We’re scouring the Web for fun food links to share with you every week and here’s what we’ve found:

• Al Dente has uncovered the ultimate fusion food – the Zucchini Weenie
• Beantown Baker kicks off Cupcake Week with recipes, photos and a contest!
• Yummy pie + tasty lollipops = Pie Lollipops
• Party Like It’s 1959! Aurelio’s Pizza is selling their pies at 1959 prices. Book us on the red-eye to The Windy City!
• The Cake Spy brings us The Hermit Cookie from 1880
• Craving that South-of-the-boarder flavor? Try these delicious Chiles en Nogada from Cookstr.com.
• These Goodbyn lunchboxes on SeriousEats.com make us want to go back to school!
• ‘Top Chef Masters’ winner Rick Bayless dishes about his 27-ingredient mole and more
• While we’re talking Top Chef…we’re rooting for Robin, our fellow Seattleite!
• It’s the 40th Anniversary of Woodstock! Stay tuned to the Foodista Blog for some modern twists on some hippy classics

Photo: Gio JL

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• Friday Fun Links
• Young Winos
• The 2,000 Pound Rib Feast
• Kabocha and Ginger Squash Soup
• How I Slaughtered a Chicken

Categories:	Uncategorized	Leave a Comment
Tags:	Food • food news • recipes

As our readership has grown, a number of people have asked: “Beyond the blog, what are you building?” Well here’s a bit more info for you curious folks… Foodista will:

• be a great place to learn about food and cooking; and
• provide easy ways to share your food interests and knowledge with the world.

“How?” you ask…We are building a site that uniquely combines:

1. Great search of foods, recipes, cooking tools and techniques; like IMDb does for movies;
2. Community editing; a la Wikipedia; and
3. Widgets/tools for sharing it all anywhere on the web, especially on food blogs, similar to what Flickr & Youtube make possible with images.

We now have a fantastic team in place, including a stylin’ designer and an innovative web developer. A couple of other fun developments include great networking at Blogher, and growing traffic…we recently broke into the 100K top websites at Alexa…pretty good for a pre-launch blog! Above all, we are building Foodista for you. Send your thoughts and ideas for the best possible food website to ideas@foodista.com. Cheers, Sheri, Colin, and Barnaby Founders, Foodista.com

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Categories:	Cooking tips • Meat & Poultry	5 Comments
Tags:	cooking • Food • foodista • recipes • Techniques • Website Development

I love duck. And I love curry. But preparing both from scratch can be a daunting task. I recently found this quick and easy recipe for duck curry that is so good people will think you spent all day grinding spices and smoking duck.

Fast and Easy Duck Curry
Peking duck is available at Asian markets.

1.5 – 2 lbs Peking duck
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 small red onion, finely diced
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 fresh red chili, seeded and chopped
1 tablespoon red curry paste
1 tablespoon creamy peanut butter
1 2/3 cups coconut milk
1 1/4 cups chicken stock
1.5 tablespoons fresh lime juice
1 tablespoon fish sauce
2 tablespoons fresh cilantro, chopped

Duck is a fatty little creature, but I prefer to leave on a bit of the less fatty skin for added color, flavor and texture. If your duck comes with a sauce or two, throw those in your curry – it will only make it tastier! Remove the bones, making sure to get the tiny ones that are easy to miss. Cut into bite-size pieces.

Heat the oil in a pot over medium heat, add the onion, and sauté for about 5 minutes. Add the garlic and chili and continue to cook for another couple of minutes. Stir in the curry paste and cook until blended (about a minute), then add the peanut butter.

Slowly whisk in the coconut milk and cook until thoroughly combined. Add the chicken stock, bring to boil, then reduce heat and let simmer for 10 minutes. Add the duck, lime juice and fish sauce, and let simmer another 10 minutes.

Sprinkle with cilantro and serve with rice.

Note: I think zucchini, eggplant or other vegetables would be delicious additions too!

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• The Great Stuffing Debate!
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• Tonight Chef and Mixologist Kathy Casey at Nightschool
• How I Slaughtered a Chicken

Categories:	Asian • Canned Goods • Cooking tips • Herbs • Meat & Poultry	4 Comments
Tags:	curry • duck • duck curry • Food • foodista • recipe • recipes • rice

Have you ever gotten disapproving looks at parties for eagerly scooping up too much of the caviar? That’s never happened to me per se (I’m much too sneaky to get caught), but if you have then you will enjoy this scoop-worthy roe.

Tarama is cod or carp roe that is salted, dried and sometimes smoked. When combined with olive oil, lemon and soaked bread a classic Greek meze, often referred to as the “common man’s caviar,” is created: taramosalata. Creamy, lemony, and with just the right amount of that fishy-saltiness, taramosalata is good and cheap enough to make you unapologetically snarf it down like a hungry Greek fisherman.

And I do.

Taramosalata
Prep time: 10 minutes

• 3 1/2 ounces of cod or carp roe (plain or smoked)
• 1 cup of extra virgin olive oil
• 2-3 slices of bread, crust removed
• juice of 2 lemons
• warm water

Run the bread under water, then squeeze dry. Put roe and bread in a food processor and blend (setting 2) until mixed. Add the olive oil and lemon juice slowly and pulse until creamy and thick. If it gets too thick use a bit of warm water to thin it out. Cover and place in the refrigerator until well chilled.

Personal experience note: unless you like the taste of a fish monger’s floor, then do not lick the tarama spoon <gag!>. Patiently wait until the recipe has been completed.

In a hurry? You can also find pre-made taramosalata in Mediterranean markets or on Amazon.com.

Thank you SunSirrah for your nice photo!

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• Celebrating Chanterelles

Categories:	Fish & Seafood • Mediterranean • Salads • Travel	3 Comments
Tags:	appetizers • caviar • Food • foodista • Greek • Mediterranean • meze • recipe • recipes • roe • tarama • taramosalata

Nothing tops off a Summer Solstice dinner more perfectly than an apple tart. My friend’s mother, Val, made a simply divine one the other night, and I am still daydreaming about its goodness. I’m talking the-skies-opened-up-and-the-angels-sang good.

Although tarts seem like a relatively simple dessert, it’s the crust wherein lies the excruciating challenge. And to me, it’s the crust that’s the crucial ingredient. What you put on top – albeit delicious – is secondary. But Val, sweet Val, you nailed it! If crust making were an Olympic event you would win the Gold Medal. Perfectly browned; neither too thick nor too thin; and (here’s where the angels started singing) ever so light and flaky.

Mmm…mmm…mmm!

I asked her for her recipe, afraid that she wouldn’t divulge some secret family recipe, and she responded, “It’s Julia Child’s recipe. You can never go wrong with Julia.” Amen, sister.

And so I share the Queen’s recipe for Pâte Brisée Sucrée (Sweet Short Paste), which can be found in her must-have book Mastering the Art of French Cooking.

Sweet short paste is made exactly like regular short paste except that sugar is mixed into the flour before you begin.

For an 8- to 9-inch shell.

1 cup flour, scooped and leveled
1 1/2 tablespoons granulated sugar
1/8 teaspoon plus a pinch salt
6 tablespoons chilled butter
2 tablespoons chilled vegetable shortening
4 to 4 1/2 tablespoons cold water

Directions for making short paste by hand: Place the flour in the bowl and mix in the sugar and salt. Add the butter and shortening and, with the tips of your fingers, rapidly rub them together with the dry ingredients until the fat is broken into bits the size of small oatmeal flakes. Do not overdo this step as the fat will be blended more thoroughly later.

Add the water and blend quickly with one hand, fingers held together and slightly cupped, as you rapidly gather the dough into a mass. Sprinkle up to 1 tablespoon more water by droplets over any unmassed remains and add them to the main body of the dough. Then press the dough firmly into a roughly shaped ball. It should just hold together and be pliable but not sticky.

Directions for making short paste in the food processor: Measure the dry ingredients into the bowl (equipped with the steel blade). Quarter the chilled butter lengthwise and cut crosswise into 3/8-inch pieces; add to the flour along with the chilled shortening. Flick the machine on and off 4 or 5 times. Turn the machine on and pour in the water. Immediately flick the machine on and off several times, and the dough should begin to mass on the blade. If not, dribble in a little more water and repeat, repeating again if necessary. Dough is done when it has begun to mass; do not overmix it. Scrape the dough out onto your work surface and proceed to the fraisage.

The fraisage — or final blending — for handmade and machine dough: Place the dough on a lightly floured pastry board. With the heel of one hand, not the palm which is too warm, rapidly press the pastry by two-spoonful bits down on the board and away from you in a firm, quick smear of about 6 inches.

With a scraper or spatula, gather the dough again into a mass; knead it briefly into a fairly smooth round ball. Sprinkle it lightly with flour and wrap it in waxed paper. Either place the dough in the freezing compartment of the refrigerator for about 1 hour until it is firm but not congealed, or refrigerate for 2 hours or overnight. (Uncooked pastry dough will keep for 2 to 3 days under refrigeration, or may be frozen for several weeks. Always wrap it airtight in waxed paper and a plastic bag.)

Rolling out the dough: Because of its high butter content, roll out the dough as quickly as possible, so that it will not soften and become difficult to handle. Place the dough on a lightly floured board or marble. If the dough is hard, beat it with the rolling pin to soften it. Then knead it briefly into a fairly flat circle. It should be just malleable enough to roll out without cracking.

Lightly flour the top of the dough. Place rolling pin across center and roll the pin back and forth with firm but gentle pressure to start the dough moving. Then, with a firm, even stroke, and always rolling away from you, start just below the center of the dough and roll to within an inch of the far edge.

Lift dough and turn it at a slight angle.

Give it another roll. Continue lifting, turning and rolling and, as necessary, sprinkle the board and top of dough lightly with flour to prevent sticking. Roll it into a circle 1/8-inch thick and about 2 inches larger all around than your pie pan or flan ring. If your circle is uneven, cut off a too-large portion, moisten the edge of the too-small portion with water, press the 2 pieces of pastry together and smooth them with your rolling pin.

The dough should be used as soon as it has been rolled out, so that it will not soften.

Making a pastry shell: Mold your pastry in a false-bottomed, straight-sided cake pan 1- to 1 1/2- inches deep and refrigerate.

(A French tart is straight sided and open-faced and stands supported only by its pastry shell.) When the shell is ready for unmolding, the pan is set over a jar and the false bottom frees the shell from the sides of the pan. It is then, with the aid of a long-bladed spatula, slid off its false bottom and onto a rack or the serving dish.

Prebaking the pastry shell: Partial baking sets the dough and is a safeguard against soggy bottom crusts. Line the pastry with buttered lightweight foil or buttered brown paper, press it will against the sides of the pastry and fill it with dried beans. The weight of the beans will hold the pastry against the mold during the baking. Bake at the middle of a preheated 400-degree oven for 8 to 9 minutes until pastry is set. Remove mold or foil and beans. Prick bottom of pastry with a fork to keep it from rising. Return to oven for 2 to 3 minutes more. When the shell is starting to color and just beginning to shrink from sides of mold, remove it from the oven.

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Categories:	Baked Goods • Cookbooks • Cooking tips • French • Sweets • desserts	6 Comments
Tags:	apple tart • baking • cooking • Dessert • Food • foodista • julia child • pastry • pastry dough • pate brisee sucree • recipe • recipes • sweet short paste • tart crust • tarts

I’ve been painting my kitchen all weekend. And if you’ve never taken on the task of painting a room, let me tell you something, hire someone. Or at least know what you’re getting yourself into. I took a look at our kitchen and cockily exclaimed, “Psh, I can totally do this myself!” And I did do it myself. But now I hurt, and I’m crying for the Vicadin I so wish we had in our medicine cabinet.

Better than any pharmaceutical painkiller is my friend Tracy’s pho. She’s amazing. Most people would haul themselves down to the nearest pho restaurant and drop the $4 bucks for a styrofoam container of this Vietnamese soup. But oh no! My dear friend spends a better portion of the day brewing her own broth, and it is worth every simmered minute. Top Ramen would have helped, but her soup renewed me, even made me want to paint another room!

She’d taken a recipe and adapted it to her own tastes, and I’m sharing, as best I can, how she did it:

To make the stock:

Take about 4-6 short ribs and 2 big ox tails and roast them for about 30 minutes in the oven, or until they are good and browned. Once browned take them out of the oven, remove the fat and add the bones and meat to a stockpot. Deglaze the roasting pan with a bit of chicken stock, then add to the pot. Add a good hunk of ginger, about 2 inches sliced, and about 1 teaspoon of salt to the pot. Pour in roughly 3-4 large (49 oz.) cans of chicken stock, and let simmer for about 3-4 hours. Skim off the fat scum periodically.

After the long simmer add the following (to taste):

8-10 black and white pepper corns (a mixture of both)
1 large yellow or white onion, roughly chopped
1 stick cinnamon
5 cloves
About 20 coriander seeds
¼ teaspoon cumin
¾ cups fish sauce

Simmer another 40 minutes, then drain the stock, reserving the liquid, and discard the bones and spices.

Prepare 2 packages of rice noodles (thin to medium; it’s all a matter of preference) according to instructions – usually just a fast “swizzle” in boiling water.

Compile the following on a big plate: sliced limes, finely chopped green onions, a pile of bean sprouts, and sprigs of basil and cilantro. Have an assortment of good chili sauce (Sriracha is great!) and hoisin or oyster sauce.

For the meat version use thinly sliced beef or pork; sukiyaki cuts are available at Asian markets. The thin slices will quickly cook in the hot broth.

You’re now ready to assemble your pho. For individual servings, add some noodles to a bowl. Add sliced of beef and pour in some of your hot beef broth. Top with green onions, bean sprouts, and a handful of basil and cilantro. Give a good squeeze of lime juice and season to taste with chili sauce and/or hoisin sauce.

Hmm, I think the bathroom would be nice in a pretty shade of blue……

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Categories:	Asian • Cooking tips • Herbs • Meat & Poultry • Seasoning & Spices • Soup • Veggies	7 Comments
Tags:	Asian • cooking • Food • foodista • pho • recipe • recipes • Soup • Vietnamese

Let me preface this by saying I mean no disrespect, but Barnaby has this hilarious cookbook called White Trash Cooking. While I have been known to eat Little Smokies and SPAM, I had never heard of some of the ‘delicacies’ listed in this fine publication.

Let me share one with you: Cooter Pie. I’m unclear as to exactly what a cooter is, and honestly, I’d like it to stay that way. The following recipe is duplicated exactly as published, I just want to clarify a few things first:

1. If it has eggs I’m guessing it’s a she not a he,
2. I’m never whacking the head off anything with a hatchet,
3. I’ve never called it a “toe of garlic,”
4. I’m concerned why this is best prepared in a black dutch oven. Will my white-bottomed one not work?

Cooter Pie (The Hunter’s Delight)

First you take a live cooter and wait for him to stick his head out from under his shell. When he does, you grab it and whack it off. Take a hatchet to the underside so you can get to the meat and remove it along with the liver, tripe and eggs (if he has any?). Set aside.

1/2 cup of chopped bacon
2 medium onions, chopped
2 toes of garlic, crushed
1 stewed tomato, chopped
1 teaspoon of thyme
1/4 cup flour

Fry all the the above down until it’s browned, then add the cooter and continue to cook. It’s best in a black iron dutch oven. Don’t forget to salt and pepper it to your taste. Brown the flour in an iron frying pan. Stir constantly to avoid burning. Bake sure you brown it good. Then add it to the cooter with enough water to make it soupy. Stew down til meat is falling off the bone and the liquid is thick. Now make a biscuit dough and drop small-sized biscuits over the top of the stew. Stick it in a preheated oven at 400 degrees and bake until done (golden). A hunter will come out of the woods to get this!

The recipe that follows in the book is Mock Cooter Soup. Cooter’s good enough to have a mock version? I’ll stick with chicken, thanks!

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Categories:	Meat & Poultry • Seasoning & Spices • Uncategorized	5 Comments
Tags:	cooking • cooter • Food • foodista • recipe • recipes • white trash

I have a bit of Irish running through my blood so genetically I love potatoes. Baked, gratin, mashed, fried, hash browned, and I will even admit it, Tater Tots.

Tonight we’re barbecuing with our friends and nothing goes better with ribs than a good potato salad (and corn bread and coleslaw, but Irish girl here is on potato duty.) My favorite is a non-mayonnaise-based recipe. Fortunately, it’s also the easiest and quickest since I dilly-dallied at Home Depot this afternoon and lost track of time. But hey, we have a new home and that big orange store sucks me in every weekend, what can I say?

Back to the salad. It contains vinegar, but I would not consider this a German potato salad because its ingredients are much simpler. Here’s all you need:

Red potatoes
Onions (white, yellow, red or scallions all work beautifully)
Parsley (or you could also use cilantro)
Olive oil
Vinegar (preferable cider or distilled white)
Salt and pepper to taste

Boil the potatoes whole in unsalted water until soft. Drain and chill under cool running water or allow to cool naturally. Give the potatoes a good rough chop. I usually cut them in half, then cut them again into about thirds, depending on their size. Add the chopped onion and parsley – quantity of each is entirely up to you. Give a soft stir, then drizzle in some olive oil to coat. Add the vinegar and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Stir softly to blend the vinegar and seasonings, and keep tasting until you have achieved the desired taste.

Now wasn’t that easy!

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Categories:	Cooking tips • Herbs • Salads • Seasoning & Spices • Veggies	4 Comments
Tags:	Food • foodista • potato salad • potatoes • recipe • recipes • red potatoes • salad

There’s never a bad time for a roasted chicken. Especially when the weather is still a bit crisp, and you feel like tucking in for the evening and enjoying a good meal. The smell of roasting bird wafts through the house, taunting your hunger. You almost want to grasp fork and knife in hands and bang on the table, urging it to cook faster.

But roasted chicken can all too often turn out dry. One way to avoid unwanted dryness is to soak your bird in brine, which locks in moisture and enhances all those wonderful flavors we so desire. Another excellent way to ensure your bird comes out of the oven juicy-licious is to roast it on a vertical roaster. Vertical roasting helps sear the inner cavity, keeping all those desireable natural juices and flavors in the meat and not in the pan. Roasting vertically also allows fat and grease to run off, much like rotisserie cooking.

We decided to combine moisture-retaining efforts and both brined and vertical roasted. Crazy, I know. But that’s just the kind of wild, recklessness we throw down in the kitchen every day (OK, that’s a slight exaggeration).

If you want to skip the brining step (it does take at least 24 hours) and get down to the roasting bit, then pull out your roasting pan and place the vertical roaster in the center. Our preparation was simple and no-frills, but you can certainly add more veggies, herbs and seasoning.

To prepare our bird for roasting we rough chopped a large sweet onion and placed it in the bottom of the roasting pan. We sprinkled a bit of fresh cracked pepper in the inner cavity, but did not season with salt since we had already soaked it in the salt water brine. We respectfully placed our bird on the vertical roaster and gave her a little massage with olive oil. Then, we sprinkled the outside with pepper, squeezed the juice of one lemon over the top and popped it in a 375 degree oven for about 45 minutes (time will vary depending on size).

Finger lickin’ good!

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Categories:	Cooking tips • Meat & Poultry • Seasoning & Spices • Uncategorized • kitchen equipment	1 Comment
Tags:	brine • brining • chicken • Cooking tips • Food • foodista • kitchen equipment • poultry • recipe • recipes • roast chicken • roasting • vertical roaster

Brining, the soaking of meat for many hours or days, was traditionally a method for preserving meats. It’s a curing process that binds with, or completely removes, the water in the meat in order to prevent the growth of micro-organisms. Fortunately for us we have refrigeration so we don’t have to rely on this lengthy, but delicious marinating method. In addition to its preservation qualities, brining meats (especially lean meats) improves the texture, flavor, and moisture content, leaving you with nothing but juicy goodness.

A basic brine solution consists of simply water and a moderate amount of salt. This got us thinking! “We live near water! Great, clean salty water!” So we went crazy and scooped up a bucket full of pristine Puget Sound water in our stockpot, added a quartered lemon, and soaked our free-range chicken for 24 hours. Now, you don’t have to get this connected to Mother Earth and scoop up the sea. Just fill up your stockpot with cool water and add Kosher or sea salt. You want about 1/2 cup of salt per 1 quart of cool water for each pound of meat. Here are a few simple rules:

1. The saltier your brine, the shorter your brining time. However, too little salt and it won’t work.
2. Do not reuse your brining solution.
3. Refrigerate. (I know, I said it was a preservative, but your temperature still needs to be below 40 degrees).

For more on “flavor brining” check out The Complete Meat Cookbook by Bruce Aidells and Denis Kelly.

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Categories:	Cooking tips • Meat & Poultry • Seasoning & Spices	3 Comments
Tags:	brine • brining • chciken • Cooking tips • Food • foodista • marinating • recipe • recipes • salt