How Few Remain... (Another Great Food Periodical Bites the Dust.) Also, Best Eggplant Dish Ever!

 

If you're just here for the best eggplant dish in the known universe, scroll down, I've written out a recipe.  Now, I sing a paean to my favorite food periodical.  Did I say a paean?  No, alas, it's a requiem.

Jesse Sutton-- I love Saveur.  This is an established fact for the three or four dozen of our readers, but I'll say it again.  I have subscribed since maybe 2006.  I collect back issues, and am nearing a complete set.  (Incidentally, if anyone has a copy of #1 they'd be willing to part with, hit me up.  I'm not willing to pay no $270, like eBay wanted, but I'll put up real money, even if it's missing a cover, or got coffee spilled on it in 1999, or got folded in half somewhere along the way, I'm good with all that, for a lower price.  In my hands, the better an issue is, the more crap it's gonna get spilled on it anyway.  I'm not a collector, I use them.)

I used to subscribe to a whole bevy of food periodicals.  Lucky Peach, Local Palate, Saveur, Food Arts, Sommelier Journal, and Art Culinaire, at my prime.  Then, they canceled Food Arts.  Shame.  It was a good industry rag, if somewhat lightweight.  Then, they dropped Lucky Peach.  That was a blow.  Lucky Peach was special.  Then, Sommelier Journal fell apart, devolving into the far-inferior Somm Journal, and it wasn't the same.  And I was stuck with just two left, Art Culinaire and Saveur.  Now, not taking anything away from Art Culinaire, but it only has three kinds of article.  The boring philosophical essay at the beginning, the wine article at the end, and the chef profiles, which are 90% of the magazine.  That's pretty one-dimensional, even if it is a towering achievement in gastro-porn.  

But Saveur, man, Saveur has something no one else has.  Other magazines have recipes.  Other magazines profile great chefs.  What Saveur does is different.  They take an anthropological slant.  They profile entire cuisines, but through a very specific lens.  Saveur articles generally focus on a place and a time, and a people.  Instead of '35 Fast and Easy Lo-Carb Mexican Dishes,' they will profile workers at a locally owned agave plantation and distillery, and then give recipes for the snacks being served in their mezcal tasting room.  Rarely is a chef mentioned by name, but when one is, it's generally someone who's been around forever, rather than some hot young newcomer.  Let Art Culinaire profile the people who are hot.  When Saveur pays attention to restaurants, which it does only infrequently, they profile places that are institutions. 

Imagine my dismay the other day, then, when I received a post card from Food and Wine magazine, that I would now be receiving it instead of Saveur, which is 'focusing on its on-line presence, moving forward.'  Which is code for 'ceasing to exist,' if you ask me.  They aren't going to have the budget to do field reporting, and without field reporting, Saveur is nothing.  Another one bites the dust.

The Obsessive Compulsive Saveur Project

Long story short, I had been subscribed to Saveur for about a year, and my wife asked me if I wanted to renew my subscription.  Of course I did.  "Well, you don't really read them."  She'd called me right out.  When one came, I'd thumb through, make a note of any recipe that looked cool, maybe read a page or two, and then throw it on the ever-growing stack.  Well, no more.  From that point on, I started reading every issue, voraciously, cover to cover.  What I found was this: there was something interesting, something I wanted to remember in almost every article, from the 20-page features, to the silly little columns in the beginning.  So I started writing down every fact worth remembering thatI came across in Saveur, and saving them in a word document I called 'The Obsessive Compulsive Saveur Project' (OCSP for short).  Here is a sample:

-Straws were originally made of actual rye straw.  In 1888, an industrialist figured out how to wax paper with paraffin.  (#56)

-Cool idea: line a baking pan with caramel, and then bake cinnamon roles in that caramel.  After they come out of the oven, let them rest for a full minute, and then invert them onto a rack. (#67)

-A UNC study noted that 75% of red snapper sold in markets isn't true red snapper. (#109) [Any east coast chefs already know this.  "No, I said American Red, goddammit!  Now come pick up all these B-liners, I don't have time to filet 25 fish for service tonight!"]

-Austin Leslie, chef of the inimitable Jacques-Imo's, in New Orleans, died in Atlanta after being trapped in a hot attic for 2 days after Katrina.  (#134)

-A veal schnitzel served with mushrooms is a jaegerschnitzel.  (#170)

I have 217 pages of this.  One day, I'll finish my project, and I'll upload it all.  

Recipes 

In that massive document, I also make a note of any recipe I want to try.  Sometimes they really speak to me, sometimes they sound so peculiar I just have to give them a go, sometimes they are filling a big hole in my game, and sometimes, the picture just looked great.  I'm in the process of cataloging the ones I've tried so far, but for now, just accept that a lot of my blog posts are going to be reports of recipes from Saveur, along with links to the home issue, if it happens to still be online.  What follows was originally going to be two separate posts, but I thought I'd just fold them all in here.  Here are four Saveur recipes I tried in the last 2 weeks, two from an article on Argentine cuisine, and two from that Mexican mezcal distillery article I mentioned above.  

Berenjena a la Italiana (pictured, top)

From issue #35 (May/June 1999), this is probably the best eggplant dish I've had.  Ever.  Cold slices of marinated eggplant are pressed overnight in an olive-oil marinade, and they become absolutely delicious.  Here's how to do it: 

-Peel a couple of eggplant and slice them thin.  Salt them (say, 1/2 a tablespoon of salt per eggplant), let them sit in a colander over a bowl with a weight on them for like a half an hour.  

-Use that half an hour to get the marinade ready.  Extra virgin olive oil (1/2 cup per eggplant), sliced raw garlic (2 large or 3 small cloves per), chili flakes (just over 1/4 teaspoon per), bay leaves (2-3 per eggplant, fresh if you can get em), and oregano (the leaves of one sprig per eggplant).  Mix all that up and let it hang out at room temp until you're ready to assemble.

-Bring a 3:2 distilled vinegar:water mixture to a boil.  Working in batches, blanch the slices for one minute (not crowding the pot, or you'll cool the liquid too much).  When they come out, let them air cool, then blot them (this is a pain, but it's necessary).  Stack the dried slices and set aside.

-To assemble, get two ceramic platters, one that will fit inside the other.  (I used wide, flat ramekin-style dishes, but it doesn't really matter.  You could use pyrex baking dishes, too, just make sure whatever you use is non-reactive).  Spoon some marinade into one.  Cover with a layer of eggplant slices (it's okay to overlap just a bit).  Then, keep alternating, marinade and eggplant, until you've used up all your eggplant, and then just pour your remaining marinade on top.  Top this with a sheet of plastic wrap.

-Then, take your matching dish, and set it inside the filled dish, to act as a weight.  This will press out bubbles, and insure that every bit of eggplant takes the marinade.  

-Mega-important, un-skip-able step!  Take a plate that's larger than your dishes and place it under your two dishes.  This way, when you put the weight on, you won't end up causing an olive-oil waterfall in your kitchen.  D was absolutely not amused with me.  Make sure the plate has sloping sides, and is able to catch at least an ounce or two of oil.

-Place a weight on top of the top dish.  Full jar of pickles, maybe four beers, something like that.

-Refrigerate for 24 hours.  Remove the weight, top dish, and plastic wrap.  Then, put some paper towels down, lift the bottom dish out, and dab off the bottom.  Then, place the dish in the paper towels, to really make sure you've gotten it clean.  Discard any marinade that fell out into the catch plate.  

-Let sit at room temp for a few hours to temper.  

Potential applications: well, this would be absolutely great on an antipasto assortment.  My buddy Mark figured out that they are terrific on an Italian hoagie.  I want to try one on a hot shaved pork sub with wilted broccoli rabe and provolone.  But they are easily good enough to be used in a fine dining dish.  Right now I'm thinking a mosaic of provencal vegetables.  Say, these eggplant, some planks of roasted, marinated peppers, and some perfect, peeled heirloom tomatoes, all topped with thin, pickled shallot rings, tiny croutons, basil leaves, and a drizzle of Castelas provencal olive oil.

Locro (Hominy, Chicken, and Pork Stew)

Also from the #35 Argentina article, this stew looked too good to miss.  Spare ribs on the bone, chicken thighs, and one-inch chunks of pancetta and Spanish chorizo get braised with winter squash, hominy, and paprika.  Cooked white beans and red peppers are added at the end.  Was it good?  Sure.  But the recipe could use a few tweaks.  First, it had the cook fire all the meats at the same time.  The spareribs were fall-off-the-bone tender, but the thighs had kinda lost their identity.  A good starting point for a dish, but there's definitely room for refinement.  Not knocking it, but I'm also not going to vouch the recipe.  Here it is, if you want to try it or tweak it.

Cacahuetes Fritos (Spicy Fried Peanuts)

This one's from Issue #29 (Sept/Oct 1998).  Pan-fried peanuts, topped with ground chile de onza, lemon juice, salt, roasted garlic, and pequin chiles (little tiny dried heat-bombs).  Sounded great, but the recipe was flawed.  There wasn't enough garlic (8 cloves to 1/2 pound peanuts?!), and anyway, the garlic didn't really flavor the peanuts, they were just a nice little treat.  I couldn't find a chile de onza, so I used a cascabel, and I will attest that toasting and grinding a dried chile makes a much more interesting dry spice than just reaching for the cayenne.  The pequin chiles were a nice touch.  They were just strewn throughout the peanuts, looking almost like raisins, and when you bite down on one, they are a fun little surprise.  The worst part, however, was the lemon juice.  It immediately removed the crunch (which is the best part of fried peanuts), but worse, it started taking the dry toppings and making them clump up.  Next time, I vow to use either sour salt (citric acid), or lime powder from the Asian store.

If I could do it again, I'd do this: 

Toast and grind a medium-heat dry chile like a cascabel or a guajuillo.  Then, pan-fry at least 25 cloves of garlic in an almost dry skillet over medium-low heat until they are soft and brown all over.  (If any are big, cut them in half before cooking, so in reality, you have more like 35-40 pieces, minimum.)  Set them aside.  In the same pan, heat a little oil and gently fry 8 oz. peanuts until golden brown.  If there's a few darker spots, all the better.   When they are done, turn off the skillet and add the garlic back in, along with a heaping tablespoon of whole pequin chiles.  Toss all together to coat with the oil, and then pour it all out onto a paper-towel-lined plate.  While it is all still hot, sprinkle it with fine sea salt, your powdered chile, and citric acid or lime powder.  (Note, lime powder, slaked lime, and pickling lime are not the same thing!)

Jalapenos Rellenos (Stuffed Jalapenos)

Also from the #29 Mezcal article, these are simply jalapenos, hollowed out and stuffed.  Use a very sharp, narrow knife, and pick jalapenos that don't have a crook in them.  With the right knife and straight jalapenos, this is easy.  With the wrong knife and crooked jalapenos, it's next to impossible.  Then, add your filling (queso fresco, mixed with an aggressive amount of chopped onion, cilantro, and mint, like 2:2:1:1 by volume).  Then you stuff the filling in there, and cook the jalapenos in a lightly oiled pan, turning them constantly, until charred in some places, blistered in others, about 15 minutes.  They are really nice, and surprisingly mild (although jalapenos vary wildly, so watch your ass). 

So there you go.  One great recipe, one pretty good one, one mediocre one, and one deeply flawed one.  Follow along.  I have decades of recipes of Saveur to try, and I'll share the good ones, and I'll try to fix the bad ones.  Stay tuned!

-JS