Mark Of The Beast

Posted on June 6, 2008 by Hot Knives

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As we understand it, the tendency for Belgian beers to have Satanic names is something of a tradition. Amidst the aftermath of a 1919 no spirits in pubs law, brewing the liquid gold was brought out of the barns of Abbeys and into the realm of the secular. Perhaps to poke fun at the fathers of suds (you know, Monks), many brewers gave their golden ales names that bespoke he that is called One: Duvel (means devil), Satan, Beelzebub, Lucifer, etc. These beers were meant to fulfill the true and timeless creed of quality ale: they never fill you up and rarely let you down. Spicy, dry, and strong enough to steer you or your drinking partner towards doing the devil’s business, strong golden ales pray on the playful side of Satan.
Lost Abbey’s Inferno Ale stands in direct line to the transmission of Satanic dubbed beers that are more mellow than mean. Out of the bottle this Belgian Strong Pale style brew is fluffy and light, with a murky golden hue that leans towards the likes of North Coast’s Prankster, or the hazy yeast peppered Kwak. The head bespeaks not the bubblings of Beelzebub’s caldron, but the overflow from a kindergartner’s post-nap bath: soapy bubbles piled on cappuccino like espuma. The mouth feel is light, the flavor mild. Rather than a progression of flavors and texture, Inferno captivates the tongue with a long steady note from first swill to after the swallow. While this is not a force-you-to-sip-it-slowly-with-friends ale, a la Avery’s The Beast, this devil brew makes for a great food beer, complimenting grains and charred things especially well. A yeasty beer to be sure, Satan’s spores have a soft savory ness to them that balances the sweetness of an 8.5% abv. Way less serious than the label implies, this is not some taste bud torturer: the Dark Lord likes to party!
Dairy Pairy: Gorwydd Caerphilly–an unpasteurised Welsh cow’s milk cheese.
Soundtrack: Satan’s Pilgrims’ Que Honda!

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Vegan “Caprese” Crostini

Posted on June 3, 2008 by Hot Knives

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If this feels like a dejavu, don’t bother pinching yourself: you have seen this dish before, allbeit in different forms. Most recently, we came up with a take where tomato confit balanced delicately on a sliver of expertly carved hearts of palm. But the recipe you’re looking at here is what happens when a great idea for a dish meets reality and you’re forced to scramble to fix a problem. In this case the problem being that those cute little caprese spears we dreamt up for our San Diego wedding catering gig simply refused to stay in people’s hands. (Not to mention our original stab at the recipe meant throwing away half of a can of hearts of palm, and when you’re dealing in bulk, this sucks. ) Good thing we found this out a week before the wedding, and planned accordingly so that insanely nice tuxedoes were spared from Hot Knives goo.
To make the dish stick, we baked off a baguette of crostini rounds to be the dish’s base. To act as a glue, we plopped down a puree that saved us from having to toss the extra hearts of palm. And then on top came the actual meat of hearts of palm and confit with garnish and a drizzle. From the clean plates, this dish was one of the biggest hits, but more on that later this week when we debrief the entire 14-course wedding menu. (Photo by Aubrey)
Caprese Bites w/ hearts of palm and tomato confit
(Makes about 30)
1 baguette (day old)
1 1/2 cups olive oil
2 tsp. sea salt
2 cups grape tomatoes
2-3 shallots
1 can hearts of palm
2 sprigs dill
4 sprigs basil
1/2 cup balsamic vinegar
2 cloves garlic, peeled
fresh black pepper to taste
1. Prepare your tomato confit (this can be done as far as one day in advance). Pre-heat your oven to 375 degrees. Wash and dump the grape tomatoes into a deep baking dish or bread pan. Add enough olive oil that the tomatoes are mostly submerged, about one cup. Thinly slice shallots, placing them over the tomatoes with salt and pepper. Roast in oven for roughly 30 minutes or until tomatoes are translucent.
2. Make the crostini: turn down the oven to 300 degrees and slice baguette into thin rounds, just less than 1-inch thick. (Most proper baguettes will yield about 30 slices.) Dab each round quickly with drops of olive oil and sea salt. Then bake on a sheet pan for 15 minutes, or until slightly brown.
3. To cut hearts of palm, go through the can and slice each heart of palm lengthwise so that you have two long semi-circle shaped rods. Then remove and set aside center piece to create a half-pipe. Cut each long half-pipe into two or three squares. This will be the section that gets splayed out on the crostini.
4. Recycle all the hearts of palm remnants into a blender.
5. Strain what you can of the oil from the tomato confit, gently so as not to burst the delicate tomatoes. Add that oil to the blender and pulse until creamy with dill and half the basil. Chiffonade the other half for garnish.
5. In a small saucepan put the balsamic vinegar on high heat and reduce by half. Once reduced, press garlic into pot and remove from heat, letting it cool for about one hour.
6. Construct crostini bites. Lay out crostini bread. Next comes a dollop of herbed hearts of palm puree the size of your ring finger. Follow it with a hearts of palm square. Then place a smaller dollop of puree, the size of your pinky on the square, to act as glue. Finally plop down two of the tomatoes. Finish with a careful drop of balsamic reduction and chiffonaded basil.
Beverage: Brasserie Dupont’s Foret
Soundtrack: Stereolab’s Space Age Bachelor Pad

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Last of the Cheese

Posted on May 30, 2008 by Hot Knives

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Two cute snippets of media loose ends to tie before we take an indefinite hiatus from blogging about cheese. We promise.
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As previously mentioned, Hot Knives performed a gooey, live demo art show presentation called “How To Be a Fucking Grilled Cheese Sandwich” to crunch-slurp… success last weekend. Framed as an inspirational/instructional guide for how to developing a winning grilled cheese sandwich, we walked dozens of wide-eyed art show goers through our own award-winning sammy from this year’s contest, the French Onion Soup sammy. While pulling neat TV tricks like pulling out already-finished pots of onions and grated cheese, we threw out tips for how to braise onions in beer, and fielded all manner of questions from, “Why use shallots over red onions,” to, “what’s a cheesemonger?”
Although Alex was out of town, and Evan was resigned to perform this sandwich solo, thankfully our grilled cheese accomplice and recipe cohort Mike Dunn was willing yet again to don his chef’s coat and tie for another synergistic grilled cheese event. One of the high notes: we did manage to share Alex’s postulations on cave aged Gruyere via technology!

We also took the opportunity to announce our intention to step aside next year from competing in the Grilled Cheese Invitational. We’re not ruling out playing the role of judge (if it’s offered) or performing something with cave cheese puppets. The three years we’ve participated have been rad, each year better than the last, but there are young whipper-snappers who need to step up to the challenge.
Last but not least, a couple of weeks after the contest, we were also interviewed by Swindle Magazine (above photo snapped by Greg Bojorquez) and the Angel City News blog about our site, cheese, vegan “stuck-on-an-island-with-one-dish” hypotheticals, and Los Angeles. Here’s a bit of the Angel City interview…

Angel City: Do you cook to music?
Hot Knives: Well, we try to pair recipes we post on our blog with soundtrack ideas that compliment the cooking process in a way that, at least for us, leads to positive ‘vibes’ influencing the meal’s outcome. Lately our kitchen soundtrack has steered toward dark percussive reggae jam instrumentals. But if we made a brunch compilation it would probably be heavy on the Fall, the Clash, Burning Spear, Gram Parsons and a token Kate Bush song to hit all the palate notes.
Angel City: If you could only cook one dish for the rest of your life, what would it be and why?
Hot Knives: Not grilled cheese, although sandwiches are a tempting choice. Green chili stew was a close second. But we think the answer would have to be Nicoise salad, because it is fancy and variable but essentially greens and vinegar, which we love…

Read the whole interview

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Mannequin Piss

Posted on May 26, 2008 by Hot Knives

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Meyer lemons, orange zest, grapefruit flesh. Naw, those aren’t the fruit slices we recommend dangling on the rim of this Belgian wit bier – they’re already deep down in there. That triumverate citrus haze of Blanche de Bruxelles makes it a perfect spr-ummer beer, for those confounding weeks where spring starts acting like summer, and all you want to do is porch-it with a beverage. But if you feel the absolute urge to add fruit, just rub a sliced kumquat around the rim and let it sink to the bottom, it’s small and subtle enough.
This cute Belgian bottle pours with a 2-inch head of wispy wit latte foam atop an opaque yellow beer the color of emulsified orange juice and oil. On the first whiff, it’s all Parisian preserved lemon tarte tatin straight out of the oven, with a little steam rising off the buttered crust giving off a kiss of coriander and cinnamon. Hefewiezen fans will recognize everything they love in Franziskaner, but without the heavy plantain-clove kick. It’s a small thing, but makes all the difference, akin to drinking a pint of fresh hefe at a countryside monastery poured by a German monk as opposed to in a plastic cup on a crowded goth club patio that reeks of clove cig smoke. Though it lacks the kind of hard-ass carbonation that makes a beer look like it is reaching a boil in the bottom of the mug, this brew bubbles in a way that kicks up a mist on the tongue. Like well water. Like an eternal spring. Like a brie, butter and banana egg cream soda.. Better yet, like the picture that adorns its bottle: the pure, golden piss of a giggling baby-god.

Dairy Pairy: Sbrinz, a 36-month aged cows milk from Switzerland.
Soundtrack: The Heptone’s “Cool Rasta”

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The ‘French Onion Soup’ Sammy

Posted on May 23, 2008 by Hot Knives

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In April, we placed in our third Grilled Cheese Invitational with two winning sandwiches. One of them was this Belgian-beer-infused French Onion Soup sandwich — made all the more special because it came about by clairvoyant collaboration. Simmered with savory soup spices and (secret ingredient) Chimay Blue trappist beer, the succulent grilled onions in this recipe mimic everything excellent about soup. And the crisp toast and oozy cheese emulate the gooey crouton on top. So much so that the only way to eat this sammy is the “crunch-slurp” method.
As promised, here comes the recipe! But if reading quantities and directions isn’t enough for you, come watch a free, live demonstration that we’re calling “How to Be a Fucking Grilled Cheese Champion.” The cooking demo is part of a bizarre and awesome art-performance show this Saturday, May 26, at Outpost for Contemporary Art in Los Angeles at 8 pm. And unlike most art shows, you can eat ours!

French Onion Soup Sandwich


(Makes 2)
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1 Tbs. margarine
1 Tbs. extra virgin olive oil
2 white onions
1 shallot
3 sprigs fresh thyme
2 bay leaf
1 cup Chimay Blue beer
1 tsp. mushroom stock
1 tsp. onion powder
1 tsp. white pepper
salt and black pepper to taste
1 Tbs. Dijon mustard
1/8 cup water
4 slices of sourdough bread
2 Tbs. margarine
1 lbs. Gruyer cheese
1 Tbs. parsley, chopped (for garnish)
1. Place a saucepan on medium heat and add margarine and oil. Let both dissolve. Meanwhile, peel and slice your onions into full circle slices. Peel shallot and slice thin. Add both to the pot, stir and cook down for 8-10 minutes.
2. Season the onions, keeping them on medium heat, with the thyme and bay leaves. Once the onions have turned translucent and cooked down by nearly half, add the cup of beer and mushroom stock. Turn heat down to a simmer. Add onion powder, white pepper and salt and black pepper.
3. You want the onion mixture to be wet but without much liquid — like the last two ladles of a batch of soup. Remove the soup mixture from the pan, leaving some of the grilled goop in the pot, and set onions aside. Add 1 Tbs. Dijon mustard and dash of water and let this cook off the goop into a sauce. Let this cool and later use to garnish.
4. Shred your Gruyer cheese, carefully because the cheese is fragile (let it sit out at room temperature for 10 minutes first). Set aside.
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5. Choose a pan that is wide enough to fit two sandwiches if you can. The thicker the pan, the better (we like cast iron skillets). Place skillet on medium-high heat for up to 5 minutes or until thoroughly hot. Turn down to medium and begin grilling.
6. Butter one side of all the slices of bread. Top two of the slices with cheese and place them margarine side down in the hot pan. It should sizzle but not too explosively. Add one ladle, or about 1/2 cup, of onion mixture to the cheese. Top both with the second slice of bread and press down carefully.
7. Checking the bread that’s face down every minute or so, let cook for about 3 minutes, or until bread is golden brown. Flip gingerly with a spatula and press down. Repeat until cheese is thoroughly melting.
8. Remove both sandwiches from heat. Let sit for 1-2 minutes under a metal colander, to let the cheese settle and gel without cooling too much. Then slice and serve. Garnish with a slather of the reduced sauce and a pinch of parsley.
Beverage: Rodenbach’s Classic Red
Soundtrack: Serge Gainsbourg’s “Aux Armes et cetera,”

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Sea-Cucumber Soba Salad

Posted on May 22, 2008 by Hot Knives

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During the early days of the Edo period, Soba Noodles became a solid solution to a thiamine blight that was destroying the Japanese masses. During the same period Dutch beer halls sprung up like so much buckwheat and led to the advent of those light crispy lagers that suck everywhere but at an Izakaya…
This missile in the barrage of plates that we executed last weekend in the southernmost southland was requested by the Bride and Groom. Going along with our globetrotting lineup, we had to oblige a shout out to the highly aesthetic glory of Japanese Cuisine. Rather than fiddle with tofu or fake fish, we went the route of the Soba noodle salad; a simple but platonic filler of the belly and a dish whose historic rise in popularity mirrors that of our favorite beverage: Beer.

Soba Salad


1 pack soba noodles (10-12 oz.)
1/2 bulb ginger
4 scallions
1 Tbs. black sesame seeds
1 Tbs. white sesame seeds
1-2 sheets Nori seaweed
1/2 tsp. smoked salt
4 japanese cucumbers

Sesame Dressing


1/4 cup grape seed oil
1/4 cup soy sauce
1 tsp. sesame oil
1 Tbs. rice wine vinegar
1 tsp. sugar
1 tsp. cracked peppercorns
1. Make dressing: In a large bowl mix soy sauce, grape seed oil sesame oil, sugar and black peppercorns. Pulse with handheld mixer until smooth and creamy. Add 1 cup chopped green onion tips. Let sit at least 12 hours.
2. Bring a large pot of water with a dab of sesame oil to boil and add the noodles. As soon as water returns to boil, check noodles and add a cup more of a water to break the boil. Stir and watch. Let cook about 5-10 minutes, remove and rinse with cool water. Set Aside.
3. Cut vegetables: Japanese cucumbers into slim half moons, scallions into long bias cuts, peeled ginger into thin matchsticks.
4. Toast sesame seeds, colors can be mixed. If your seaweed is raw add it to the sesame seeds with a touch of sesame oil and smoked salt. (If it is already smoked or toasted, which is hard to find, add it at the end for garnish.)
5. Toss the cool noodles with some grape seed oil and sesame oil to keep from sticking. Gradually add the veggies and then the dressing, mixing with tongs. Finally add sesame seeds and sea weed, saving some for garnish.
Beverage: Hitachino Nest Beer White Ale
Soundtrack: Soh Daiko-Taiko Drum Ensemble

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Fruit Stand Bites

Posted on May 20, 2008 by Hot Knives

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We Anglo-Angelenos just love fruit stands, they’re like the safer little sister of burrito bomb taco trucks. And fetishizing them like we’re about to do, well, paints us as not just nerds but as gueros. Fuck it! We’ve wanted for months to figure out a compact small plate or appetizer that brings together the classic curbside combos of jicama, mango, pineapple, watermelon, cucumber, chile, lime and salt into one single bite.
Whereas Eastside L.A. fruit stands leave you stabbing a plastic spork at huge chunks of tropical flesh in a spicy balloon bag, we were looking for a clean and simple Everlasting Gobstopper version. Configuring it for a possible San Diego wedding treat, we decided to keep it bite-sized. Slicing all the fruit elements in common shapes and quadruple-deckering them together in layers worked perfectly for making sure all the flavors hit at once. All we needed was a syrup to tie it together: mango chile. (Photo by Aubrey)

Mango Chile Syrup


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1 serraño chile
1/3 cup water
1/3 cup white sugar
2 mangos
zest of one lime
1. Slice chile into thin circles with quick chop. Toast in a small saucepan on medium high heat for about 2 minutes. Then make your simple syrup by adding water to the chile, stir, and then add sugar. Stir and let cook for about 3-5 minutes, until sugar dissolves. Then remove chile and set aside.
2. Slice your mango: cut it lengthwise, along both long sides of the pit, leaving you with two half-looking pieces of fruit. Gently slice a grid pattern in the mango’s flesh holding the skin side in your palm. Don’t pres too hard, it’ll hurt. Now press the skin side in, inverting the fruit, which will cause squares of mango to protrude from the convex half.
3. Slice the cubes off the peel and into the simple syrup. Then emulsify with an immersion blender. Add lime zest and stir. Let puree syrup sit while you cut your fruit.

Fruit Stackers


1 watermelon
2 cucumbers (wide ones)
1 pineapple
1 large jicama
1/4 cup cilantro
4. Remove skin from your cucumber and the spiky outside from your pineapple — slice both into thin 2-centimenter pieces. Slice your watermelon and jicama likewise.
5. With a set of shape cutters, play with your food. We liked triangles of even sizes as well as triangles with multiple uneven sizes, stacked vertically.
6. Serve with toothpicks, chopped cilantro, a slight pinch-ette of salt, and topped with a half teaspoon of the simple syrup.
Beverage: Blanche de Bruxelles
Soundtrack: Donovan’s “Mellow Yellow”

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‘Peace in the Middle East’ Couscous

Posted on May 11, 2008 by Hot Knives

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Maybe the marital feast we’re catering next weekend, and feverishly planning for right now, has us pondering how food can bring people together. Or maybe it’s the Spice Girls’ “2 Become 1” on repeat. Whatever the reason, we loved giving Israeli couscous a Moroccan kick, because we needed a sauce with some heat that would slick the bloated caviar-like balls of wheat with some oily heat. We chose a mild harissa of assorted red chiles. We added toasted cumin seeds ourselves for the real kick and served it as a room temperature salad. The stuff also works under a tagine, or alongside grilled vegetables. Just make sure to let the stuff sit for an hour or two to let the flavors “marry.” Har-har.

Cumin Couscous
(Serves 4-6)

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8 oz. Israeli couscous
1 Tbs. vegan margarine
1 large red bell pepper
2 shallots
1 scallion
1/8 cup flat-leaf parsley
1/4 cup harissa (mildly spicy)
2 Tbs. olive oil
3 Tbs. whole cumin seeds
Salt and black pepper
1. Bring water in a medium-sized pot to a near-boil over high heat. Lightly salt the water, just a pinch of sea salt, and add margarine. Right before the water hits a rolling boil, add couscous and turn down to low heat. Gently stir once or twice to keep from sticking. Let cook for 5-8 minutes or until couscous balls are perfectly plump and not at all crunchy. Remove, drain and shock with cold water.
2. Finely dice your vegetables. Slice the red bell pepper into quarters length-wise and remove seeds. Then slice quarters into long thin slivers, turn and dice into confetti. Dice your peeled shallots into the same small shape. Wash, pat dry, and chop flat-leaf parsley like you would for tabouleh. Add all of this to a large mixing bowl, saving a couple pinches of parsley for garnish, and mix with the couscous.
3. Dress the couscous with your harissa sauce and some additional olive oil (adjust to get a slick and smooth consistency, depending on how thick your harissa is).
4. The clincher: in a small sauté pan, toast the cumin seeds for about 2 or 3 minutes or until fragrant and slightly more brown. Add the seeds to the mixture and stir well. Season to taste. Let sit for at least an hour to marry. Serve at a room temperature.
Beverage: Unibroue’s Maudite
Soundtrack: Primal Scream’s “Little Death”

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Raw Pad Thai

Posted on May 9, 2008 by Hot Knives

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We’re back on the wedding catering warpath kiddies. Next weekend the Hot Knives crew is shipping down to San Diego for a marathon baking and grilling session for what will, hopefully, be an epic reception. The menu is done and most of the kinks are worked out, but we’ve been slow to post the recipes. Now, here comes the deluge. First up, possibly the greatest raw vegan edible we’ve concocted this year: a cold pad thai salad made not of fatty coconut flesh like some vegan “chefs” do, but out of all the veggie trappings that make pad thai krinkley and fun, dressed in a tamarind-coconut milk. We’re still playing with the proportions, but you get the idea.
(Serves 4)
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Coco-Tamarind Dressing
1/4 cup coconut milk
1 lemongrass stalk
5 kaffir lime leaves or the zest of two limes
1 Tamarind pod
2 tsp. rice wine vinegar
1 tsp. soy sauce
1/8 cup grapeseed oil
Raw Pad Thai
4 or 5 large carrots
1 quarter of a purple cabbage
4 radishes
1/2 cup bean sprouts
1/2 cup raw peanuts
1/4 cup cilantro leaves
4 scallions
1. In a small sauce pan, heat the coconut milk on medium heat. Beat the lemongrass against a hard clean surface until the outer laers start to split (this brings out more flavor int he infusion) and cut into manageable pieces. Place lemongrass into saucepan. Add kaffir lime. Let this heat until a rolling boil, then turn down to a simmer. Let cook for 15 minutes, then let cool.
2. Using your fingers,break open the tamarind pod and dig out each goop coated seed. Take a paring knife and carefully make an insicion that breaks through the goop membrane to the nut of the tamarind; then squeeze out the seed. Add tamarind pulp to the coconut milk mixture, blend or pulse together until smooth.
3. Combine the tamarind pulp, soy sauce and rice wine vinegar and chilled coconut milk in a blender or robot coupe and pulse until well combined. While blending, add the grapeseed oil in a steady stream to make an emulsion. Blend for an additional minute after all the oil is in the mixture and your sauce is done.
4. Roughly peel your carrots. Using a mandolin, or your vegetable peeler, slice carrots into thin ribbons. Collect in a large mixing bowl. Slice your purple cabbage in the same fashion. (Veggies should look like the garnish on a typical pad thai dish). Slice your radishes into pickle-sized chips. Add bean sprouts.
5. In a small sauté pan, toast your raw peanuts until slightly brown, about 5 minutes on medium heat. Let cool and chop roughly. Reserve 2 Tbs. for garnish and add rest to the salad.
6. Pluck individual cilantro leaves from their stem and add, as well as the scallions, roughly chopped.
7. Toss the pad thai with tongs, dress and stir until coated evenly. Chill in the fridge for at least one hour. Plate and dust with additional peanuts.

Beverage: Echigo Stout
Soundtrack: Acid Mother’s Temple, “Interplanetary Love”

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Bike-friendly XXX Vegan Cookies

Posted on May 5, 2008 by Hot Knives

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For the latest hot-ass recipe contribution from a Hot Knives associate, we tapped our sometime radio producer friend Meghan who has been busy baking cookies to raise money for a nutso bike tour she’s doing to raise money for an AIDS donation. Last time we hung with Meghan she was building her first road bike and still getting used to riding next to cars. Now she’s placing in Wolfpack biker races and riding upwards of 50 miles a day to train for her upcoming mission. We include her recipe for vegan chocolate death cookies as a gift to you all. Any words of encouragement or pledge dollars you can throw her way are whole-heartedly appreciated. Hot Knives will be making a contribution. Break a leg Meghan, show those Wolfpack fuckers how to bake! Take it away!
It’s amazing to think that just 7 or so months ago, I was too fearful to get on a bike at all, and now I’m pumped to ride all the way from San Francisco to Los Angeles for a great cause. Please donate what you can and forward my info to anyone you can think of. All the dough goes to the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center for HIV/AIDS services, including prevention and medication. Check out my page to donate or read.
This recipe makes a crapload of awesome cookies that are super moist and may be addictive. (Vegan cookie porn photos courtesy of Gary Kavanagh)
Meghan D’s Triple Chocolate Death
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2 1/2 tbsp ground flax seeds
1 cup soymilk
4 cups sugar
1 1/2 cup canola oil
4 tsp vanilla
4 cups flour
1 1/2 cup cocoa powder
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
3/4 cup cocoa nibs
2 cups vegan chocolate chips
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Mix the soymilk and flax seeds together in a blender, pulse and set aside.
3. In one mixing bowl, stir together the sugar, oil and vanilla.
4. In a separate bowl, sift together the dry ingredients, the flour, coco powder, baking soda and salt (leaving out the chips and nibs)
5. Bit by bit, stir the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients, both the blender of soy-flax and the bowl of sugary vanilla goo. Add more flour if the batter seems to sticky/runny.
6. Mix in the nibs and chips finally.
7. Now, form the cookies into pinball-sized shapes on a baking sheet and then smoosh them down so they’re more like disks. Place them on a slightly greased (canola oil or cooking spray or Earth Balance) cookie sheet.
8. Bake ’em 12 minutes.
Beverage: Chilled, organic unsweetened soymilk
Soundtrack: Tomorrow’s “White Bicycle”

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