ATG Food + beverage Roundup — Cooking at Home

Column Editors: Nicole Ameduri (Licensing Manager, Springer Nature) <Nicole.ameduri@springernature.com>

and Lisa Janicke Hinchliffe (Professor, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) <Lisalibrarian@gmail.com>

Nicole’s Picks

Since the start of the global pandemic, I’ve been avoiding in-person dining at restaurants. Although, if NYC’s rates of transmission continue to remain below 1%, I am so looking forward to dining at one of Gotham City’s creative outdoor dining venues.

I’ve been cooking more than I’ve had the time to in years. Years ago, I published a cookbook to fundraise for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. Praise God I am not allergic to bread or cheese, but many of my friends and colleagues are. Here are my three favorite gluten and dairy free recipes as of late.

Buckwheat Pancakes

I recently discovered Crown Maple Syrup from Dover Plains, NY (https://www.crownmaple.com/). Their farm is organic and the syrup is aged in bourbon barrels. I like the amber best.

Buckwheat, unlike its name, is gluten and grain free. Buckwheat flour has more protein, dietary fiber and B vitamins than an equal weight of oat or whole wheat flour. It’s an excellent source of potassium and essential amino acids.

12 pancakes

2 cups buckwheat flour 4 teaspoons baking powder ½ teaspoon kosher salt 2 cups plus 1 tablespoon water 2 tablespoons vegetable oil or almond oil

Maple Syrup

Butter (optional)

In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt. Add the water and oil; whisk to mix.

Preheat pancake griddle until a drop of water “dances” on it. Use oil to coat griddle, as needed.

Spoon the batter onto the hot griddle to make pancakes about 4-5 inches across. Turn when bubbles form. Serve while hot with maple syrup and butter.

Cedar-Planked Salmon

If you look at the photo, you’ll notice that the cedar planks look dry. Yup, in the midst of a long day of work, I put them in the oven without soaking them. Thankfully, I realized after they were in the oven for about five minutes, avoiding a visit from already at my apartment once this year for a gas leak :) (not my fault).

SOAK THE CEDAR PLANKS FOR 1-2 HOURS. DON’T RISK THEM CATCHING ON FIRE. MY COLLEAGUE SOAKED THEM FOR ABOUT 30 MINUTES AND THEY CAUGHT ON FIRE.

4 servings

1 ½ pounds boneless, skinless salmon fillets (Sockeye salmon is my favorite.) 1 tablespoon olive oil 1 tablespoon chopped fresh dill 1 teaspoon fresh lemon zest

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Drizzle with oil, and rub evenly to coat. Sprinkle with dill and lemon zest.

Place the fillets on food-grade cedar planks, put the planks in the oven, and bake for 25-30 minutes. Test the salmon for doneness by breaking off a small piece. If the fish flakes off easily and the meat is opaque, it is done. Serve immediately.

Pickled Vegetables 8 servings

the FDNY who were

2 cups cauliflower florets 2 cups broccoli florets 1 cup radishes, quartered 1 handful green beans, stems removed 1 handful yellow wax beans, stems removed 2 cups peeled and sliced carrots (cut into coin shapes) 1 bunch scallions, cut into pieces 6 cloves garlic 3 cups cider vinegar 3 cups water ¾ cup sugar ½ cup kosher salt 1 tablespoon whole mustard seeds 2 bay leaves 3 whole cloves 1 teaspoon celery seed 1 teaspoon fennel seed

Place the cauliflower, broccoli, radishes, beans, carrots, scallions and garlic in ball jars. In a large stock pot, combine the vinegar, water, sugar, salt, mustards seeds, bay leaves, cloves, celery seed and fennel seed. Bring to a boil and cook for about 5 minutes. Pour the hot liquid over the vegetables and let stand, uncovered, until the mixture cools to room temperature. Cover and refrigerate for at least 24 hours. continued on page 91

ATG Food + Beverage Roundup from page 90 It turns out a Cobb salad is actually a fair bit of prep and planning as it also means making bacon (I bake it for more even browning), Lisa’s Picks – Re-Creating Restaurant Favorites at Home preparing hardboiled eggs (are they hard-boiled

In the midst of the many disappointments and losses that the if you make them pandemic has brought, I know I am not the only person who in the InstantPot? has taken to spending more time in their own kitchen. Though — I’m not sure I didn’t join the sourdough baking trend, I have learned to make but they do come many dishes that I hadn’t made before. I’ll highlight two in this out perfectly), and column. Depending how long the pandemic continues, I have timing the salad others for future columns — but I hope to return to highlighting for when your avoptions for our shared conference travels soon! ocado is ripe. Buffalo Chicken Cobb Salad My homemade I’m delighted to say that the restaurant has re-opened (I was very worried!), but for the first months of Illinois’ shelter-athome and then phased re-opening, I was having to do without my favorite restaurant salad — the Buffalo Chicken Cobb Salad. version of my beloved restaurant salad was delicious. But, did I celebrate by

Crane Alley is in walking distance of my home and it was making a take-out my go-to place for a cocktail and dinner when grading student assignments. Living in a university town, I was rarely the only person grading papers and there’s a steady background chatter order the moment Crane Alley reopened? You bet Home Re-Creation – Delicious Substitute (Photo Credit: Lisa Janicke Hinchliffe) of graduate students debating various theorists and the relative I did! merits of different approaches to finishing one’s dissertation. I’d settle in at my favorite high top (it looks out over the street and Sazerac has an electrical outlet!), put in my typical order of a Sazerac And, what about that cocktail I always order? and the salad, open my laptop, and get to work. That was a bit more challenging as my home bar did not

In spite of eating this salad for almost a decade, I’d never made include absinthe nor did I have any sense of which absinthe Buffalo chicken at home and I was overwhelmed when I started Crane Alley uses. This is where having friends comes in handy, searching the web for recipes (not the least of which is that it particularly those friends who are known for their cocktail is not easy to craft a good “buffalo making or who have lived in New Orleans. A chicken NOT wings” search strat- ton of searching and reading later, plus advice egy on the web … just to make this from these knowledgeable friends, and I was a little library/publishing relevant!). delighted to discover the absinthe I settled on I took my usual approach of reading was available in a small bottle at my local Binthrough a sampling of the search ny’s. Those from Chicago will recognize how results until I felt I had a good sense lucky we are to have a downstate outpost of of what is essential to buffalo chick- this fantastic store … for others you’ll want to en and then, pragmatically, looked make a note to check it out on some future trip. for a recipe to follow where I had Specifically I chose the St. George Absinthe all of the ingredients on hand. Verte (https://www.binnys.com/st-george-ab-

I settled on the Buffalo Chicksinthe-verte-53412.html). en Bites from Six Sisters’ Stuff Chill an old-fashioned glass. In another (https://www.sixsistersstuff.com/ glass, soak a sugar cube with Peychaud’s recipe/buffalo-chicken-bites/) and bitters and muddle it. Add ice and a generous they turned out perfectly. Tender, pour of rye whiskey. Stir to chill. Rinse the spicy, and sweet – just the right amount of kick to offset the creamy blue cheese dressing. Speaking Buffalo Chicken Salad at Crane Alley (Photo Credit: Lisa Janicke Hinchliffe) chilled old-fashioned glass with a few drops of absinthe. Strain the whiskey into the glass (add ice if you like) and garnish with lemon peel. of which, I didn’t have a bottle on hand so made the dressing Unfortunately, this cocktail isn’t on the takeout menu at Crane from scratch and, well, I’ll never buy it pre-made again! I used Alley (yet?), but the to-go Old Fashioned kit they do have is a this recipe from Spruce Eats (https://www.thespruceeats.com/ decent substitute on days when the purpose of takeout is to have creamy-blue-cheese-dressing-recipe-101885) — though I did it all made for me. increase the amount of cheese. Because — cheese!