Voracious
Page 3
1½ pounds good-quality milk chocolate, roughly chopped
2 cups heavy cream
2 cups whole milk
1 vanilla bean, seeds scraped out and pod reserved
1 pint (16 ounces) stout (such as Guinness), boiled until reduced to 8 ounces
8 large egg yolks
1 cup sugar
½ teaspoon kosher salt
Prepare an ice bath by filling the sink or a very large bowl with ice cubes and cold water. Place the chopped chocolate in a large glass or metal bowl and set it aside, along with a fine-mesh strainer.
In a large, heavy-bottomed pot, whisk together the cream, milk, and vanilla seeds and pod over medium heat until the mixture is just about to boil (you will see small bubbles forming around the edge of the pot and steam rising from the surface of the liquid). Whisk in the reduced stout and remove the pot from the heat.
In a large bowl, combine the egg yolks, sugar, and salt and whisk vigorously until fluffy and light, about 3 minutes.
Remove the vanilla bean pod from the scalded milk mixture and discard. Transfer some of the scalded milk to a 1-cup glass measuring cup. Slowly pour it into the yolks in a steady stream, whisking constantly. Continue to do this until all of the scalded milk is incorporated into the egg yolks.
Pour the yolk and scalded milk mixture back into the pot and cook over medium-low heat, whisking constantly, until the mixture reaches 170°F. Pour the mixture through the strainer into the bowl of chopped milk chocolate and whisk until the chocolate has melted and is incorporated throughout.
Set this bowl containing the ice cream base on top of the ice in the ice bath and whisk until it cools slightly. Allow it to cool over the ice bath, whisking occasionally, until it reaches room temperature, about 20 minutes. Cover the bowl and transfer it to the refrigerator to chill for at least 8 hours.
When the base is thoroughly chilled, spin it in an ice cream maker according to the manufacturer’s instructions. Allow the spun base to set up in the freezer for at least 2 hours before serving.
CANDIED WALNUTS
Makes about 1 cup
½ cup sugar
2 tablespoons water
Pinch of cayenne
1 cup toasted walnuts
1 teaspoon flaky salt (such as Maldon)
Spray a baking sheet with nonstick cooking spray and set aside.
Combine the sugar, water, and cayenne in a small, heavy skillet. Cook over medium heat, undisturbed, until the sugar begins to melt, about 4 minutes. Continue cooking, occasionally stirring gently, until the sugar caramelizes to a deep amber, about 2 more minutes. Remove from the heat, quickly add the walnuts to the caramelized sugar, and toss to coat. Spread out the sugar-coated walnuts on the greased baking sheet, using a fork to separate any that are sticking together. Sprinkle them with the flaky salt and allow to cool for about 10 minutes.
CHOCOLATE FUDGE SAUCE
Makes about 1½ quarts
1⅔ cups sugar
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons Dutch process cocoa powder
1 cup water
1 cup corn syrup
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter
8 ounces good-quality semisweet chocolate, chopped
3 tablespoons pure vanilla extract
Pinch of kosher salt
Combine all of the ingredients in a heavy-bottomed saucepan and heat over medium heat, whisking occasionally, until the sauce comes together. Serve warm. Leftovers can be stored in a covered container in the refrigerator for at least 3 months. Reheat before serving.
If You Give a Mouse a Cookie
BROWN BUTTER CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES
My second year at NYU I was living in Chinatown in a small apartment with five other students. The building was nestled cozily between a criminal court and a homeless shelter, just steps away the frenetic chaos of Canal Street. The second week of September, my roommates broke the news to me that they had all decided to study abroad during second semester. I left the apartment to walk to class, and a homeless man threw up Cheetos-colored vomit on my open-toed shoes, as if to say, “Abandon all hope, you silly nineteen-year-old.”
In January I found myself living with four strangers, including a meek young woman whom I never, not once, heard utter a word, and her boyfriend, whose hobby was knife throwing. He threw thick-handled knives at the kitchen wall all night long, leaving gaping, plaster-spewing holes.
The third roommate was a six-foot-four celebrity-obsessed med student who was always singing a creepy song called “I’m My Own Grandpa” under her breath. She used to camp out in front of the popcorn factory down the street and wait for them to throw away industrial-sized garbage bags filled with reeking, neon-orange cheese popcorn, which she would then lug home to the apartment and eat, noisily, late into the night.
Finally, there was a tiny, hunched art student whose oily black curls were forever hanging over her face and who once barked at me when I begged her to throw away the takeout food she had been collecting in her bedroom. When I say “barked” I don’t mean that she got snippy with me, I mean she actually opened her mouth and let out a dog bark so unnervingly realistic it still gives me chills to think about it.
What I’m trying to tell you is that this was a very lonely time for me.
One night, shut in my bedroom watching reruns of Dynasty on my laptop, I saw out of the corner of my eye the tiniest, sweetest-looking little mouse sitting on his haunches staring at me. I’m sure he was lured into the apartment by the smell of my roommate’s putrefying egg foo yong (or maybe it was the cheese popcorn), but for some reason I found his company immensely comforting. For the next few nights I waited patiently for him to reappear and he always did, twitching his nose in the blue light of my laptop screen. When he suddenly stopped visiting I panicked. Images of glue traps flashed through my head and, in a moment of sheer desperation (and extreme loneliness), I crumbled a piece of the chocolate chip cookie I was eating, placed it on the floor where he usually sat, and waited. A few minutes later he appeared and I, the only person ever to have this reaction upon seeing a mouse in her apartment, let out a giant sigh of relief.
A few weeks later the apartment was overrun with mice. They crawled up through the burners on the stove and huddled in the corners of the cabinets under the sink. When the guy I was dating at the time asked how in the hell things had gotten so out of control I admitted to him what I had done on that lonesome night. He was astoundingly angry at me. “YOU ACTUALLY GAVE A MOUSE A COOKIE?! HOW COULD YOU DO THAT? DID YOU NEVER READ THE BOOK?!”
We broke up shortly after that.
The thing is, I had read the book—many, many times. It was a bedtime staple at my house, and one of my all-time favorites. Despite the fact that the book has been panned by many a critic and author (most famously by Maurice Sendak, who replied simply, “UGH!” when Stephen Colbert asked him about it), I maintain that it is a valuable piece of literature. As a kid I liked the book for the delicious illustrations and the precious, overalls-clad mouse. As an adult I like it for its sinister message—if you ever give anyone anything they will always ask for more.
I am convinced that the author, Laura Numeroff, was an embittered counter-girl at some upscale Manhattan coffee shop before she struck gold with If You Give a Mouse a Cookie. Laura, like so many of us who have struggled trying to please the general public, knows that if you give a customer a free coffee, chances are she is going to ask for it to be a latte, soy, no foam, extra whip, two pumps, extra-hot but room temp.
I think about the book on a daily basis, and whenever one of my coworkers freezer-packs a single sausage for a customer and ends up, forty minutes later, breaking down fifteen cuts of meat to grind an eighth of a pound of custom burger, I always think, “You gave that mouse a cookie.”
While visiting my parents’ home recently I found my old copy of the book, and like so many other books from my childhood, it had a dreamed-up recipe written in my round kid handwriting on its back cover. The recipe was for my (and ever
y kid’s) favorite cookie—chocolate chip—crisp, chewy, and fluffy all at once. I’ve updated these cookies to suit my adult taste buds, browning the butter first and adding a healthy sprinkling of flaky salt.
IF YOU GIVE A MOUSE A COOKIE
Brown Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies
Makes 2 dozen cookies
2¼ cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, browned and cooled to room temperature so that it is solid again, but soft
1 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
½ cup granulated sugar
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1 large egg plus 1 large egg yolk
1 cup good-quality semisweet chocolate chunks
Flaky sea salt (such as Maldon), for sprinkling
In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, salt, and baking soda and set aside.
In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, beat the brown butter and both sugars on medium until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add the vanilla and beat until incorporated.
With the mixer running, add the whole egg and beat until it is mixed in, and then add the yolk and beat until it is mixed in.
Slowly add the flour mixture, being sure to pause and scrape down the sides of the bowl, until everything is incorporated.
Add the chocolate chunks and beat until they are evenly spread throughout.
Scoop the cookies and lay them on a sheet pan covered in parchment. (The dough is very hard to scoop after it sits in the fridge.) Refrigerate the dough balls for at least an hour (if you can bear to wait even longer, chilling the dough overnight produces the best results).
Once the dough is chilled, preheat the oven to 350°F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone baking mats and arrange the balls on them so there is at least 1 inch between each cookie.
Sprinkle the dough balls with flaky salt. Bake until beautifully golden brown, 12 to 15 minutes.
Eat immediately or allow the cookies to cool on a cooling rack.
The Indian in the Cupboard
GRILLED ROAST BEEF
Long before Toy Story came out it was common knowledge around the Nicoletti household that our toys came to life when we left the room. Looking back, I have a sneaking suspicion that my mom’s stories about the secret life of her Papa Bear might have been a ruse to get us to take better care of our toys—which, admittedly, worked like a charm. Papa Bear was my mom’s favorite stuffed animal when she was a child, and he was a legend in our house. She had seemingly endless stories about catching him moving around when she was pretending not to look—scratching his ears or snuggling farther under the blanket. He had been loved to the point of being completely furless, one shiny black eye hanging precariously from a thread, giving him an adorably deranged smirk. My sisters and I took turns sleeping with him, and we always made sure he was somewhere comfortable before we left for school. We even memorized the position we left him in, so that we could spot if he had moved while we were gone.
There was never any question in our minds that all of our toys had a rich secret life. We wondered constantly what their personalities were really like, which ones were fighting, and which ones were in love. Every day before school my older sister, Ande, would announce to all of the toys in our room that although we were leaving and would be back later, they didn’t have to stop doing what they were doing when we got home. They were safe, she told them, and we would never tell anyone that they were really alive. After school we would creep up to our bedroom as quietly as possible and fling open the door, hoping to catch a glimpse of the world of our imagining, but it was always frustratingly out of reach. I still remember the fear in my friend Hannah’s eyes when I told her excitedly that her favorite teddy bear was in fact alive. And it must be said that the thought of some of our toys coming to life—particularly our troll dolls and a large alien figurine that my dad called “the it”—was unsettling. There were nights that I lay awake, convinced that I heard the trolls shuffling around, plotting revenge for that time I put them all in tiny toilet-paper diapers.
Some of the most popular and enduring children’s movies and books of all time feature toys coming to life—from Toy Story to Corduroy to The Velveteen Rabbit—proof that my sisters and I weren’t the only kids who harbored this fantasy. Of all the books in this vein, Lynne Reid Banks’s The Indian in the Cupboard was by far my favorite. My mom and her twin sister read it to my cousin Cam and me the summer before second grade, and to this day it remains one of my most vividly remembered reading experiences. To me, the most thrilling element of the book was the fact that Omri, the protagonist, got to live out every imaginative child’s fantasy—the one that we played out over and over again when we sat our stuffed animals at the breakfast table, or forced cake into their fur mouths at tea parties and bedroom-floor picnics—the fantasy of getting to feed your most beloved toys.
Much of the book’s beginning is centered on Omri’s quest to meet Little Bear’s digestive demands. At first he is flummoxed by what to feed the toy he has brought to life: “What did Indians eat?” he asks himself. “Meat, chiefly, he supposed, deer meat, rabbits, the sort of animals they could shoot on their land.” Unfortunately for Omri, his British cabinets are filled only with “biscuits, jam, peanut butter, that sort of thing.” When he finds a can of corn, he’s relieved, having learned in school that Native Americans grew and harvested corn. The canned corn is far from what Little Bear is used to. He’s so tiny he has to hold one single kernel with both hands. He is skeptical at first, “turning the corn around in both hands, for it was half as big as his head.” Eventually, though, “he smelled it. A great grin spread over his face. He nibbled it. The grin grew wider.”
Little Bear’s biggest demand is for meat to cook, and Omri comes up with the genius idea of building him a meat-spit from his Erector set. Little Bear isn’t used to using a spit, but “he soon got the hang of it. The chunk of steak turned and turned in the flame, and soon lost its raw red look and began to go gray and then brown,” and before you know it the bedroom is filled with “the good juicy smell of roasting beef.”
Cam and I were awed by that meat-spit, and we begged our parents to let us build one of our own over one of the enormous bonfires we frequently had in the summer. The closest we got, though, was watching our moms prepare roast beef for our enormous family. Because the summers were oppressively hot and our house wasn’t air conditioned, our moms always cooked the roast on the grill out back. Cam and I would pull up chairs next to the grill and watch as they seared it off, thrilled every time the fat dripped and caused the flames to flare up. While we waited for the roast to cook, we peeled back ears of sweet summer corn, rubbing off the silk and checking for worms, and we talked about Omri and Little Bear and the cowboy Boone. When the roast came off the grill to rest, the corncobs went on, wrapped back up in their husks. On these nights we sat down to eat feeling exultantly close to Omri, Little Bear and his wife, Bright Stars, and Boone, as though we had made something of our own come alive.
THE INDIAN IN THE CUPBOARD
Grilled Roast Beef
Serves 6 to 8
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons kosher salt
1 tablespoon coarsely cracked black pepper
1 tablespoon crushed red pepper (optional)
Finely chopped leaves of 2 rosemary sprigs
4 garlic cloves, pressed through a garlic press
1 (3-to 4-pound)boneless strip loin roast, fat trimmed to ¼ inch
Mash together the oil, salt, black pepper, red pepper (if using), rosemary, and garlic, rubbing the mixture together with your fingers to distribute the ingredients throughout. Rub the mixture all over the roast and let it sit at room temperature for about 45 minutes. (For best results, wrap the seasoned roast and refrigerate it overnight; just be sure you allow it to come back to room temperature before cooking the next day
.)
Preheat the grill on high.
When the roast is ready and the grill is hot, place the roast on the hottest part of the grill, close the lid, and sear until a good crust starts to form and the meat releases from the grate easily, 5 to 8 minutes per side. (If you have a standard charcoal grill, make one side of the grill hotter by piling more coals on that side, and sear the meat on that side.)
Once the meat is seared, turn the heat down to let the beef roast, fat-side up. (If you have a three-burner grill, place the roast in the middle and turn that middle burner off. If you have a four-burner grill, turn the middle two off and place the roast there. If you have a charcoal grill, simply move the roast to the cooler side of the grill.) Place a cabled instant-read thermometer into the thickest portion of the roast and close the lid. If there is a thermometer on your grill telling you the grill’s temperature, it should be between 300°F and 350°F.
Let the roast cook until the instant-read thermometer reads 125°F to 130°F for medium-rare, 30 to 40 minutes.
Remove the roast and let it sit for at least 10 minutes before carving it against the grain and serving.
The Boxcar Children
CHOCOLATE PUDDING
When I was in elementary school, on days when it was too rainy for us to go outside for recess, our teachers would gather us in the library and pull down a giant, yellowed projection screen to watch movies. This should have been the most exciting thing in the world for a seven-year-old, but our librarian always insisted on playing the 1978 animated rendition of Puff the Magic Dragon. Maybe it was the only movie she had, or maybe she loved it, but I cannot describe to you how much I hated this movie. Not only did the entire premise of it terrify me, but it gave me the saddest, most anxious feeling deep in my gut, a feeling that stayed with me for days afterward, with those dulled psychedelic colors and Peter, Paul, and Mary’s eerie crooning creeping into my nightmares. I had a vague notion that Jackie Paper, with his wide, wet eyes and terribly fragile name, was sick or dying—it was all too much.