The Bird Superior

Fall recipes: Italian stuffed mini bell peppers with roasted chestnuts

Few smells epitomize any seasonal experience in New York as much as the wafting aroma of roasting nuts in the fall. A hard find in the warmer months, once the weather shifts the nut vendors come out in droves, perfuming the street with a melodious smell and an equally vibrant song to pitch their goods.
And despite the allure of the sugarcoated varieties, you really are always better off opting for the simple, meaty flavors of the chestnut. Unseasoned, with the natural sweet fleshiness of the nut, combined with a heavy roast, is the perfect way to enjoy this delicacy.
While admired by most Americans, the chestnut seems to be especially beloved amongst by the Italians. Back in Italy, roasting chestnuts over a flame has always been a rustic fall-time tradition, one that came over with the migration of one of the city’s largest ethnic populations. This dish is a play on a stuffed pepper, mixing the enticing fall flavor of chestnuts with familiar, belly-warming Italian tastes. Serve as a an appetizer, entrée, or party hor dourve and watch as this fall-centric Italian comfort food dish puts a wide smile on any company’s face. No Mel Tormé sing-alongs necessary.
Italian Stuffed Mini Bell Peppers with Roasted Chestnuts
Ingredients:
20 mini bell peppers, mixed, with tops cut off and saved.
¾ lb Fresh cow’s milk ricotta.
¼ cup of aged Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, grated.
¼ cup Italian Gruyere cheese, grated.
¼ cup milk
1 Tbsp parsley, minced.
The juice of half a large lemon.
Zest of a large lemon.
1 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
½ lb Chestnuts
1 Tbsp bread crumbs
1 egg
1 clove garlic, finely minced or pressed
Sea salt and pepper
Directions:
Cut slits down the round side of chestnuts. Roast them in the oven for 10-15 minutes at 420°F. Once ready (you can tell when the chestnuts are fully bursting out of their shells), let them cool and remove them from shells. Put the chestnuts in a food processor until they are medium to finely chopped.
Add the ricotta to a large mixing bowl. Add dry ingredients. Add lemon juice and zest. Whisk in milk, oil and egg until everything is finely mixed.
Once mixed, add stuffing to lightly olive oil coated peppers. Replace pepper tops. Another option would be to add mix to 4 full sized bell peppers if mini ones are not available. Sprinkle a little salt over peppers. Bake peppers in a 400° oven for 20-25 minutes. Let cool for 5 minutes when ready and serve.

Fall recipes: Kickoff creamed corn

While the produce at New York City’s many various farmer’s markets changes as frequently as the MTA subway repair schedule, there is one constant that remains strong as the seasons transition from Summer to Fall; that husky, golden source of energy that dominates everywhere from poolside BBQs to Turkey-filled holidays. That would be corn, of course.

Between the upstate New York and the New Jersey farmers providing plenty of sweet kernel goodness, the city on market days feels like a giant corn maze. Plenty of varieties abound, like sonorous red corn and delicate white. For this fall time throwback to an American favorite, Football, the recipe goes with another classic, sweet yellow corn. It’s best off the ear if you can get them fresh. If not, cans or frozen corn will work.

With football as inspiration, this recipe takes a few of the key flavors of fall’s favorite pastime, like sour cream and chives (think chips and dip) and beer (think lots of beer) and blends them with a punch of heated sophistication, thanks to the mix of peppers used to spice up the dish. Enjoy this creamy, indulgent plate as an appetizer, side dish, or even as a dip with crackers or chips; you can bet it will be the star of the game on any given Sunday.

Kickoff Creamed Corn

• 6 ears of corn
• 8 oz sour cream
• 2 oz heavy cream
• 3-4 oz Golden Ale (any Belgian style blonde ale with a good balance of fruit and hopiness)
• ¼ cup chives, minced well.
• 1 – 1½ Tbsp Olive Oil
• 1 Hungarian cherry pepper, de-seeded and chopped small
• Sea salt and pepper
• ½ tsp of Turkish chili powder (or substitute for ¼ tsp regular chili powder)

Directions:

Remove the corn from the cob with a sharp knife. Take it off side by side, preferably into a large, plastic container, as to not dull the knife if it comes into contact with the container while cutting.

Saute the corn in a large saucepan with the olive oil at medium height. Let them soften and then add the cherry pepper. If you would like more heat in your dish, mince up some of the removed seeds and add them to the dish then.

After the corn starts absorbing all the oil and browning, add the sour cream and heavy cream. Add the chives as well. Add sea salt and pepper to taste. Let this cook on a medium high heat to cook off some of the liquid. About midway through reducing, stir Golden ale in. Cook open while occasionally stirring. Just before the dish is near completion, add the Turkish chili powder or regular chili powder. Stir this in. Serve when most of liquid has evaporated.

Tastes of Turkey – Restaurant Review: Ficcin

A first meal in any new country can be a harrowing, dizzying, even terrifying experience. It certainly helps when the establishment feels like home. In Istanbul, there are few places that are as instantly welcoming as Ficcin Restaurant. One might have to don slippers and engage in a little B&E to match the atmosphere engendered by one the city’s most charming and delicious eateries.

Opened in 1996, the establishment keeps growing, like any good home should. It has expanded to three dining rooms and a healthy plot of street real estate on a tiny walkway connecting busy Mesrutiyet Caddesi to the wild expanses of the Istiklal, one of Istanbul’s most vibrant thoroughfares.

Despite (or perhaps a reason for) the restaurant’s success, the service remains some of the most laid back yet attentive in the whole city, always seeming to extend a permanently warm hand to the lively Beyoglu community it nourishes. Ambling tourists try and squeeze amongst a vibrant local scene content on making Ficcin their go-to spot. In the mornings, fashionable young professionals eagerly gather for a wide, traditional Turkish breakfast spread that feels more like a private gathering of friends than a quick, compulsory meal before a long workday.

Even with the vigor of the morning rush (if only there was such a kind of group enthusiasm in America, going to work might not be such a horror), the lunch and dinner service is where Ficcin truly shines. The restaurant sets itself apart with its Çerkez, or Circassian specialties, a rarity in the city despite the large number of Turks tracing their lineage back to the Caucasus Mountains region of the same name. These dishes tended to be bolder (and perhaps a little heavier) than their Turkish counterparts, like in the Çerkez version of a Turkish dumpling (Manti). Stuffed with cheese or beef, they come smothered in a thick, velvety yogurt sauce that is enlivened by a healthy dousing of red pepper oil. The crispness of the oil finely accentuates the luxuriousness of the sauce, all blending well with the crumbly bits of meat or cheese stuffed into chewy, perfectly boiled pierogi shells.

The restaurant’s specialty is the eponymous Ficcin, a Circassian Borek with little similarities to the ubiquitous Turkish flakey pastry. Instead, it fluffily rises up like a cake after baking, with layers of dough piled on top of richly seasoned ground beef.

The restaurant also serves enigmatically prepared Turkish standards, with a veggie heavy selection of stuffed, baked, and olive-oiled (only in Turkey is that an adjective) dishes. The firin mücver (baked mixed vegetables) is served as a hearty square patty with a heavily crisped outer layer. Inside, the outstanding moistness of the greens and carrots and peppers resemble a slowly simmered stew.

Another standout is the zeytinyagli semizotu (olive-oiled purslane), served cold with heaps of crunchy purslane meat soaked in olive oil and mixed with potatoes, green beans and carrots. A lemon garnish helps add a welcome layer of citrus to the subtly seasoned, delicate blend of vegetables.

It’s hard to say whether exuberant dolma rollers might be found in every thriving household in Turkey, but it wholly felt like it though after an inquisitive peep into one of the restaurant’s dimly lit dining rooms elicited a welcoming call to observe (and admire) a clinic in grape leaf technique. The tightly rolled, cigar-shaped Mediterranean favorites prepared by two charming female cooks were as long as their smiles as they broke down the steps to a perfect dolma. This might seem like a far-away place to some, but at Ficcin, everyone’s just part of the family.

Prices: entrees – $4-7

Address: Kallavi Sok. No:13/1 – 7/1 Beyoglu

Phone: (212) 243 83 53

Website: www.ficcin.com

The 55th annual Summer Fancy Food Show: Brooklyn goes global, New York goes local

Last week, the country’s largest city got a little bigger. Around the waistline, that is. A crowd of over 24,000 attended the 55th annual Summer Fancy Food Show, which ended June 30th, and despite reports of fewer and smaller samples being distributed by exhibitors, indulgence was never more than a hand’s reach away.

There was haggling, resourcefulness, and countless product giveaways. The samplings ranged from household standards to the ultra-exotic, and practically all of the 140,000 products were available in a nosh-able size for the quick-moving show visitors to try. There was plenty of olive oil, truffle butter, double-smoked fish, Jamaican spiced jerk patties, jelly beans, gelato, Caribbean strong rum, and reduced Sonoma wine drizzle. And cheese. Lots and lots of cheese.

Even with the tepid economy, the three-day event, the largest specialty food trade show in North America, achieved its highest attendance number in over a decade. It was championed as a success by its organizers, The National Association for the Specialty Food Trade (NASFT), and at least several exhibitors seemed to agree.

There were some dubious innovations, like microwavable mussels in specially designed heating containers, and some intriguing ones, like green-tea infused enoki mushrooms (the mushrooms were enriched with only the nutritional benefits of the tea, not the taste, fortunately). For the most part however, the predominant trend at the show was taking on traditional, beloved ingredients and expanding on them creatively.

Two of the most prevalent palette-pleasing ingredients were fruits: blood oranges and yuzu, a relative newcomer to Western markets, were utilized in a range of sweet and savory products. Both ingredients found their way to the winner’s circle at the SOFI awards show, with Sarabeth’s Kitchen taking a gold SOFI for its Blood Orange Marmalade and Jayone Foods Inc. winning the best hot beverage category for it’s Yuzu Citrus Tea.

Another sensation throughout the fest was the combination of sea salt and chocolate. That seemingly perplexing yet mouth-watering combination was responsible for two SOFI gold awards.

One of those went to Mari’s New York for their delectable Caramel Sea Salt Brownie, which was just one of the many companies representing the New York City area. New York state had it’s usual featured section on the lower floor of the Javits Center, but an unusually strong crop of city entrees provided some of the best tastes the show had to offer. From the deeply colorful jars of assorted pickled vegetables from Rick’s Picks, to the savory, mustard-filled bite of artisanal microgreens from Long Island firm Koppert Cress USA, and the inventive flavors of biscotti from new-comer Lottie Biscotti (think trail mix and pistachio cranberry), there was definitive proof that New Yorkers cherish their home eats just as strongly as they do their dining-out experiences.

The latter company was featured at the Brooklyn Goes Global booth, a long-standing joint effort by the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce and Citibank to provide exposure to the borough’s local fine food production industry. Brooklyn Goes Global is one of the Chamber’s signature programs, and it really shine’s a spotlight on the burrough’s emerging food companies,” said Chamber of Commerce Vice President Rick Russo. Without the chamber’s support companies like Lottie Biscotti might have a harder time surviving in the crowded specialty food market place. “The financing and the other services the chamber provides really helps companies like this get off the ground,” said Russo.

Brooklyn, and the New York area for that matter, could be proud that extra help or not, their products stood out among the sea of delicate treats to be had. Not that there exists a shortage of ‘artisanal’ labeled products in the city, but now there are a few more to call its own.

5 Spoke Creamery: The big apple does its own cheese.

When you think about Westchester, a certain cheese comes to mind, and it’s not necessarily the food type. The well-endowed suburb of New York City actually has a growing foothold in the cheese market though, with the addition of the 5-Spoke Creamery to the national landscape.

In a wholesome and conscientious, if not delectable, fashion, the company has been producing some of the state’s finest cheese for nearly three years. The word has spread as virulently as their bacterial enzymes, and the company’s product is widely available in 20 states across the country. “We’ve been picked up by great distributors,” says co-owner Barbara Glustoff, who formed the company with her husband Alan.

His studies in Food Science at The University of Illinois planted a firm understanding of the health benefits of a well-made cheese. Taking a move from the French, cheesemaker Alan insisted on a formula based on unpasteurized (raw) cow milk, farmed from contentedly roaming, grass-fed cows. The result is a six-variety arsenal of earthly, buttery, full-bodied cheeses that are both bold and full of appealing subtleties in flavor, exuding tastes like nuts, grapes, and tangy citrus.

One of the standouts is their Tumbleweed, a combination of the traditional French Cantal and an aged Cheddar.Cave-aged for 9 months, the semi-hard cheese has a rich curdy aroma, that is well complemented with a crisp, buttery finish. To counter any health worries, all cheeses are aged at least 60 days to kill any potentially harmful bacteria.

Although 5-Spoke currently produces its cheeses in Pennsylvania, the Port Chester-based outpost is working on establishing a creamery in Westchester country, within minutes from the city. In the meantime, head over to some of NYC’s top restaurants, like Blue Ribbon and Gramercy Tavern, where their cheeses are featured on the menu. “This is what happens when you make great cheese,” says Barbara. It seems that everyone, including their happy cows, would agree.