Katharine Hepburn Brownies, Macerated Raspberry Sauce

When it comes to brownies, everyone has his or her preference. Some prefer cakey (though god knows why), others prefer raw, yet others favor the fudgey dense sort -- there's a recipe for everyone. I even know someone who made a habit of mixing up two full batches each time she made brownies: one to bake, and one to eat raw, straight from the mixing bowl. If that's not enough to make your stomach turn, I don't know what is. Thank heavens that Dorie Greenspan understands how finicky folks can be with their brownies. For this reason exactly, she includes twelve different brownie recipes in Baking: from My Home to Yours, not including the blondie and white chocolate varieties. With so many options, one might think it tough to sort out exactly which will be to one's liking; however, after quickly discounting the cheesecake brownies (not in the mood), the brownie buttons (too small), the ginger-spiked (D wouldn't have liked 'em), the honey nut (again, too interesting) and several others, I was left to choose between "brrr-ownies" (spiked with peppermint!) and "Tribute to Katharine Hepburn" brownies. As if the namesake weren't enough to sell me, KH brownies seemed to have the perfect proportions: heaping quantities of both chocolate and cocoa, held together with a mere 1/4 cup flour and a couple of eggs, and spiked with vanilla and cinnamon, these brownies bake up to the perfect soft, fudgey consistency. They're rich, but not dense, flavorful but not overpowering. Ok, maybe the chocolate is a little overpowering, but that's how I like it. And they really benefit from just a hit of salt. Nothing makes a sweet tasty like salt does.

The first time I made these brownies, I followed the recipe to a T -- but you know me, the second time I had to change things up a bit. I decided to use unsweetened high-quality chocolate, since that's what I had lying around; to compensate, I added just a Tbsp. of extra sugar, and the resulting product was just what I'd hoped for: the brownies themselves were sweet and rich, but the melted bits of unsweetened chocolate were both flavorful and a refreshing break from the sugar. I'd do it again in a flash.

Oh, yea, how could I forget the raspberries? This was a bit of an afterthought, as I had some lovely raspberries in the fridge and wanted to make more of them than a garnish. I tossed 1 small container of raspberries with 1+ Tbsp. of sugar onto the stove and let it cook for about 7 minutes, until the berries started to exude their liquid. Then I took a fork to them, macerating them a bit so that some stayed intact while others created a sort of rough sauce. Overtop rich, chocolatey brownies, the raspberries provided a necessary tartness and their flavor, fresh and bright, was fantastic.

If you're the cakey type, sorry but I can't help ya. However, if you enjoy a light and not overly dense brownie that's also rich and chocolatey, read on.

Katherine Hepburn Brownies from Dorie Greenspan

• 1/4 cup flour
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• 1 stick butter, cut into 8 pieces
• 1/2 cup cocoa powder
• 2 tsp. instant coffee
• 2 large eggs, pref. room temp
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• 1 cup broken walnuts or pecans (optional)
• 4 oz. bittersweet chocolate, coarsely chopped

1. Preheat oven to 325 and center a rack inside. Butter an 8-inch square pan and line the bottom with parchment or wax paper. Butter the paper and dust with flour; shake out the excess.
2. Whisk together flour, cinnamon, and salt.
3. Heat the butter over low heat. When the butter starts melting, add the cocoa and coffee; stir to blend. Remove from the heat and cool for 3 minutes.
4. Beat the eggs into the saucepan one at a time. Stir in the sugar and vanilla, followed by dry ingredients, chopped chocolate, and walnuts.
5. Scrape the batter into the pan.
6. Bake for 30 minutes at which point brownies will be gooey but with a crisp top crust. Transfer to a rack and let cool at least 30 minutes.
7. Turn the brownies onto the rack, peel away the paper, and invert onto cutting board. Cut into 2-inch squares.

Raspberry Sauce

• One small container of raspberries
• 2 Tbsp. sugar

1. In small saucepan, combine ingredients over low heat.
2. Stir at regular intervals until sugar starts to dissolve and raspberries emit juice.
3. At this point, break up the raspberries with the back of a wooden spoon until most have formed a sauce, and some retain their shape.
4. Let cool a bit off the heat, and serve warm with brownies.

Minibar, Part trois (et ultime)

Let's see, where did we leave off? Have you already forgotten that more tales of molecular gastronomy and showmanship were in store for you? This is the final installment of the Minibar saga. So as not to reveal all my (their) cards, I'll cover only highlights of the remaining courses, leaving some of the show to your imagination (should you choose to explore this restaurant yourself).

We begin with what was many folks' favorite course of the night: "sundried" tomato salad. As may at this point be intuitive, there were no actual sundried tomatoes, but rather man-made, sundried-tomato-tasting-and-looking red ovals (??), composed of sundried tomato puree and other unpronounceable ingredients. Accompanying the SDT-like rounds were perfectly shaped tomato hears, their seeds front and center; micro basil; fantastic greek yogurt; aged balsamic vinegar; herbs; and some form of foam whose flavor eludes me at this point. Each element had its own texture and flavor, at once familiar and totally new; while the resulting dish smacked of a familiar tomato-basil salad, the chefs truly recreated the traditional dish, and dare I say it, their recreation was better than the original. For the sake of full disclosure, I have a longstanding love affair with tomato seeds and was delighted to see them take center stage at Minibar.

Next up was a very cool take on guacamole: paper-thin slices of avocado were chilled, then molded into a long hollow cylinder, which was served with a tomato sorbet inside. This was garnished with some sort of pepper (jalapeno, perhaps?), micro-squares of real, honest-to-god tomato, and -- get this -- crushed Fritos, a surprising favorite ingredient among the folks at Minibar.

This was another whimsical yet clever dish that was impressively presented. I'll be honest that I prefer real guacamole to the Minibar version - but by any other name, this would have been a great dish.

A unanimous thumbs up among the group followed the guacamole, in the form of deconstructed potato soup with caramelized onions and clams (for those who'd eat them). The clams were crazy-fresh, only 14 hours old; even the self-proclaimed clam hater among us loved them. The clams were nestled in a whipped potato foam, accompanied by a generous layer of the best caramelized onion puree I've ever tasted. Tiny hashbrown-ed potato cubes added the perfect crunch to this briny, smooth dish -- both the clam eaters and the non-clam eaters agreed that this dish was really memorable.

I'll mention one last savory dish, only because it was such a shocking success. Had you told me that one of my truly favorite dishes would have contained a layer of jellied zucchini seeds suspended over a rich, sweet puree of caramelized zucchini, I'd have laughed in your face. I pestered the chefs unendingly as I ate this dish -- how did they make caramel out of just zucchini? How did it taste so darn good? How? How? Yea. I still don't know. But it was freakin' amazing.

Among the dishes I didn't mention: "philly cheesesteak" (with porcinis for the non-meat eaters), cotton-candy coated eel, conch fritters, and more. Want details? Go to Minibar. :)

I've left room here for dessert, because there were two ridiculous desserts that really blew my mind.

The first was a seemingly simple combination of yogurt, praline, honey, and olive oil -- only the yogurt was recreated as snow, the honey had the texture of rock salt, and the praline was hardened into logs that sat bellied in a pool of grassy Spanish olive oil and fantastic honey. The combination of frozen, tart, unsweetened kernels of yogurt snow and crunchy bites of honey with the smooth, nutty praline and the olive oil was totally amazing (I know, I've said amazing too much, but this was blow-my-mind good). I've tried to recreate it at home with little success; that snow and the rock-honey really made the dish.

The other memorable dessert was introduced by the chef as the dessert that blew his mind, and it was indeed special. Eye-squintingly tart tamarind paste and spicy hot chili powder accompanied a spoonful of coconut sorbet cloaked in a layer of frozen pureed peanuts for a thai-inspired sweet. The creamy coconut, sour tamarind, spicy chili powder and nutty peanut combo sounded like something right out of the cookbook Hot Sour Salty Sweet, a beautifully-photographed exploration of Southeast Asian food.

While I won't spoil it for you, the chefs even came back onstage after the final applause for a little encore:

In all, it's fair to say that Minibar was a surreal gastronomic experience -- a window into a whole world of food-play with which I was (and still am) pretty unfamiliar. I'd highly recommend finding a very special occasion, and celebrating it at Minibar.

Broccoli with Pine Nuts and Raisins

Ever have a total jonesin' to make something that you had not intention of eating for a couple days? No, of course not. You're not crazy. Maybe it was the urge to blog that got me cooking this weekend, backwards as that sounds...but for whatever reason, I found myself chopping garlic, toasting pine nuts, and steaming broccoli and raisins, knowing full well that I was going out to dinner last night, out to a brunch baby-naming this morning, and ... well, out to dinner again tonight. The broccoli is still sitting in my fridge, save for the little bits I've been sneaking here and there. And now you all know what I'll be taking for lunch tomorrow.

This broccoli couldn't be easier to make; its flavors are clean and pronounced, its colors fresh, and it can be eaten cold or warmed. Word on the street is that pine nuts and raisins are two of those "finicky foods" that picky eaters often don't like. Lucky for me, D dislikes both. You can be sure we won't be fighting over the last floret, 'cause it's all for me, every last bit.

I dreamt up this recipe after quick-sauteing some collard greens with similar ingredients. The greens, which retain a fair amount of bitterness even after cooking, balance the butteriness of the pine nuts and the sweet tartness of the raisins. I wanted to make more, but I only had broccoli in my fridge. Determined to make it work, I added some thinly sliced garlic "chips," which I browned in a couple tablespoons of oil. The chips imparted a bitter spiciness that helped round out the dish, and those 2 Tbsp. of garlic-infused oil were a perfect dressing for the broccoli.

The one other thing I did differently than in traditional recipes was to steam the raisins along with the broccoli, so that they plumped up. I'd definitely do this again.

I imagine this broccoli recipe would be delightful alongside some steamed cod, flounder, or other white fish, and of course some crusty bread to round out the plate. Alternatively, toss it with some pasta (cooked in salted boiling water) and sprinkle some romano cheese overtop for an easy, one-pot meal. I'll be eating it right out of the tupperware, which I imagine will be just fine.

Broccoli with Pine nuts and Raisins serves 2 as a side dish

• 2 crowns of broccoli, florets separated and stems chopped into 3/4-inch slices
• 1/2 cup raisins, preferably brown
• 1/2 cup pine nuts
• 1 clove garlic, sliced very thinly
• 2 Tbsp. olive oil
• salt and pepper to taste

1. Preheat the oven to 350, and toast pine nuts in a single layer until they've turned golden, about 7 minutes.
2. Place a steamer in the bottom of a big pot, and add water so that the water level comes just below the steamer. When water is boiling, add broccoli and raisins, cover, and cook until broccoli is softened but still firm and green, about 10 minutes (maybe less).
3. If you're concerned about the vegetable turning brown, immediately transfer broccoli to an ice bath to stop the cooking. Mine was fine without the ice bath, and is still green after quite some time in the fridge.
4. Meanwhile, slice the garlic, heat the oil on medium, and fry the garlic until it has turned golden. Try not to let it burn.
5. Mix all the ingredients together in a large bowl, and drizzle oil and garlic chips overtop. Season with s and p as necessary. Serve warm or cold.

Minibar, Part Deux

(For those who haven't been following, a bunch of friends and I went out to dinner last week at Minibar and had a $$delightful$$ meal; I'm documenting our adventure, course by course, on NDP. You can see part one here.)

Our story resumes with one of the evening's most whimsical dishes: "dragon's breath" popcorn. We were each handed a ball of popcorn (kettle corn, actually -- sweet and salty and delicious all over) submerged in liquid nitrogen. We were instructed to exhale when we ate it, so that upon chewing and breathing, we actually exhaled, um, smoke. What DB popcorn lacked in actual culinary innovation, it made up for in giggle factor. D literally couldn't keep a straight face as I tried to photograph, so I ended up with a bunch of blurry pictures in which the smoke is visible only because I know it's there.

All silliness aside, the next course was one of my favorites of the evening. Simply titled "blue cheese and almond," what actually arrived at our places was a semi-spherical golf-ball-sized bowl made entirely of pureed, frozen, and molded marcona almonds, filled with blue cheese and topped with maybe some honey? and some bread crumbs shaved toasted almonds (thanks, E), I think?..argggh I'm totally empathizing with food critics right now; I claim to have loved a dish but the ingredients are somewhat a blur? Sounds fishy, I know. But get this: the dish was freezing. Literally, it was so cold that it almost stung the teeth. Which was unexpected, and wonderful. See, blue cheese is very sharp, and very rich; it needs something to cut the richness, to mitigate the intensity. Usually, that something is either acidic or sweet. But in Minibar's take on blue cheese, the temperature was the mitigating element, and it worked perfectly. The almond dish -- made of pure marcona almonds, blended, then frozen to hold their shape -- was also served frozen, and its texture was delightful, both smooth from the natural fat and coarse from the bits of almonds. To my palate, the dish was a smashing success.

This dish really revolutionized the way I tend to think about how flavors and textures work together. Instead of simply assuming that certain foods, dishes, and courses should automatically be served hot or cold, try switching up the temperature of a dish in unconventional ways. For example, I've typically served pea soup hot; with summer steadily approaching, I'm going to omit the chicken broth, opt for a mirepoix base instead (carrots, onions, and celery), add some nutmeg, and try serving it cold. How will you manipulate temperature creatively? Leave a comment and let me know...

I'll end this post with a nod to Minibar's flexibility. When our group reserved seats (exactly 30 days in advance, at exactly 10 9 am, per Minibar's rules), the restaurant contacted us for a detailed description of our eating restrictions. This flexibility may have bit them in the butt, as half of our group kept kosher, another segment ate no pork and selected seafood, and one lonely diner was game for anything. But Minibar kindly obliged by sometimes serving the different groups entirely different foods for a particular course. This next dish was one such example.

The kosh folks ate a man-made olive, created using the same sodium alginate as was used to make the contained mojito. The olive was served with a small sliver of orange, and tasted distinctly of green olive (which I love). It was actually reminiscent of a virgin dirty martini (which sounds like a total oxymoron), tasting strongly of fresh olive juice. Meanwhile, the other folks ate a conch fritter with a liquid conch chowder center, which was a very innovative take on a typical fritter.

My mind's a-brewin' with ways to employ this technique. For example, when making risotto fritters (aka supplí or arancini), stuff them with a bit of mozzarella cheese and some marinara sauce (as they do at one of my fave pizza joints, Two Amys) which will ooze and drip deliciously when you bite into them.

'Til next time, keep that drool in your mouth :)