No Drive-thru – Hot Knives

Spaghettioz

Hot Knives — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 20:58:29 +0000

News flash: If it’s cutesy, someone’s done it before. After a recent impulse buy of little round ring pasta, the obvious direction seemed to be simmering up some old-school Spaghettios, just with better ingredients. Not only did we discover we’ve been trumped on this one by another vegetarian blog, they made the same yuck-yuck intro. Fuck.
Regardless, we’re re-activating the playful comfort food section we call “No Drive Thru” to bring you a $5, 10-minute meal with easy to round up ingredients. The tomatoes can even be mealy, won’t matter! We’re gonna make two components of sauce for a little complexity. Watch out mommy!

Spaghettioz

(Serves 2)
2 cups Anelletti pasta
1/4 cup olive oil
6 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 red onion, chopped
2 large overripe heirloom tomatoes
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
2 cups tomato sauce
1 cup vegetable stock
1/4 cup parmesan cheese (optional)
salt and pepper to taste
Basil for garnish
1. Bring a medium pot of water to boil, with a touch of salt and olive oil. Toss in the pasta and let boil to al dente, about 8 minutes. Drain and set aside.
2. In a second pot, start the first sauce component by adding the olive oil, garlic, onion and sautéing for about 2 minutes. Then roughly chop your tomatoes and add. Wait another 2 minutes and pour in the balsamic. Cook it off by cranking the heat and boiling until half the liquid cooks off. Then, using a tea strainer or something, sift out the tomato chunks (save them and set aside) leaving the liquid on high heat.
3. Add tomato sauce and stock and bring to a rolling boil. Then drop in cooked pasta just enough to bring up to piping hot temperature.
4. Toss the vinegary tomato chunks with parmesan (substitute 2 Tbs. nutritional yeast to veeg-ify) and plop on top of the soup. Season and garnish and serve.
Beverage: Yahoo and vodka.
Soundtrack: Pavement’s “No More Kings”

“Onion Rings”

Hot Knives — Sun, 01 Apr 2007 09:43:12 +0000

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.

Jalapeño Popperz

Hot Knives — Sun, 11 Mar 2007 17:40:29 +0000

This beloved finger food has largely been cursed to wander the halls of late-night Jack in the Box runs — an exodus not befitting anything so cute. We think hot peppers can be wonderful vehicles for snacks, though the Anaheim peppers of chile relleno fame are snooze-ville and Habaneros can hurt people, leaving only the Jalapeño.
So, for our latest addition to the “No Drive-Thru” haute vegan fast food menu, we veganized the Jalapeño popper. We roasted and deseeded them, stuffed them with an herbed vegan cream cheese concoction, dipped them in tempura batter and rolled them in panko crumbs. Once fried these peppies become scorching vegan cheese torpedos. Holla back y’all!
10 Jalapeño peppers
8 oz. vegan cream cheese
2 large sprigs of tarragon
1 bunch of chives
1/2 cup tempura batter
1/4 pale ale
1 cup panko breadcrumbs
2 cups canola oil
1. Roast two peppers at a time using your stovetop burner. Place your peppers directly over high heat, leaving them to sit 1-2 minutes at a time, rotating them as they blacken. Once blistering, dunk them in cold water and rub off black skin. Chop off their tops and make one long incision, pulling apart so you have one flat pepper skin. Carefully remove all seeds and set aside. Repeat.
2. Mix your cheese with chopped herbs. Using a small spoon put one large dollop on ach pepper and roll them shut.
3. In a large bowl add the beer to the tempura batter. Add more batter or beer as necessary to get a pancake batter consistency. Place bread crumbs on a deep plate and put a wok of canola oil on high heat.
4. Once oil is hot, dip the peppers in tempura making sure to shake off excess batter, then roll them in breadcrumbs. Immediately drop them in hot oil. Let fry for 3-4 minutes each or until golden brown on all sides.
5. Serve in a basket alongside some honey-mustard or homemade ketchup.

Como se dice “Chips?”

Hot Knives — Mon, 12 Feb 2007 00:46:25 +0000

In Scotland there are entire eateries devoted to battering and deep frying pre-fab foods from chocolate bars to individual frozen pizzas. This truly encapsulates the seemingly-American-only-drive-to-obliterate-the-body through sumptuous trans fat overload.The third facet to the first No-Drive menagerie is likewise insane–an all fried plate. Instead of deep fat fried calamities like snickers bars and sausages, we took the three noblest of roots and cooked them to a crisp. Gracing your smorgasbord of psychotic saturated indulgence: sweet potato chips, fingerling frites, and pink tempura’d baby beets. Now would be the time to peruse our archives for ketchup recipes.
5 cups canola oil (or grape seed oil)
1 sweet potato
4 fingerling potatoes
6 baby beets, skinned and trimmed of leaves and stems
1/4 cup beet water (see below)
1 cup tempura batter
1. Heat a large pot of boiling salted water to boil. When bubbling vigorously, drop the baby beets in and blanch for ten minutes. Remove from the pot and cool them with ice cold water. Reserve 1/4 cup of the water used to blanch the beets, it should be dark purple in color, set aside to cool.
2. Using a mandolin, or the sharpest knife in your drawer, slice the sweet potatoes super thin. place in a bowl of cold water and agitate until the water turns cloudy. Drain the sweeties and repeat this process two more times. By rinsing away excess starch you will obtain a crisper product in the end.
3. Scrub the fingerlings and half them length wise, then cut into long strips about 1/4″ thick. repeat the same process as above.
4. Heat the canola oil in a large wok on medium heat for five minutes.
5. While the oil comes up to temperature, place the tempura batter in a small bowl and ad the reserved beet water bit by bit, until the batter has a consistency that is movable but still very thick: you’re shooting for a pancake viscosity, not crepe batter. Place the now cooled beets in the tempura batter and coat thoroughly.
6. Fry each vegetable in shifts, being SUPER CAREFUL to pat dry both the sweat potato chips and the fingerling frites with paper towels. Extremely hot oil hates cold water, and your skin hates errant beads of molten fat. Use a metal spatula or tongs to turn each root so it browns on all sides. Once nice and browned remove from the oil and pat dry with paper towels. Serve with appropriate accoutrements (beer is necessary).

Cup Noodles

Hot Knives — Sun, 11 Feb 2007 23:25:04 +0000

One of childhood’s trashiest pleasures, these Styrofoam packages of dehydrated non-nutrition tasted brilliant despite, even because of, their innovatively cost-efficient design: a self-contained bowl, light and aerodynamic ingredients with the simplicity of astronaut cuisine. Just add water. And never underestimate the importance of format when it comes to food.
Longing for the quirks of Cup o’ Noodles and Top Ramen — the cute, dried peas and cubed carrots, the unbelievably salty broth, the flakes of dried parsley and tiny nubbins of reconstituted chicken — we stumbled upon a phó-like version that packs a punch in a smaller does, a shot o’ noodles, if you will. We managed to substitute everything that could stunt your growth as a kid with healthy, real and totally vegan nutrition. And you still get the fun of watching your food grow!

Broth
2 cups vegetable broth
1 stalk lemongrass, sliced and crushed
1 jalapeño, sliced
1 bunch cilantro
1 green onion, chopped
1 bunch mint

“Dehydrated Veg”
1 cup frozen peas
1 lime, peeled
1 carrot, peeled
1 bulb young ginger, peeled
1 small block smoked tofu
1/4 cup bacon bits

Noodles
2 cups dry chow mein noodles
1 cup canola oil
1. Since you won’t be using MSG, the best way to concentrate your broth is to add it to all the other ingredients in a saucepan and slowly bring it up to simmer. Let it bubble for close to an hour while you prepare the veggies and noodles.
2. Defrost the peas by placing in a bowl of hot water or in the microwave for 1-2 minutes. Leave them slightly crunchy for extra sentimental effect. Slice your peeled lime into four long pieces, turn and cube. Cut your peeled carrot into similarly sized carrot cubes (pickled carrot strips work even better). Repeat with young ginger. Toss together in a bowl and set aside.
3. Rather than use raw chow mein, heat up a wok to fry the noodles quickly. Once hot, drop them in and stir thoroughly. After 2-3 minutes or until crunchy and slightly golden, remove and press with paper towels.
4. After close to an hour of simmering, strain the broth of any stray ingredients, and set aside.
5. Chop the smoked tofu into small cubes.
6. In small bowls, plate the dry ingredients, first the crunchy noodles, then top with the cubed veggies, followed by the smoked tofu cubes and bacon bits. Pour a small serving of broth into a tumbler or snifter. Serve separate so that diner may add broth to soup bowl.