AMERICAN FOODIE
Thursday, December 19, 2024
America Best Street Food
Friday, November 22, 2024
Burger Scholar George Motz Burgers
The burgers, an impressively affordable $7.25 apiece, are on the smaller side—a hungry diner could easily down two or three before pausing for breath. They are also available with double patties ($11.50), though it seems foolish to disturb the single patty’s perfect ratio of bread to meat. Despite all the fanfare, I found the onion burger a little bland—a few shakes of hot sauce liven it up, though doctoring it at all feels a bit sacrilegious. But the Classic Smash is fantastic, strong and correct. You don’t need to know the history of burgers to be taken with its honest flavors, its modest size, its firm handshake of pickle and onion and good ol’ American ground beef. It’s a hamburger you trust, a hamburger you’d feel good about taking your daughter to prom.
In addition to the two hamburgers, there are fries, of course (thin and crisp, but oversalted on one visit and not quite salty enough on another), plus a handful of simple, school-lunch-ish sandwiches, including tuna salad made with sweet pickle relish, and a deeply satisfying peanut-butter-and-jelly. There’s an unfussy grilled cheese (American, on buttered bread), and a secret, off-menu sandwich that I’ve seen described elsewhere, inaccurately, as a patty melt. In fact, it’s a grilled cheese with a smash-burger patty inside it, and it’s singularly terrific. There’s a milk menu, your choice of plain or chocolate or coffee (a Rhode Island specialty, made with Autocrat-brand coffee syrup, sweet and bitter); the latter two can be topped with a squirt of seltzer to make a very decent egg cream. The best seats in the house are at the L-shaped counter—especially the stools right in front of the burger station, where Motz himself is likely to be captaining the griddle. He’s tall and muttonchopped, with a medusa-like shock of silver hair. A cartoon version of his grinning face is the restaurant’s logo, silk-screened onto the breast of yellow T-shirts, sewn as a patch on the sleeves of crisp white chefs’ shirts, and laser-etched onto the blade of Motz’s own “Smashula,” a custom tool he wields theatrically to flatten and flip each patty.
On one of my visits to Hamburger America, no fewer than three employees mentioned, unprompted, that the hot ham sandwich was the sleeper hit of the whole menu. They did not lie. I watched as Motz piled a tidy mountain of meat, freshly thin-sliced, onto the flattop, draping two slices of lacy Swiss cheese overtop. He left the whole thing to warm under a metal cloche until it was melty and rich, then transferred it to a butter-toasted burger bun. As Motz wrapped the finished sandwich in parchment paper and slid the plate to me across the counter, he asked if I was from the Midwest. I said that I was from Chicago, and he shook his head. “Almost! It’s a real Milwaukee thing, this sandwich,” he said, before turning his focus back to the whack-a-mole of the griddle, full of patties in various stages of historically accurate smash. Looking it up later, I learned that hot ham and rolls has, for generations, been a Sunday tradition in southeast Wisconsin, when families line up at their favorite bakeries for an easy, affordable post-church meal.
Sunday, November 17, 2024
Pasta and Peas Recipe Soup
PASTA & PEAS
"THAT'S ITALIAN"
PASTA & PEAS - RECIPE
Ingredients :
1 heaping cup small diced pancetta (about 6 ounces)
2 Tbsp olive oil
2 cups small diced yellow onions
¼ cup chopped garlic
Pinch crushed red pepper
¼ cup tomato paste
2 quarts low- or no-sodium vegetable or chicken broth
2 sprigs rosemary
1 parmigiano or pecorino cheese rind
1 tsp salt, or to taste
½ tsp black pepper, or to taste
1 pound pasta shells + salt for water
4 cups peas or baby peas, defrosted if frozen (about 20 ounces)
Grated Pecorino Romano cheese, for serving
Extra virgin olive oil, for serving
Instructions:
Step 1:
Prep all ingredients according to specifications above.
Step 2: Cook Pancetta:
Place pancetta and oil in large pot or Dutch oven over medium-low heat.
Slowly cook it until it becomes crispy and most of the fat has been rendered. (This could take 15 to 20 minutes.)
Remove pancetta with slotted spoon and set it aside to drain on paper towels.
Remove all but about 3 tablespoons of rendered fat from the pot and use for other purpose or discard.
Leave enough fat to cover bottom of pot.
Step 3:
Add onions, garlic, and crushed red pepper.
Cook for about 4 minutes, or until onions have softened a bit, stirring occasionally.
Step 4:
Move onion mixture to one side of pot.
Then add tomato paste and cook it for about 30 seconds.
Pour in 2 cups broth and stir to loosen and scrape up any browned bits on bottom of pot.
Step 5:
Add remaining broth, rosemary, cheese rind, salt, and black pepper and stir until all ingredients are well combined.
Cover pot, increase heat to high, and bring mixture to a boil, stirring occasionally.
Immediately reduce heat to a simmer and simmer, partially covered, for about 8 to 10 minutes, or until all vegetables have softened.
Step 6:
Meanwhile, boil the pasta in salted water for half the time noted on the package.
Step 7:
Once the vegetables have softened, remove the rosemary spring and any remaining cheese rind and discard.
Then, add the partially-cooked pasta, peas and reserved pancetta to the pot and stir well.
Simmer until the pasta is al dente while stirring, then turn off heat and adjust seasoning, if necessary.
Step 8:
Ladle soup into bowls and top with some pecorino cheese and a drizzle of extra-virgin olive oil.
Monday, September 9, 2024
Anthony Bourdain at Hirams Hotdogs NJ
Saturday, September 7, 2024
Anthony Bourdain Food Trail NewJersey NJ
1. HIRAM'S ... 1345 Palisades Avenue, Fort Lee, NY tel (201) 592-9602
Hiram's, famous for their Hot Dogs, is a classic Jersey Joint. Hiram's was a large part of Tony's childhood, the historical Hiram’s Hot Dog Stand. Hiram’s prides itself on tradition and has rarely changed its menu items and service traditions since 1932, providing a truly nostalgic and comforting environment.
Tony orders two hot dogs, but these are not your ordinary hot dogs; they are “Rippers.” They are deep-fried hot dogs, causing them to tear in the middle of the casing and provide a perfect catalyst for mustard or any other condiment you want to add to its center.
Owner Joe Maggio, whose dad founded Frank's Deli, an Asbury Park institution, in 1960, is still taken aback that Bourdain chose to eat at his modest, no-frills place. “He travels all over the world, and then he comes to Frank’s,” Maggio said.
Bourdain came, as many do, for a classic Jersey sandwich. He sat at table No. 9 and ate sandwich No. 4 — fresh home-baked bread stuffed with an absurdly generous amount of provolone, salami, pepperoni, boiled ham, capicola, shredded lettuce, tomatoes and onions. Plus, Bourdain requested, hot peppers.
"He was very nice, very polite, very cordial," Maggio said — and wore old jeans and a winter jacket. "I think his jeans even had a rip in them."
He continued, "My wife and I are big fans of his. We watch the show all the time. But I can tell you that I wouldn't eat bird's nest soup."
Go: 1406 Main St., Asbury Park; 732-775-6682
FRANK'S DELI
TONY'S FAVORITE - The #4
At Kubel's, Bourdain reminisced with his dining companion, his brother, about the fun times they and their mom and dad spent “down the shore."
"I remember this place with nothing but fondness,” Bourdain told his his brother. “I mean, I can’t remember a single bad memory here.”
And, of course, he remembered the clams he so loved to eat. "No matter where I find them now," he said, "they always bring me back here."
Bourdain ended up feasting on a lot more than clams with his brother. He managed to polish off fried clam strips, clam chowder, steamed garlic clams, lobster mac and cheese, fish and chips, and a few glasses of beer. "I don't know how he did it," a young server marveled.
Martyniak still gets a kick out of telling the story of the snowy morning Bourdain came to check out Kubel's — before opening time — and the bartender, a 19-year-old who had no clue who Bourdain was, politely asked him to "come back in an hour."
Fortunately, Martyniak knew who was at the door — and rushed to let him in.
"He was very nice," Martyniak said. "He entertained the bartender more than the bartender entertained him."
He (Bourdain) took a seat at the bar — "That's where all the action is," Karen said — and breakfasted on scrambled eggs, scrapple, home fries, house-made chili and blueberry pie, made from scratch. And, yes, he ate it all.
By the way, it was the first time that the man who had eaten just about anything — raw sea eyeballs, turkey testicles, cobra heart and warthog anus — ate scrapple, a heavenly mush of pork scraps and trimmings.
1496 Route 539, Warren Grove; 609-698-4474
Bourdain grabbed one of the four rundown stools at the counter, and ate ... What? "I don't remember," said Ruthie, not one to get too impressed by a brush with celebrity — though the episode shows him eating what appears to be eggs, rice and beans. Ruthie did recall, however, that his mouth was going full-speed, gabbing, not eating. “He didn’t eat much,” Ruthie said. “All he did is talk, talk, talk.”
Jose Orgiz, a Camden resident who immigrated from Puerto Rico 52 years ago, would have recommended the cheesesteak sandwich, the fare that brings him there just about every day. "I love it, and I love it here," he said.
Go: 837 N. Eighth St., Camden; 856-964-8193
Cheesesteak is pretty much the only item on the menu at Donkey's — and the family hasn't messed with the recipe in three-quarters of a century.
“We haven’t changed anything in 76 years,” Rob said. “The sandwich is all we do, so we got to do it right.”
What makes Donkey’s cheesesteak — thinly cut steak, sauteed onions and American cheese that Donkey's serves on a poppy-seed Kaiser roll — so darn good? "The onions," Rob said. "We cook them all day,"
Donkey’s sandwich “should be a national landmark,” Bourdain declared, sitting on one of the stools at the bar. “This sandwich is unbelievably good, a thing of beauty."
DONKEY'S PLACE ... 1223 Haddon Ave., Camden; 856-966-2616,
“It was paradise,” Bourdain said about Atlantic City. “American’s first dream vacation, a democratic dream designed in the beginning for everybody.” And the Knife & Fork Inn, the city’s second-oldest restaurant, was there through it all, he noted.
Knife & Fork opened in 1912 originally as a men’s dining and drinking club. Today it is a beloved Atlantic City jewel that is chock full of history and scrumptious food.
LOBSTER THERMIDOR