The Hobbs Digest

Fusion cuisine in the shadow of the Port Authority!

Arrosto di maiale al latte

This simple yet luxurious dish would certainly repulse any vegan or observer of religious dietary restrictions. For us heathen hog-gobblers, however, this Italian delicacy of pork roast braised in milk is pure bliss. The garlic-studded pork simmers until gratifyingly tender in rosemary-laced milk, which cooks down to a nut-colored, exquisitely creamy sauce. Although this dish, plenty for four to six people, warms the belly and soul on chilly nights, I would happily serve this for a summer lunch, as an alternative to vitello tonnato or a chicken fricassee, as it boasts all the succulence of a winter stew yet sidesteps wearying heaviness.

One or two days before you serve the dish, make around 15-20 incisions spaced evenly all over a boneless pork rib roast, about 2 ½ to 3 pounds, and insert slivers of garlic sliced lengthwise. Place the meat into a dish just large enough to hold the roast and add enough dry white vermouth to come about halfway up the meat. Cover, refrigerate, and turn the roast halfway through the marination time so that each half spends an equal amount of time in contact with the booze bath.

About 2 ½ hours before serving, remove the roast from the marinade, which has done its job and can be poured out. Wipe the roast dry and sprinkle all over with flour.  Heat 1 tablespoon butter and 2 tablespoons oil in a 5-quart enameled dutch oven over medium-high heat. When the butter has melted completely and the pan is good and hot, brown the meat on all sides, starting with the fat side down. Remove the roast and pour the fat from the pan. Season the roast with plenty of salt and pepper and return to the pan with 2-3 sprigs rosemary, one bay leaf, a few gratings of nutmeg, and enough whole milk--full-fat milk is required here--to submerge about three-fourths of the roast. Bring to a boil and then adjust the heat to a healthy simmer. Place the lid slightly askew and simmer, turning the roast every 20 minutes or so, until the meat is tender, yielding easily to a sharp knife.

Remove the roast to a plate and tent with foil. Then reduce the rather unappealing, clumpy sauce over medium-high heat until the sauce darkens to a light caramel hue. Remove the bay leaf and use an immersion blender to puree the sauce--a seamlessly velvet, lump-free cream sauce is not the goal here, so don't work too hard on this step. Slice the roast into serving pieces and either arrange the slices on a platter over which you pour the sauce, or return the meat to the pot, gently mixing the pork and sauce, for a more rustic presentation.

January Spa Salad

 If the holiday season has left you feeling like the batteries are running low, you are probably one of the thousands of penitents who have pledged to eat more responsibly in 2009. Throughout the month of December, most of us hunch up our shoulders with a "Whaddya gonna do?" smirk and gobble up every tidbit proferred with holiday cheer. All that heavy, sugary food, topped off with the excesses of New Year's Eve can make for a very sluggish few weeks in the beginning of January.

Here's a salad you can crunch on during The Great Detox. It takes less than five minutes to prepare, and tastes virtuous without being punitive.

Cut off and discard the bottom of a head of celery, and rinse the celery stalks and leaves well in cool water. Chop all this into half-inch chunks and toss into a serving bowl. Then chop off the stalks and cut out the knobby base from a head of fennel. Slice down the middle vertically, then slice each half thinly. Toss these pieces into the bowl with the celery. Squeeze in the juice of one lemon, and add oil (olive or nut oil is best) to taste, 1T or so. Season to taste with salt and pepper, toss, and serve. You can embellish with whatever you think would work; I like thin shavings of parmigiano reggiano and hazelnuts.

Recessionary Lobster

Lobster is considered a luxurious food: what I would have ordered if I'd known you were paying, and all that. This wasn't always so. Until the early 19th century, the flesh of this rather grotesque crustacean had about as much status as Spam enjoys today. (Here's a good history.) Along with its contemporary status as fancy food, the lobster has become somewhat of a cause célèbre among animal rights activists. Eating lobster appears crueler than consumption of other animals, primarily because the creatures are usually alive, mucking around in a prominently displayed tank, minutes before arriving on a diner's plate. It is also typical that lobsters are boiled alive, which can result in a disquieting "scream," which is actually the sound of trapped air whistling through holes in the shell--think of a boiling teakettle.

Mainly due to lower demand and the resultant surplus, the price of lobster is currently low, so if you enjoy this swanky meat and can't pass up a bargain, now's the time to pick up a few of these beasts. Bigger is not necessarily better, though; chowing down on this geezer would feel like chopping down a Giant Sequoia.

Fresh Direct, we have a problem.

Oh, Fresh Direct, I do love you. You're so convenient--you come over when I command it, you take away the burden of heavy lifting, and you allow me to fulfill my desires without even having to speak.

Why, then, must you force me to question your merits when you so blatantly and inexplicably throw such waste in my face? The Manhattan consumer is trying to reduce his carbon footprint and shun the wanton, 20th-century, senseless glorification of excess packaging, and then you give me this? A single container of milk--organic though it may be--delivered to me in a cardboard box with enough spare space to host a litter or two of puppies?

There must be a better way. I like you, I really do, but I just don't know if we can keep going on like this.

Cold Comfort

Oh, the weather outside is frightful, and pretty much everything we hear about the economy points to bleak, hardscrabble times ahead. Noted Great Simplifer Thomas Friedman was on Fareed Zakaria's show on CNN today, where he pronounced, "I go into restaurants and I look around... I want to come up to people and say, 'You shouldn't be here. You should be home having tuna sandwiches. What are you doing here? Don't you understand?'" (His expenditures going out to eat are implicitly acceptable, unless he just walks into restaurants to tsk-tsk and march right back out the front door, but that point was not raised.) His provocative statement brought to mind two things for me: a) restaurants shouldn't necessarily be singled out as unworthy recipients of our discretionary spending, and b) yes, cooking at home makes so much sense for so many reasons, including thrift.

The most indomitable advocate of home cooking today has just come out with an updated edition of the best cookbook out there, How to Cook Everything. Mark Bittman, a New York Times colleague of Mr. Friedman, is a longtime champion of home cooks and believes passionately that everyone can use their kitchens--even tiny Manhattan versions, like his own--to produce healthful, delicious food to really be proud of.

On chilly days when leaving the cozy sanctuary of home to brave the outside world is just too intimidating, there are many simple, quick treats one can whip up in no time. Today I craved chocolate, and I craved creamy, and I realized that chocolate pudding could become reality with very little effort. I had just received my copy of HTCE and sought out the recipe for pudding, p. 950. Using gorgeous Guittard Nocturne (91%) chocolate I had received in a goodie bag from a pastry chef event, I invested approximately $0.85 of ingredients and 15 minutes, plus chilling time, to make a luxuriously silky chocolate pudding that would stomp all over some wretched instant version from a box.

There is ample comfort in knowing that the simple pleasures of life will consistently make us happiest, so if winter blues or financial woes have got you down, nourish your belly and soul with homemade food, the best kind there is.

Planning Thanksgiving

Our crowd keeps growing for Thanksgiving, and that is wonderful. I adore this holiday, with its focus on food and loved ones. There is no emphasis on gift-giving and its inevitably crass commercialism (I'm lookin' at you, Christmas!) and any conflict among participants is rather minor, at least in my experience. Of course, the cook is usually overwhelmed, there may be restless children, some may drink to vociferous excess, but first and foremost, Thanksgiving is a pretext to throw a pleasurable feast. I think it's a marvelous opportunity to showcase and celebrate foods from the New World. Isn't it jarring to think that chilies, tomatoes, potatoes, and papaya were introduced to the whole planet only a handful of centuries ago?

Turkey is, of course, the centerpiece of any traditional Thanksgiving, so it's important to roast the bird with care. I am investigating different techniques, but it looks like brining and a foil tent will be involved. Details to follow.

To accompany the turkey, there must be an embarrassingly copious display of side dishes. There must be mashed potatoes and some riff on cranberries. Sweet potatoes and at least one green vegetable in a creamy sauce are expected, too. Wines must be selected to accompany the wide breadth of flavors from the take-your-coat-off-and-nibble-on-something stage to the very end, when dessert is forced down sluggish throats. As for dessert, what kind of pie? How many pies? What about pies and a frozen dessert?

The concerns go on and on, and all home cooks have a lot of planning to do in the days ahead. As my own plans coalesce, I'll try to find a few minutes to rationalize them here.

Please never buy hummous again.

If you have a food processor, you should not buy pre-packaged hummous. This wonderful, healthy paste is ridiculously easy to make, and you have total control over the seasoning and texture, which leads you to infinite variations on this simple theme.

You will need chickpeas, tahini, olive oil, lemon juice, minced garlic, and salt. Canned, drained chickpeas are wonderful and any difference between them and dried ones, prepared by soaking for hours, is imperceptible here. The amounts are all to your discretion, but do go easy on the garlic. No single flavor should dominate.

Combine the chickpeas, tahini, and garlic in the food processor and blend. Add the oil and lemon juice gradually, until you approach the desired texture. Add salt to taste, and process until frosting-smooth. Serve drizzled with olive oil, paprika or any other spice or herb you desire.

Gazala Place

Ninth Avenue in Manhattan boasts an impressive succession of restaurants serving attractively priced food from around the world, but Gazala Place, a couple months shy of its one-year anniversary, is especially distinctive, since, according to the owner and chef, Gazala Halabi, this is the only Druze restaurant in the U.S. Ms. Halabi, a warm and enthusiastic host, hails from a family of cooks and restaurateurs in Daliat el-Carmel, the largest Druze village in Israel. Mention of the word "Druze" in the U.S. will generally generate puzzled looks. The Druze are a very small religious community concentrated in Syria, Israel, Lebanon, and Jordan. The actual religious beliefs of the sect, an offshoot of Shi’a Islam, are unknown to outsiders, and Druze cuisine is virtually unheard of in the West.

Like a beacon to homesick and hungry Druze from all over the country who have heard about and sought out this sliver of a restaurant, a sajj is visible in the front window. This round, domed griddle, which looks like a wok turned upside-down, is used to make the characteristic, napkin-thin pita of the Druze. This bread reminds me of the rumali ("handkerchief") roti I've enjoyed in Northern India. Next to the sajj, right next to the front door, you will usually find a tray of bourekas, flaky pastries as big as squashed softballs, topped with black and white sesame seeds and filled with Gazala's whim of the day, usually spinach, meat or goat cheese and sun-dried tomato, the last combination being so ethereal as to inspire obsession. These phyllo pastries resemble two doughy New York Jewish staples—bagels, in shape, and knishes, in concept—but these bourekas have the virtue of being simultaneously light yet substantial.

With the exception of a few novel transliterations here and there, most of the menu looks familiar to any fan of Eastern Mediterranean cuisine. When asked what constitutes the essence of Druze cuisine, Ms. Halabi explains with a mischievous chuckle that most of what she learned to cook is "Israeli things…but we fix it." Gazala uses a uniquely Druze (and secret) blend, hand-ground and imported directly from her grandmother's spice shop back in Daliat el-Carmel. She dismisses the spices found here as flavorless and lacking a certain terroir. She makes her own yogurt, which is the base for several dishes on (and off) the menu, from thick, tangy labanee to ash al-saraia, an alluring, honey-sweetened dessert that is a sort of Levantine tiramisu. Gazala acknowledges that she could cut corners here and there with ingredients to save money and a lot of effort, but feels this would betray her principles and her mission to provide authentic, honest Druze cooking.

Ms. Halabi hadn't even heard of The New York Times when Peter Meehan's positive review was published in February, so she was dumbfounded when there was a line out the door for four days beginning on the morning after publication. She is thankful for the benediction of the Times review, an honor to which any ambitious restaurant aspires, but she did not open Gazala Place seeking critical acclaim. Far more important for her is the recognition she enjoys back in her very traditional birthplace, where women's roles outside the home are usually limited to part-time work. Most women toil in the house, cooking and cleaning and generally making life comfortable for their husbands. By coming to the United States and opening a successful restaurant—in New York City nonetheless—she has become a hometown hero and, most importantly in her own view, an ambassador for Druze cuisine and culture.

Gazala Place
709 9th Avenue (between 48th and 49th Streets)
New York, New York  10019
212.245.0709
BYOB

A weekend in LA: The Dish, Part 1

New York often turns up its nose at Los Angeles--and everywhere else, for that matter--but that great, shining city on the other coast gives us no room to slouch when it comes to eating. New York can't even come close to boasting the variety of restaurants serving Mexican, Persian, Thai and Vietnamese fare. I didn't have the chance to try what LA offers in the vast universe of Asian cuisine, but the first thing I ate, fresh in from the airport, was the legendary ice cream of Mashti Malone's, an ice-cream parlor specializing in Persian flavors like rosewater, pistachio, pomegranate, saffron, mango, etc., in intriguing combinations, some laced (vermiculated, actually!) with noodly faloodeh, or vermicelli. One half of the freezer features these exotic, perfumed treats, while the other caters to less adventurous customers who may consider Neapolitan to be somewhat outré. The shop, in a very unassuming strip mall dominated by Mashti's huge sign, half-English, half-Farsi, also sells irresistible packaged treats, like sohan asal, a honey almond brittle that  makes a mockery of the concept of portion control.

LA is the kind of place where yoga classes are canceled due to a full moon, where ancient spirits are honored on construction sites by women with long gray braids and tambourines, but it is rich in one of the most down-to-earth cuisines in the world: Mexican. I enjoyed a wonderful brunch at the new ¡Lotería Grill! on Hollywood Boulevard, right next to the Geisha House, a self-described "combination of five-star sushi restaurant set in the atmosphere of a surreal high-class brothel." Hoo boy! Much more to my taste, ¡Lotería! is the latest venture of chef/owner Jimmy Shaw, who rightfully has quite a following in the LA food world.

I loved this beautifully airy space upon entering. Seated on the patio, where we could enjoy that typically beautiful LA weather and the typical Hollywood Boulevard parade of sidewalk-stargazing tourists and local characters, we ordered smoky huevos rancheros en salsa morita ($10) and huevos divorciados ($10), slathered in salsa ranchero and salsa verde, with a side of the best chorizo I have ever eaten. Among the aguas frescas ($3), we sampled lip-smacking watermelon and lime. We also enjoyed a round of rather tame but delicious jalapeño margaritas ($12), in glasses rimmed with chili and salt.

After the feast, which started off with the requisite but better than usual chips and salsa, we were stuffed but couldn't resist the persuasive charm of our waiter, Frederico, when he recommended the flan de cajeta ($5), which turned out to be a stunner, really the Platonic ideal of this too often disappointing dessert.

Oh, could there be a New York branch of this wonderful restaurant in the cards? ¿Por favor?

 Mashti Malone's Ice Cream
1525 N. La Brea Ave.
Los Angeles, CA 90028
323.874.0144

¡Lotería! Grill
6627 Hollywood Blvd.
Los Angeles , CA 90028
323.465.2500