave dude who wears all black all the time and routinely joins his employees behind the counter. His wife (we presume) often peruses the store stocking various aisles while burping their (we presume) small baby in a chest snuggle pack. This, set to an uncomfortably loud chorus of “Crimson and Clover,” you have to understand, is a sweet David Lynch shopping experience.

The shock comes in the beer locker. One side of the store is occupied by your average 7-11 fridges: energy drinks, Gatorade, bottled water and sparkling water, sodas followed by a trusty grouping of mediocre domestic and Mexican beers. The last rack has a couple flavors of Sparks. But look on the adjacent wall, between the large wine racks and the Hagen Daz ice cream sits two unpretentious but impeccable beer compartments.

The top shelf is entirely Belgians, including the regional hits (Russian River’s Damnation) and the domestic superstars (Three Philosophers) and the ubiquitous international celebrities (Delerium, all Chimays). This alone is unheard of even for most convenient liquor stores, let alone 7-11 chains, but Charles takes it a step further and offers specialty international bottles of St. Bernardus and Uni 15. He told me once that he wants to specialize in Belgians. He also sells proper Belgian glasses, which are prominently displayed next to the gum and the cigarettes.

The rest of his beer runs the gamut. Only a smattering of six packs, the vast majority is bombers. The six packs he does carry include Stone IPA, Downtown Brown, Indica IPA and Alaskan Amber. In bombers there’s always Alesmith Anvil Ale, Arrogant Bastard and Ruination Ale representing the San Diego scene. An extensive, even overboard, Rogue selection includes Shakespeare Stout, Dead Guy, Hazelnut Brown Ale and at least three others. Both Lagunitas and Anderson Valley are featured, but not the staples you’d expect.

According to Charles, his is the only store of the 40,000 American franchises that have included an extensive list of microbrews and he had to fight the chain of command to do so. Now, he’s proving them wrong with booming beer sales. Last time we spoke, Charles talked about abolishing all six packs in favor of bombers; starting a beer website and hand-producing a 50-foot sign for the side of his store with all of the microbrew logos on it. Thank heavens indeed. Watch this guy, he’s the future of convenient store beer. In fact, drive to our hood and buy from him. Or write and ask for your own microbrew 7-11.

Staff: Charles knows his stuff. And more than one of his seemingly underage staff has chimed in with opinions on rare Belgians.
Refrigeration: Everything.
Split Six Packs: Nope, but not many six packs at that.
Belgians: Proportionally a very strong showing, a little of everything, most geographies represented and some rare ones.
Microbrews: The place will always sell Natty Light, it’s a 7-11, but their microbrew section is as large as the domestic shelf.
Special Powers: Limited editions of regional breweries, Belgians, rotating specials.
Achilles’ Heel: Too much space dedicated to the typical Rogue fare.
Location: Here.

We’re big fan of soy chorizo, or soyrizo, for two reasons: it’s malleable and it already reeks of cumin and other chili spices we would be spiking it with otherwise. The appeal of even meat chorizo, after all, is less the shit-quality butcher guts and more the spiced fat it releases when cooked.

Here we use that fat, albeit vegetable fat, as a base for frying potatoes. It turns them red, doses them with a smokiness that’s hard to beat and significantly shortens the number of seasoning steps required. We couldn’t resist crumbling some left over smoked Oregon Blue cheese to up the ante. Most fine dining kitchens on the West Coast will serve chorizo fingerlings below a slice of seared tuna or poached halibut. Since we’d already broke the vegan vibe, we went ahead and slow poached an egg to plop on top.

Chorizo & Blue Cheese Potatoes with Poached Egg

Makes 2 servings

1 Tbs. extra virgin olive oil
1 3-inch slice of Soyrizo
1 3-inch slice of leek, chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
6 small fingerling potatoes
1 small hunk of smoked blue cheese
2 cage free eggs
Parsley flower for garnish

1. Bring a large pot to boil with salted water, toss in fingerlings and let cook for 5 minutes. (Or nuke in microwave for 2 minutes.)

2. Heat a large skillet on high and add olive oil. Once hot toss in soyrizo. Mush with a wooden spoon and sauté until dissolves into oil. Add leek and garlic and let cook another 5 minutes or until leek is transparent.

3. Drain the potatoes. Cut them into a medium dice and add to pan. Stir often to keep from sticking. Let cook for 10-15 minutes or until browning slightly. Fold in crumbled blue cheese. Set on simmer or cover.

4. Bring a small saucepan to a boil. Crack eggs and drop into rolling water, then immediately turn down to medium. Let poach for 8 minutes for a slightly gooey yolk.

5. For plating: Pack potatoes into a small bowl. Turn bowl over onto plate and remove bowl, leaving potatoes in a mound shape. Fish out egg with a slotted spoon and place on top. Season with salt and pepper. Dash of smoked paprika if desired and garnish with a parsley flower or sprig of flat-leaf parsley.

Beverage: Craftsman Smoked Lager
Soundtrack: Goliath Bird Eater’s Blood Venus

SLO Chai Cream Ale

Our last run-in with a botanical infused beer wasn’t pretty, so it was with great skepticism and courage that we plucked this San Louis Obispo Chai Cream Ale off the shelf. One of us was on vacation up the Central Coast and it just seemed wrong not to sample the local goods. This brew comes from something called, quite directly, Central Coast Brewing. With the exception of the exceedingly mediocre brews made by Firestone, California’s Central Valley lacks standouts from anywhere south of Mendocino. So we crossed our fingers and took a sip. Truth be told, the stuff wasn’t half bad — maybe more like 10% bad. The chai absolutely rules; the spicy head on this beer is what all pumpkin-tinged gimmicky fall beers try to be. The mix of cinnamon, mace and chai are followed by a slight acrid bite, tangy pear or apple. It’s the taste of an incredible spiced cider. Unfortunately, it’s not a cider, it’s masquerading as a cream ale, but the watery mouthfeel and light viscosity are off-putting when you expect something frothier, richer. The bubbles taste like a soy latte where they should taste like a buttery capuchino. Still, it beats the pumpkin shit any day.

Dairy Pairy: Cowgirl Creamery's Red Hawk
Soundtrack: Cornershop’s Hand Cream for a Generation

Oregon Blue

In mapping the human genome, scientists have yet to uncover why humans like smoked foods so damn much. Smoked almonds, barbecue sauce, bacon bits. It’s primordial. We like fire. This partly explains why whenever one of us makes a trip to Northern California we have to buy a hunk of Rogue Creamery’s Oregon Blue and bring it back to the clan. This light, white and only mildy veined blue is supposedly the first artisan blue cheese to be made on the West Coast. It’s also the only fucking cheese we know that gets smoked for 16 hours over Northwest-grown hazelnut shells. The process leads to an excessively soft but crumbly cheese that has less of a mold bite and more of a caramel lick, making it great for folding into hot dishes without destroying any delicate flavors; the funk is kept under wraps. Best of all, like all Rogue creamery products you can rest assured that your creamy craving is being met by sustainable, cow-friendly farming practices. It may not be the stankiest blue in town, but it's the most bacon-like.

Grain: Rogue’s Russian Imperial Stout 2007
Grape: Cardinal Zin

This post is the first in an on-going series we’ll be doing on some of our favorite beermongers in the L.A. area. These stores include everything from a 100-year-old mom and pop grocer to a high-end wine and spirit purveyor and even a diamond-in-the-rough 7-11. They service distant zip codes (that we plan on exploring by bicycle on our up-coming Great L.A. Beer Run 2007) but they all share a dedication to beer kulture.

Cap’n Cork has been a regular beer haunt of ours going on three years. They have a huge selection of beer ranging from the more than mundane to the rarely seen in L.A. When Alex was stupid drunk at the Moylans bar/brewery in Novato last summer, he demanded a talk with the manager who could tell him when the Hopsickle would be back in L.A. They had no idea that anyone was selling it so far south. We had discovered it at Cap’n Cork for a ridiculously cheap $4.99.

There are two walls of reachin refrigerators in this edifice of hooch. Not a single beer is uncooled, which is not the norm for stores with this many beers. The selection ranges from domestic favorites like Moylans, Stone and Avery, to immaculate Belgians like Brasserie De Rocs and Trappists Rochforts. You will find something you like here (we can’t leave without at least four bombers in tow).

While this place boasts a great number of brews that we love, they are not without flaw. All the glory of the aforementioned array of fridges is contained in three of about twelve cabinets. The rest are filled with industry regulars like Corona and Tecate, which any liquor store is obligated to carry. What’s disappointing is the amount of space dedicated to really boring English, German, and American Microbrews. None of these beers suck, they just aren’t very noteworthy, and it rarely seems like they move from their shelves. If this place revitalized their offering and sold individual 12 oz. bottles? We’d have to shop here with chaperones.

Staff: Awesome. Mike (pictured above) isn’t the beer geek that he could be, but he’s always super nice and when you buy something he thinks rules (Rogue Imperial IPA) he’ll let you know.
Refrigeration: Yes. Everything.
Split Six Packs: Yes, but only for small Belgians.
Belgians: Good mix of American styles and old world bombers.
Microbrews: Small selection for a place this size, but all the heavy hitters are here.
Special Powers: All the Alesmiths, all the time. Hopsickle: when available. Munchies.
Achilles’ Heel: Too much space dedicated to uninteresting beer. This place would be unparalleled if they redesigned their stocking practices.
Location: Here.

Our first kitchen mentor, a bear of a man named Joe Parks who instructed us in the college mess hall, used to describe any sub par ingredient from the freezer saying ‘Not bad… for a frozen product.” It’s a mantra we’ll always remember. Consequently, this site has possibly never championed a frozen, dried, or freeze-dried product. It’s fresh or nothing.

So consider this a milestone of sorts when we say that we give some fat-ass props to a particular Trader Joe’s product that keeps popping up in our recent reppiez: Dried Wild Mushrooms ($1.99). This package is a rough mix of forest shrooms: porcinis, oyster, shitakes and weird seaweed-like floppy ones. Meaning this mix is probably not appropriate to sub for real mushies (except in a quick fix) but it works wonders in other ways. Reviving these guys from their dried-out state is simple:

1. Bring 2 cups of water to boil. Empty packet into a large bowl, add a pinch of sea salt and top mushrooms with hot water.

2. Place a lid, or plate, on top of the bowl and let sit for 15 minutes.

3. Strain over another bowl to separate shrooms from water. Tear mushrooms into big chunks or duce super fine, depending on use.

What you have now is both revived wild mushrooms that, while nowhere near as good as fresh, are pretty good for meals where mushrooms are secondary and you also have a killer mushroom broth to use for rice, noodles, soups, vegetables or even other fresh mushrooms! And unless you live in Vancouver B.C., you’re not going to find a cheaper patch of wild shrooms short of picking them yourself. Not bad for a dehydrated product, huh.

In Creole cuisine, Remoulade is the pride of the Po’Boy: a veritable catch-all sauce of ketchup, mayo, mustard, Louisiana Mirepoix, and spices. In France, the sauce is a bit more refined, and its classic accompaniment is celery root. The basic formula for a remoulade in both the motherland and southland milieu is: mayo, something pickled, herbs, and spices. Our recipe is a vegan take on the French version and we used it as a platform for a classic bistro salad of celeriac. Not familiar with this brute of a root? Don't be surprised when you go from grocer to grocer praying you can avoid a run to Whole Foods for these glorious dirt bombs. You will fall in love with this dish.

Alex’s Boss Nicole used to eat a similar treat as a child in the Loire Valley. When her Père whipped up a batch he’d let it sit for a day before serving. If you’ve got the time and savoir faire you should do the same and skip the blanching of the root for a more authentic version.

Vegan Celery Root Remoulade

1 large celeriac (about 2 lbs)
3/4 cup vegan mayonnaise
2 minced shallots
1 tbs. diced tarragon
1 tbs. diced parsley
2 tbs. chopped capers
1 tbs. lemon juice
1 tbs. Dijon mustard or prepared horseradish
1 tsp. sea salt
1 tbs. freshly ground black pepper
1 tbs. diced chives

Set a large pot of water to boil. With a pairing knife skin the root completely. Depending on the equipment you’ve got you have two options: mandolin or cheese grater. If you have a mandolin, slice the root lengthwise into thin sheets, and then slice into thin matchsticks. No mando? Just shred the root on the larges eyelet set of a cheese grater. Now blanch the shredded or sliced celeriac very quickly: throw it in the water, count to ten whilst stirring and then remove. Rinse under cold water until cool and dry with towels of your choice.

Combine every other ingredient in a mixing bowl and whisk together. Toss the celeriac with the remoulade sauce and garnish with freshly ground black pepper, and chives. Serve on top of lightly cooked asparagus or your favorite veggie burger.

Beverage: Foret Organic Ale
Soundtrack: Stereolab's "Dots and Loops"

Leeks aren’t onions, but they’re in the onion family. Their tough-ass stocks are great for braising. After playing with leek rings, we’ve decided they’re great for frying too. Usually when we cook with much of the green part (further up the stock) we opt for methods that will help wilt it, here we tried to use most of the leek to get a variety of ring shapes.

The airy openness of such tall rings is awesome; it leaves more room for the crumbs and batter to play, and makes for large bites without risking that hot onion will shoot out of its fried exterior.

Before we declare this lord of the rings, we’ve heard tell that you can make an excellent baked onion ring using Kettle Chips. After taste-testing the shit out of their Island Jerk, the idea of Jamaican rings is lush with promise. Caribbean calamari, using thinner cuts of leek, sounds pretty good too.

Leek Rings

3 leeks
1 cup tempura batter
12 oz. India Pale Ale
1 cup panko bredcrumbs
2 cups frying oil

1. Cut your leeks into 5 or 6-inch lengths, discarding the green tips and leaving only area that will produce enclosed rings. Chop the tube into 1-inch pieces. Pull apart the layers, saving the innermost, and very small, rings for use in sauces or stock. Save the outmost rings. (If possible, try to leave rings that are 2 layers stuck together for extra crunch.)

2. Combine batter with as much beer as necessary to achieve goopy pancake batter feel.

3. Batter and fry.

4. Blot extra oil. Serve rings with dipping sauces: Harissa ketchup, horseradish veganaise and/or BBQ sauce.