Friendz of Hot Knives – Hot Knives

Pickle Play: Part I

Hot Knives — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 08:00:00 +0000

When local artmaker Fritz Haeg asked Hot Knives to be part of his upcoming book launch, we just figured we’d do our quasi-catering thang (which entails setting the bar low with the whole ‘we’re bloggers, not caterers’ vibe and then bombing guests with insane food). Fritz had other ideas.
Known for throwing nutso art salons for years in his L.A. geodesic dome, Fritz has strong feelings about parties feeling spontaneous, not too planned, and more about DIY domesticity than any showy displays.
That basically ruled out just doing sneak attack appetizers with witty names.
Other ideas came and went — what about a bahn mi bar, or garden-to-table cooking on site, or maybe even serve-your-own dessert cones with fresh melons instead of ice cream… but nothing felt right. (Not to mention, the art institute hosting the book launch needed a health permit approved and county health inspectors insisted on us bleaching the melons.)

We had to wrestle with a new quandary: how can food be art? And more importantly how could our eaters be engaged with the grub without letting health inspectors bleach our fruits.
So we seized on doing something experiential and process-based. Instructional, educational and open for discussion, without sucking the fun out of the cooking. We learned to pickle! Pickling was perfect because its domestic, it gives home cooks new crayons to play with, and there’s plenty of lactic acid science facts to rattle off. Oh yeah, and we have enviable vinegar hook-ups.
Plus it gave us the excuse to dabble more in the dark arts of preservation, which we’d only flirted with before. Indeed, for the last month both our kitchens have been slippery with weird vinegars, funky from fermentation experiments and stocked full of giant daikon radishes. We learned a lot.

But before we give away the secret tips an proportions we found worked best, suffice it to say that the process took time. We chronicled the basics in the above video. In a few days, we’ll let you know how the Hot Knives Pickle Lecture Series went over with the art types.

The Sandwich Search

Hot Knives — Sat, 15 Dec 2007 16:03:57 +0000

Our friends Ali and Evan who opened a bike-friendly, veggie-heavy café in Northeast Portland this summer recently asked us to develop the “ultimate vegan breakfast sandwich” for their expanding menu. The only requirements were that it be fairly easy and inexpensive to recreate in a commercial kitchen, that it be vegan, obviously, and that it do justice to some nutso all-female roller skating dance troupe that they were thinking of naming the sammy after.
So, last weekend the Hot Knives Test Kitchen got to work. It wasn’t hard to come up with the condiments, stacking ingredients and such. We are partial to creamy spreads, so we whipped up a dill aioli out of vegan mayo. Next came the mock meat component, where we quickly settled on maple tempeh bacon. Every sandwich needs a fresh veggie and a cooked veggie, so we went for thick-sliced heirloom tomatoes and rather than the obvious spinach, we went with sautéd kale in a little soy sauce and shallots.
Last but not least we needed the anchor of the sandwich that would replace the egg. We narrowed the field down to two variations of the same idea: a mock fried egg sandwich that relied on the gooiness of a handmade polenta and made two competing sammies: Sandwich A was a patty of firm, seasoned polenta fried off to order; Sandwich B centered around a fried tomato topped with much wetter polenta that mimicked Hollandaise. Both were sickly good, although we preferred A because it was a lot easier to eat. As for which one may end up on the Little Red Bike Café menu, well, it’s not up to us, but you can check here in coming months to see if either made the cut!

Ultimate Breakfast Sandwich Ingredients

1 Tbs. vegan margarine
4 cloves garlic, miced
4 crimin mushrooms
1 tsp. fresh thyme
3 cups water
1 cube vegetable bullion
1 cup course grain polenta
pinch of kosher salt
pinch of fresh black pepper
2 3-inch strips of tempeh
1 Tbs. maple syrup
1 tsp smoked salt
1 tsp paprika
1 Tbs. olive oil
1/2 cup kale, washed
1 shallot, minced
1 clove garlic, mined
1 Tbs. soy sauce
1 Tbs. vegan mayonnaise
1 tsp. fresh dill
1 Ciabatta bun, or any crispy/chewy roll

Sandwich A

1. Start by making your polenta patty. Place a medium saucepan on high heat with margarine, add garlic, sliced mushrooms and thyme and suate for about 3 minutes. Bring your water to boil in a teapot and add two cups only to the saucepan. Toss in bullion and bring back to a boil, stir.
2. Now whisk in your polenta slowly and bring down heat to medium. Cook like this, whisking every so often, for about 30-40 minutes or until thick like a rich batter. If it seems too thin, add a couple pinched more of polenta. (It will continue to thicken when cool.) Then remove from heat and immediately transfer polenta to a tall rammequin. Let it cool until firm, in the freezer it takes about 15-20 minutes.
3. In the meantime, fry up your tempeh bacon: put your paprika and smoked sat on a small plate, your maple syrup in a small bowl. Dip each slice of tempeh in maple syrup and then drop in dry spices. Then in a small pan, fry in a small amount of oil until maple syrup caramelizes to a dark brown. Set aside.
4. Bring a large pot of salted water to boil to blanche your kale leaves. Dunk them for 30 seconds and then drop them straight into an ice bath to keep them green. Then sauté your washed, cut kale leaves in the same pan with oil, shallots and soy until tender like sautéd spinach. Set aside.
5. Prepare aioli by mixing chopped dill with vegan mayo.
6. Once all components are ready, bring out your chilled polenta cake and remove from rammequin. Slice off one 1-inch thick slab and cook in your sauté pan with another 1 Tbs. of vegan margarine on medium heat just until slightly browning on outside and molten inside.

Sandwich B

1. Prepare your polenta Hollandaise by bringing all three cups of water to a boil. Add bullion cube, stir. Cook on medium heat, whisking every couple of minutes for 40 minutes. Polenta should behave like slop. Season as desired. Keep on low heat until ready to serve.
2. Prepare dill aioli, maple tempeh bacon and sautéd kale as described above.
3. Fry a tomato slice, a 1-inch thick slab, in a small sauté pan with a touch of olive oil. Season as desired. Flip and cook 1 minute on each side. Serve as main component with polenta covering the rest of the sandwich layers. Use a fork.

Beverage: Mikkeller’s Beer Geek Breakfast Stout
Soundtrack: Animal Collective’s “Whaddit I Done”

LRBC’s Vegan Chanterelle Dream

Hot Knives — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 09:33:09 +0000

Every so often we like to turn over the blog buttons to friends who have a kitchen secret or a standout recipe. The latest comes from Portland natives and recent restaurateurs Ali and Evan. We’ve known them for years and highly recommend peeps check out their new peppermint dreamboat of a shop, the Little Red Bike Café. Hit up their bike-thru window for vegan ice cream, get jacked on Courier Coffee and savory bread puddings, or just dribble at their high-res food porn. When you go, just promise you’ll smack ’em one for Hot Knives for putting so much bacon on their menu! Take it away Ali and Evan…

So, we’ve got a problem. A real bad problem. But you know what they say; admitting is the first step. So here it goes. For quite some time now we have been…sigh…addicted to mushrooms. Yes, it’s true. Button, Morel, Shitake, Lobster, Porcini, Trumpet, Chanterelle. You name it we’ll eat it. Traces of the addiction can be found throughout both sides of the family so it’s really no surprise that we wound up like this. That said, when fall time hits and we’re itching for a fix we know who to call. We have a dealer, I mean friend, we’ll call him “Todd,” that has a nasty habit of uh…illegally foraging wild forest mushrooms. In our fungus-induced haze, we aid in the smuggling by providing the “mule”, our beloved Le Creuset soup kettle. Yes, fall time is when our addiction is at its peak and it means three things in our household: wood burning fires, lots o’ red wine and soup. Here’s how it all goes down…

Vegan Cream of Wild Mushroom Soup

(Serves 6-8)

1 Tbsp olive oil
2 medium yellow onions, chopped
1 lb. mushrooms, sliced (any mushroom will do but we particularly love chanterelles with this recipe)
1 1/2 tsp dill weed
1 Tbsp paprika
1/8 tsp cayenne
1 tsp caraway seeds
4 garlic cloves, coarsely minced
3 Tbsp tamari
2 cups vegetable stock (Imagine’s Organic No-Chicken Broth)
2 Tbsp vegan margarine
3 Tbsp flour
1 cup soymilk/soy creamer
2 tsp fresh squeezed lemon juice
2-3 Tbsp red wine
Fresh cracked pepper
1. In a soup pot, sauté onion in oil until soft, about 5 minutes
2. Add mushrooms, dill, paprika, caraway, paprika, and cayenne then saute for 5 minutes. Add 2 Tbsp of the tamari and stock, cover and simmer for 15 minutes.
3. While soup simmers, melt the margarine in a separate saucepan and add the flour. Cook one minute, stirring constantly, then whisk in the soymilk/creamer ‘til smooth.
4. Once smooth and simmer roux (yes that’s right you just made a vegan roux) over low heat, stirring constantly, until slightly thickened.
5. Once thick, whisk in the last Tbsp of tamari and then transfer to the mushroom mixture and stir in. Add garlic. Cover and simmer for 15 minutes.
6. Just before serving stir in the lemon juice and red wine, finish off with cracked pepper.
Beverage: Cedar Creek pinot noir (OR bitchez!)
Soundtrack: Gotan Project’s La Revancha del Tango

“Half the Batali”

Hot Knives — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 22:59:01 +0000

After recently cooking up the recipe riffing on Mario Batali for the very generous Daily Candy (an email newsletter resource that apparently every working freelance editor/stay-at-home-mom in Los Angeles reads daily) we received this little joke gift from one of our biggest fans. And with it we’re done talking about this celebrity chef. So enjoy!

Lake’s Booch

Hot Knives — Sat, 23 Jun 2007 17:47:27 +0000

by Lake Sharp
You may have heard of the wonder tonic kombucha. It is all the rage here in LA, people scouring the city to find a place to throw down $4 for 16oz of this healthy bacteria/yeast-poo water. Yep, the liquid is the biproduct of bacteria and yeast feeding on sugar and tea, Ashby explains it a little better. Kombucha has been around since the Qin Dynasty in China (around 250 BC) and can now be yours in the good ol’ DIY fashion of HK. It’s really easy and fun to have these little science experiments growing in your cubbard.

How to Boocha

To harness the powers of this “immortal health elixer” you need only a few things, namely, the mother. The mother is the gooey slime that forms on the surface of tea…it is the organism. In kombucha, it is often refered to as the “mushroom,” though this is purely figurative. You can buy mother and a booch kit online or from some healthfood stores. But if you are patient, you can grow your own by simply buying a 16oz bottle of your favorite brandname booch and pouring it into a glass galon jar. The strands of culture will eventually turn into a clear blob. You have to let it grow for a good month or so undisturbed, but once you feed it, the culture will go nuts and soon turn into the big brown “mushroom.”
So, the groundrules for kombucha are these:
Metal kills mother, only use wooden or plastic utensils while handling the bev.
It grows best in clean glass galon jars.
Keep it stored in a cool dark place.
Kombucha food:
12 cups of black tea mixed with 1 cup sugar cooled to room temperature.
As your mother grows, the fermentation procces will shorten, but it’s really just a matter of taste. If you like a sweeter booch, bottle after a week. Each batch I make tastes a little different. I am still experimenting with how long I let it ferment and bottling techniques to get the right amount of fizz. If the taste gets too strong after several batches, you can remove some layers of mother and either start new batches with them or give them to friends to start their own.

Zukanna Bread

Hot Knives — Mon, 28 May 2007 15:31:35 +0000

By Meagan Yellott

There’s no better way to complete a weekend than to fill your home-zone full to the brim with the sweet, spicy smells of baking zucchini bread. It caps off that feeling of creative accomplishment, makes the perfect porch-sitting dessert and helps to buffer the shock of a Monday morning by providing the perfect accompaniment to that first cup of workin’-week coffee. The following recipe makes two loaves. Eat one slice by slice and share the other with your friends.

MeGee’s Zukanna Bread

3 under ripe bananas
1/4 cup soy milk
2 cups granulated sugar
1 cup vegetable oil
2 Tbs. vanilla
3 1/2 cups white flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoon salt
2 to 3 teaspoons cinnamon
1 tsp. all-spice
1 tsp nutmeg
3 cups grated zucchini
1/2 cup walnut pieces
1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate or carob chips
1. Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Liquefy the bananas with soy milk by blending in a food processor or blender. Then combine in a large bowl with sugar, oil and vanilla.
3. Combine the flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, all-spice and nutmeg in a separate bowl, using a fork to sift and distribute evenly.
4. Slowly add dry ingredients to the wet ingredients. Stir well. The mix should be slightly thicker than pancake batter, but sufficiently wet enough to pour. If it seems to dry mix in a bit more soy milk. If too soupy, add a touch more flour.
5. Stir in grated zucchini, walnuts and chocolate. Pour into two slightly greased bread pans and bake for 50-60 minutes. The loaves should rise and turn golden on top. They’re done when you can fork the center and pull it out with no batter goo.
Beverage: Iced Earl Grey
Soundtrack: Nobody and Mystic Chords of Memory’s Tree Colored See

Bobby Beers’ Bloody Mary

Hot Knives — Sat, 12 May 2007 13:28:18 +0000

by Aubrey “Bobby Beers” White

A good Bloody Mary is hard to come by. Bartenders will begrudgingly mix you a shitty concoction of Mary-mix and vodka, glaring at you when you skimp on the tip. I’ve even been refused a Bloody Mary! Too much effort; too much sweat.
I am, thusly, beyond appreciative when I see a ‘tender revel in the craft of the Bloody Mary. (Quick aside: Once a bored bartender was so stoked on my ordering a Mary that he gave it to me for free. Best Mary I’ve ever had).
I made a batch of Mary’s for brunch in Portland, on the aforementioned Hot Knives weekend bonanza. I’ve been asked to share the reppie here, just in time for a liquid breakfast on Mother’s Day.
I was working with Bloody Mary Mix — not ideal, but it served its purpose. I’d opt for V8 any day. But if you’re using a mix, go for spicy and, in my humble opinion, avoid anything with clam juice. If you make it right, you may not even have room for breakfast.

Bobby Beers’ Bloody Mary

Serves 4 people
3 cups V8 Juice, chilled
1 cup premium vodka, chilled
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 squeezed lemon
1 Tbs. horseradish
1 handful of cornichons, finely chopped
2 Tbs. Tapatio hot sauce
salt and pepper to taste
1. Mix all ingredients in a large metal bowl.
2. Serve in a tall glass on ice and garnish with a celery stick each, a couple of whole cornichons, and a spoonful of capers.

Wine House

Hot Knives — Mon, 07 May 2007 19:21:16 +0000

By Guest Knife Mike Meanstreetz
This beer poem is the fourth installment of our on-going love letter to the best booze aisles in L.A. With the extended Hot Knives crew still recovering from a mad dash up to Portland this weekend we, this one is brought to you by Hot Knives’ friend and beer afficio-nah-do Mike Meanstreetz.
A jump without compass but for sun and mounting breeze, the pedal west to Santa Monica’s Wine House was firsted along side my Korea Town roomy back before shipping off to the beer tariffed wastes of Australia. In those days we were quick convinced of a spinning magnetism between preoccupations of bicycles and ale, and sweaty brows furled above whet tongues in ponder of barley, yeast and hops ceaseless poetry. Bus strikes and a broken Volvo opened new trade routes in hawk-eyed cross city commutes.

A rare hair more trouble it was in finding new brews then, and thoroughly sought was every little shop and sip, braking for culturally suspect neighborhood markets all ways to and from, and on Sundays squinting pay phone cabled Beverly Hills directories vigil of opening hour. It was off the malty bearded breath of my roommate’s fatherly co-worker freshly persuaded of a larger world than red and white, that we were cued to a locale he’d previously frequented in pursuit of the latter. To his rediscovery he found new favorites Schneider & Sohn’s Aventinus Eisbock and the Belgian Gulden Draak well nestled amongst a myriad of other lands capped in sixes, bombers, half liters, 11.2s and 750s. The word was passed and to us it was a glorious tale, and with our mission lain before us we soon ten-sped west through the neighborhoods ‘tweenst the crosses of Olympic and Normandie, and Pico and Sepulveda.
On side street Cotner, cornering a 405 freeway entrance, the Wine House sits as broad as a supermarket, but upon entry is unassuming and welcome as the smell of cork, an ambiance befitting a booze shop well kept beneath a seemingly starred gourmet restaurant and tasting bar above. The glimmer of uncountable bottles prod a wander past front registers never kept shy of a smile or recognizing glance. An excitement in their stock since my first visit has yet to lull, for as new beers are brewed, the seasons change there too, spicing a familiar consonance to every visit. Glass glass glass 200 feet down the House’s right a beer selection fortifies wee more than the two sides of a large aisle, and adjacent sits a cooler holding a rotating sampling taken from the aisle face’s devotion to American micro brewing in 12 oz form. Nobly priced is a wince-free break of this region’s 6’s, its comparable prides represented in plenty and variety from each brewery. I’ve taken home North Coast’s Old Stock Ale in three vintages side by side for the same price, markedly the lowest aound.
Also represented are wider lines from breweries hailing states if not entirely overlooked, then carried likely in limit. Here compatriots Deschuetes, He’Brew and Philly’s Victory, with steady stock of their San Diego-like strong ales, and freshly hopped pils, with their more festive 750s shelved the other side of the aisle with others clustered a taller luster.
This section specifically populated bombers, Belgians and half liters, for me leaves the 6 pack an afterthought. The first time and place I had ever seen Pizza Port’s brews sold north of my familial visits to Carlsbad, CA, I was quick struck by a lack of adequate bag capacity. Surely they not only carried standard 6’s of coppery Shark Bite, 22’s of the the more quaff-able than surf-able Wipe Out I.P.A., and the too-old too-young timeless too-bad of darkie Old Viscosity, but still in times good or worse the stock steadies three Belgian inspired 750’s corked comfy a length of shelf up a tier, sitting next to the domestic exoticisms of Jolly Pumpkins, Allagashes, the foiled eschelon of Anvil, and all that our neighbors Unibrou have Zymurgically had to say. In the shade of the four or so rows beneath there lie the 22’d likes of Californians Moylan’s, Lagunitas and Reaper, whose Sunday company so close to the beach decidedly ignores all suggestion of pause between holiday.
For seasonal big beers this is a heaven and safe haven as seemingly untappable as I have looted unquenchable. No slight at such brief mention of their unimpeachable vocabulary for the habitual recipes of breweries like Stone, but in the fore is the constant arrival of new seasonals as they come, with the Vertical Epic being their only gargyled offering priced more than four dollars, with the rest often dollars less than the going rate of the many other stops to end my day. It may be due to grapes’ higher gravity in a stronghold so named that beers can be slow to move, signs more than fairly warning “last til next year!” These restless cases often enough are on sale next to classics already within elbow’s reach. Multiple trippels, barley wines and double I.P.A.s may ask a moment of you in discerning which armful to compare. This seasonal sensibility carries over into the hearty effervescence of the Belgian lot with an unabashed attention to the more creative recipes of Le Choufe’s innovative double I.P.A., the latelies of La Fantome and the Mad Brewer, and a fullness of all else you may so be regionally inclined to, with proper lean toward Trappists like Rochefort, Westmalle, and their cloistered kin. No shortage of the darker aled likes of Kwak and St. Bernadus, saisons like Moinnete, the Flemish sour and a singularly generous attention lambics.
Of differing nationality yet crafted in similar mastery are a Southernly handful of Italy’s brews, to whose acquaintance I owe a befriended Wine Houser’s discerning and generosity. During my Sunday visits I have often lingered for a talkative lunch break, and although never having eaten at the upstairs restaurant I’ve shared a snack of painfully procured crystal salts and an affordably unhurried press of oil over my first and last impression of the only radishes I’d dare brag about. A true witness to off the shelf black bean dip silty cousined of the hickory smoked, thoughtfully grained crackers, and cheeses to boot. As an address to worriers, there is still some German beer left, although invisible like minds and I have drank much of it and still suffer no restock.
Staff: I’ve missed you too.
Refrigeration: Yeah, but scratch that. They got a chilling chamber working down to the fifth minute!
Split Six Packs: A few shelves donated to the orphaned with their own price stickers to boot.
Belgians: Read the labels and learn the states and their capitols.
Microbrews: Almost, exclusively.
Special Powers: See ‘chilling chamber’ above
Achilles Heel: Traffic, for some.
Location: Here.

Use Your Hot Knives

Hot Knives — Sun, 29 Apr 2007 09:18:17 +0000

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

Honorary Hot Knife: Kate Bush

Hot Knives — Tue, 12 Dec 2006 00:52:27 +0000

If you haven’t noticed we’ve been geeking out deep on the whole video-taping your food thing lately. And after a couple of dutiful hours of market research on the realm of YouTube cooking videos, we have selected a winner. Here’s a clip that is both wondrous and disgusting, and gives us one more famous vegetarian to add to the list…