Monthly Archives: May 2010

Homemade Ravioli

By Michael Ruhlman | Published: May 27, 2010

Photo by Donna Ruhlman Summer is flying by too quickly and I've been buried in all the good things--work and family and friends and food. Ma was here and I showed her the Iron Chef show with Symon v. Bloomfield and she was so enamoured of Symon's idea of putting a yolk inside pasta, I made some for her (above, on a bed of sheep's milk ricotta I got from Paul Minnillo at Baricelli Inn, seasoned with citrus and espelette), served with a simple brown butter sauce. Sooo. Good . Yolk spills out into the butter. Then off to NYC to judge an Iron Chef competition, then back home on the 4th for Old Chicago's on the grill at my Dad's and fireworks viewed from the first fairway of a local course, then ...

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Homemade Short Rib Pastrami

By Michael Ruhlman | Published: May 24, 2010

Photos by Donna [I'm on a blog break from 5/17 through 5/31, so I'm putting up favorite food posts from the archives.] It began with pickles. I'd bought a quart of small cukes to pickle with tarragon but I wasn't thinking as I made the brine. I wanted some spice in there so I added black peppercorns. Then, here is the not thinking part, I put in a load of coriander seed, then the tarragon, but as I smelled the brine coming up to heat, it was clear that pepper and coriander would completely overpower the tarragon, and simply don't belong together. So I removed the tarragon. Donna arrived just then and said, "Mmm, smells good in here. Like corned beef." Having ruined the brine for the pickles (using the ...

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Posted in Beef, Charcutepalooza, Main Courses | Tagged Charcutepalooza, corned beef, pastrami | Comments closed

How To Make Quiche

By Michael Ruhlman | Published: May 20, 2010

Photos by donna [I'm on a blog break from 5/17 through 5/31, so I'm putting up favorite food posts from the archives, this one on quiche published last July] On Wednesday I flew to Washington to make a quiche at the restaurant Proof for a segment on "All Things Considered" with one of the show's new hosts, Guy Raz. Guy said he read the Slate review of the book, which called my book Ratio "fascinating and pompous," and was intrigued. So he and his producer, Phil Harrel, requested a dish that combined two ratios. Quiche immediately came to mind, using both the 3-2-1 pie dough ratio (I've lost track of the number of people who have written to thank me for getting them over their fear of pie dough) and the custard ...

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Posted in Eggs, Ratios | Tagged quiche, ratio | Comments closed

Homemade Pizza

By Michael Ruhlman | Published: May 17, 2010

[I'm taking a blogging break until 5/31, so am putting up favorite food posts from the archives in the interim] Can we call this national make-pizza-at-home week? That would make me really happy. Why? Because pizza at home is so good, so easy, and so so affordable. But what I want to focus on here is the EASY part. This is why I really loved Sam Sifton’s NYTimes mag article on pizza (except for that truly shameless plug of Jay McInerny’s new book—are they pals? Really had to stretch even to make sense). But: Pizza at home IS so easy it got me wanting to make pizza for breakfast: bacon and eggs pizza? Why not?! I loved his stressing the fact that ...

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Posted in Bread, Main Courses, Ratios, Uncategorized | Tagged homemade pizza, Ratios | Comments closed

How To Grill a Sausage

By Michael Ruhlman | Published: May 14, 2010

Earlier this week, I shot a video on grilling for a new digital magazine being created by Sideways. I did a spatchcocked chicken, grilled asparagus and also sausage, because, after the infrenal boneless skinless chicken breast, it's the most overcooked meat in America, and yet it's rightly beloved here. In my experience people err because they're afraid of not cooking it enough. So they either cook it over really high heat, overcooking the outside, busting open the sausage, or they kill it with too much moderate heat. As we move into grilling season, and there's no better way to cook a sausage than over the smoky heat of live coals, I encourage you to grill sausages often. All carnivores around you will be happier. There are two stages to grilling a sausage to perfection. Start it over moderate direct heat to give ...

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Posted in Charcutepalooza, Chicken, sausage | Tagged grilling, sausage, thermometer | Comments closed

Doubt Cast On Food Allergies

By Michael Ruhlman | Published: May 13, 2010

A new report says that most people who think they have a food allergy may not, writes Gina Kolata in yesterday's NYTimes.

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Restaurant Workers, Restaurant Patrons—
Disconnect Remains

By Michael Ruhlman | Published: May 12, 2010

Photo by Donna

For all the interest in food, chefs, and restaurants, the popularity of "Top Chef" and other shows depicting professional restaurant work, most poeple still have no clear conception of the unique, bizarre, intense, exhalted, depraved, mysterious human stew that restaurants are. Yesterday, New York Times writer Ron Lieber blogged about being kicked out of Marc Forgione's New York City restaurant. Disturbed by the chef's protracted yelling at a member of the staff, he marched back to the kitchen to tell the chef what for. The upshot was that Mr. Lieber was asked to leave. (It's a good post, read it.) Mr. Lieber asked for comment on the blog. Times restaurant critic Sam Sifton called attention to it on Twitter, to which I gave a loud guffaw at ...

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Posted in Food Politics, Restaurants | Tagged danny meyer, marc forgione, restaurant etiquette, ron lieber | Comments closed

Macaroni and Beef with Cheese —
Childhood Love

By Michael Ruhlman | Published: May 8, 2010

Mid-week Macaroni and Beef with Cheese, photo by Donna

I needed a dinner that was easy and delicious, would please everyone, one that also reheated well in case my daughter's track meet ran late, and I had to be able to make it long before serving so it would be just a matter of reheating come dinnertime. There are of course a thousand options that fit these criteria, but last week, I was in a nostalgic mood and thought back to school lunches, one of my favorites, macaroni and beef. We were always famished by lunchtime and this dish was dependable and impossible to screw up by a 1970's school kitchen. For a midweek meal I went as simple as could be. The only way I'd change it, I decided would be to ...

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Posted in Beef, Main Courses, Pasta, Recipes | Tagged comfort food, macaroni and beef, staple meals | Comments closed

Introducing My New “Author App” WhoHa!

By Michael Ruhlman | Published: May 6, 2010

All kinds of awesome things happen to me because I live in Cleveland. Others are seeing it too—my favorite line from the Beard awards reception Monday, slightly boozy but true nonetheless: "Cleveland is happening!" the California girl shouted to me. "Cleveland is on the cusp of greatness!" Earlier in the year a company called Sideways called me saying they were fans and cooks and wanted to create a template for an "Author App," basically a fan app that allows people interested in an author to access everything he or she has to offer, in quick seamless fashion. I was game and I knew that my passionate, occasionally disturbed follow, would find it interesting. Watch the video above, download it FREE from iTunes. It is, of course, the irony of ...

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