After a great run, Food Junta closed up shop at the end of 2011. Why then, I can hear you asking from all the way up here in the future, is the last post from 2009? Well, time traveler, the Junta relocated to its own domain in 2009. We were much better at food and writing than at internets, so when that site was hacked in 2012, we took it down for good. FJ posts from its last couple of years were salvaged, but not in a format that we can easily make available online.

So: Enjoy your stay, and thanks for visiting.

Also, please don’t hack us.

Live it. Love it. (And update your bookmarks/feeds.)

In the meantime, please make sure that you are coming to visit us by going to foodjunta.com and not foodjunta.wordpress.com. We’ll remind you of this several more times, I promise, but beginning soon foodjunta.wordpress.com will no longer be updated with content. So check those links.

Please bear with us for the next few days, and we promise to be back and better than ever very soon.

-The Management

August in New York City = so much great stuff at the farmer’s market. I’m particularly excited about corn – bushels and bushels of sweet, snappy, corn!

All you need to make corn delicious is salt, pepper and, if you’re normal and not me, butter, right? Sure. But two summers ago the Red Hook Ball Field vendors opened my eyes/mouth to something even more awesome that permanently changed my puritanical ways.

Corn Doctor Casteen presents elote loco ("crazy corn").

Crazy good!! Here’s the how-to, based on a little time spent watching the masters, a little research on the internet, and some practice.

Everything you need to make elote loco!

1. COOK THE CORN
Grill it. Pull back husks and remove silk, then fold husks back up around the cob. Place ears in covered barbecue for about 25 minutes, turning occasionally. I’ve made the mistake of stripping everything away, and the corn ends up looking too much like the coals it’s cooking over. If you keep the husks, they’ll pull away and give you some lightly charred kernels without letting the whole ear burn. When you’re done, you can peel back the husk and tie in a knot to make a little corn handle for your prepping/eating convenience.

If you can’t grill it, boil it. Shuck the corn – leaving some stalk if possible for a handle – and drop the naked ears in a pot of boiling water (don’t add salt). Cover and let it cook for about four minutes. Good, fresh corn doesn’t need long!

2. SLATHER
If you want to be authentic, use Mexican crema (akin to sour cream or crème fraiche). You can get this at Latin markets or even make it yourself. If not, you can use mayonnaise. Yup!

NB: I hate gloopy/greasy white foods and used to fear this step. But this really brings it all together. Embrace the slather.

3. CHEESE
Sprinkle crumbled cotija (a hard, aged cow’s milk cheese, also available at Latin markets) over the ear as you’re turning it.

Real foodies, don’t hate me for saying this: If you can’t get the cotija, sub in grated parmesan or another sprinklable cheese.

4. SEASON
Dust each ear with cayenne pepper. Squeeze a lime wedge over it.
Done! Eat it!!

We’ve said it before, I’m saying it again, and we will probably say it again before the month is out: It’s time to change school lunch. Not in a nebulous wouldn’t-it-be-nice way, but in a concrete Congress is scheduled to reauthorize the Child Nutrition Act in September, and it’s time to show them that we care way.

You aren’t a kid? You don’t have kids? Think school lunch doesn’t affect you? Think again, and while you’re at it, check out my posts on the topic — Why a Twenty-Something Should Care About School Lunch for the blog Civil Eats and No More School Lunch Baloney for the Slow Food blog.

The quality of school lunch affects everyone in America, whether or not  you or your child is eating it. So please, read up, sign the Time for Lunch petition, and organize or attend an Eat-In on September 7th.

“There is much debate on how to make a traditional ratatouille.” Some version of this sentence appears on the Wikipedia page of just about every dish known to man, and it brings up one of my least favorite concepts in food: “Authenticity.”

The idea that a dish is somehow invalid for not conforming to some specific standard drives me crazy, at least when it’s not recognized that it’s just a semantic argument, one about terminology, not value. A ratatouille by any other name…

All that said, my new method actually is a traditional method for making ratatouille, which I suppose takes some of the wind out of my argument, but whatever. Get your own blog.

Last time, I described a baked ratatouille. This time, I did it on the stovetop. Results: I actually found the stovetop version easier and tastier. I chopped the vegetables as I went along, which made everything feel faster. And it may just be that I was starting with better produce this time – everything except the tomatoes came from my CSA –  but the final product seemed more balanced than last time.Plus, I didn’t have to turn on my oven and heat my kitchen up by 20 degrees.

As I said last time, baking is great if you want to do prep ahead of time, but for a simple summer supper, I now think the stovetop is the way to go. Either way, don’t let any French bureaucrats sneak into your kitchen and start lecturing you about authenticite’. Give him a good thwack with a ladle and let them know that this is America.

Freedom Ratatouille

2 cloves garlic
1 onion
1 medium eggplant
2 medium green bell peppers
1 16 oz. can diced tomatoes
1 bunch fresh basil

1. Heat a good amount of olive oil in a medium saucepan over low heat. Mince garlic and chop onion and add to hot oil.

2. Thinly slice eggplant and peppers. Once onions soften and begin to caramelize (this is where I think the stove has a serious advantage over the oven), add eggplant and bell peppers to the oil. Don’t panic if everything seems really dry all of a sudden. Eggplant has a tendency to suck up oil, but it releases it again as it softens.

3. When eggplant is soft, add tomatoes and mix through. Now you can stew for as long as you like to allow the flavors to blend together.

4. Right before you serve, turn off the heat on the pot and tear in the fresh basil.

A Turkish meal is usually cooked by a weathered and wise old grandma deep in the Anatolian heartland who couldn’t write down the recipe for Jacques Pepin himself.  She knows what she’s doing and would fight to the death over one pinch of salt or two.  For the culinary tourist such as yours truly, I’ll have to relate these recipes as best I observed it cooked in front of me.  Like much in Turkey, they’re fairly straightforward, just not very exact.

Çerkes Tavuğu, or chicken Circassia, was the delight and envy of first the Russian and then Ottoman empires.  During their respective reigns, this delicacy was taken from its heartland on the southern Black Sea coast, forced into palace kitchens throughout the land, and there rose to great renown.  Even today,  mention Çerkes Tavuğu to a Turk, especially a man, and a look of awe and longing may steal across his face.  The legend lives.

Now, the recipe exists in a diaspora held together by the wisdom of its matriarchal root culture.  Wait, wait.  That’s actually Circassian women that were taken to the harems, not chicken to the kitchens.  (See interesting Wikipedia article about the Ottoman-era high class sex-slave trade.)  Circassian chicken was just along for the ride.  It’s not necessarily high-class, just damn good Circassian home-cooking.  But the parallels are evident.  A bona fide Circassian woman recent told me, “We Circassian women know how to make our men happy.  Everyone knows this.”  Keeping my observations limited to the chicken, more or less my area of expertise here, I can happily say this is true.

Ingredients

1 lb mixed small chicken pieces (wings, legs, thighs, etc)
water
salt
½ loaf stale bread OR 3-4 cups bread crumbs
2-3 cups crushed walnuts
8 T butter or olive oil
hot pepper flakes (or the like)
large saucepan / stew pot
flat platter

Chicken

Put raw chicken pieces in saucepan or stew-pot.  Cover with water plus 1 inch but no more.  Add salt, pepper, and any desired spices.  Boil on medium until chicken is cooked, about 15-20 minutes.  When chicken is done, remove from pot and let cool.  SAVE THE WATER.  When cool, shred the chicken.

Sauce

While chicken is cooling, make breadcrumbs (if necessary).  Add breadcrumbs to hot water, still on medium heat.  Cook, stirring intermittently, until sauce is thick and creamy.  Optional spices could be cumin, thyme, and/or hot pepper.  Or whatever.  What does your Turkish grandmother add?  When sauce is done, pour liberally into shredded chicken.

Butter

Clean saucepan and melt butter.  Add salt and hot pepper flakes.  Cook until butter turns reddish.  Optional addition could be finely chopped parsley or sage.

Finish

Place shredded chicken and walnuts onto platter in layers.  Pour sauce liberally onto the chicken.  Pour butter/oil on top so it drivels down in delicious fatty rivulets.

Serve!

Summer is a tough time for cookery, especially in a hot city of small kitchens. Although there’s great produce to be had, the idea of spending much time in front of the stove is unappealing to say the least.

Which is why summer cooking takes some adjustments: Nothing in the oven unless you’re able to leave the room while it’s in there, nothing that requires constant attention on the stove top, etc. This is why hearty salads – like Salade Nicoise -are such a good summer option.

Salade Nicoise is a classic French composed salad – “composed” is just a fancy work for a salad that has all the ingredients piled on top rather than tossed in – and although it does have cooked ingredients, they can be prepared in under 30 minutes. And it’s a Julia Child favorite, so – in honor of the upcoming movie that I can’t decide whether or not I want to see – here it is:

Although you’re probably better off not incorporating “composed salad” into your daily vocabulary, I definitely advise against tossing this salad. It’s nice to be able to get a forkful of whatever you want while you’re eating this, and when everything in this salad gets mixed together, it can actually be a little overwhelming.

My method for hard-boiling eggs: Place eggs in pot of cold water. Bring water to a rolling boil, then immediately turn off heat. Leave eggs alone for 8-10 minutes, then run under cold water to stop cooking. You can also boil eggs this way in an electric kettle, which is very handy as they shuit themselves off. Experiment with different times to get the level of hardness you want. Overcooking hard-boiled eggs is far from the end of the world, but the yolks do start to get chalky and dry and the whites a bit rubbery.

The exact ingredients in a Salade Nicoise are a popular topic of debate in France, where that sort of thing is socially acceptable. Common ingredients other than what I’ve used here include anchovies, sardines, capers, and tomatoes. The vinaigrette I used below included fresh basil because we had it, but whatever vinaigrette you like will work. I would recommend including mustard, though, as it goes extremely well with the potatoes and the eggs.

Salade Nicoise

Components: Lettuce, tuna, eggs, green beans, potatoes, olives (Nicoise if you’ve got ’em).

Here’s how I would do prep to keep stress to a minimum

Depending on whether you are methodical or not, this salad can take you twenty minutes to put together or an hour and a half. Here is how I would order things:

1. Place two pots of water on the stove. Put eggs in one. Bring both to a boil.
2. Rinse green beans and remove ends. Chop in half if desired.
3. Scrub and cube potatoes.
4. Right about now, the pots should be boiling. Turn the heat off on the egg pot and toss the green beans in the other. Make note of the time or set a timer for the eggs.
5. Wash the salad greens.
6. The green beans should be ready about now.  I like them still relatively crisp if I’m using them in a salad. Keep in mind that they will continue to cook unless you dunk them in cold water. Remove them from water using a slotted spoon and leave the water boiling.
7. Add cubed potatoes into the boiling green bean water. Depending on the size of your cubes, they should cook in around 15 minutes.
8. Now the eggs should be ready. Take them out and run them under cold water or dunk them in ice water. Peel and slice.
9. Now you can start assembling while the potatoes cook. Jut pile all of the above onto the salad greens along with canned tuna – or fesh cooked tuna if you’ve got it – and the olives.
10. If the potatoes are done, remove them to drain before making the vinaigrette. If not, remove them after.
11. Vinaigrette: Shallot, olive oil, lemon juice or a light vinegar, chopped fresh basil, salt and pepper. Or whatever you like.
12. “It’s fun to get together and have something good to eat at least once a day. That’s what human life is all about – enjoying things.” – Julia Child

What to do with all that awesome homemade ricotta from last week (other than boasting about it incessantly)? Here’s a recipe I dreamed of, and the reason I made the ricotta in the first place — the ricotta’s raison d’etre, if you will.

I’ve been seeing ricotta-squash tart everywhere recently, by which I mean at both Buttermilk Channel and Vinegar Hill House, both in Brooklyn, both homey new American style restaurants with a farmhouse decor. Aww.

And both with food that — while delicious — I felt pretty confident that I could duplicate at home. Well, this isn’t either of their tarts exactly, but it was pretty good nonetheless. What did I learn? I learned that if you make a good enough tart crust, and have good enough ricotta for the filling, and have good quality toppings,  you can make just about any kind of savory tart you want.

In retrospect, I wish I had made a custard to mix with the ricotta so that it would have poofed a bit and ended up a little more like a quiche. But, there is a place for this tart, too, showcasing  your efforts at making ricotta in their purest, most basic extreme. And the snow-white ricotta is the perfect showcase for vibrant farmers’ market vegetables. So, go to your local farmers’ market, pick out a veggie, oven-dry it a bit (so it doesn’t make the tart all mushy), and go to it. Serve with pesto, or a likeminded delicious sauce.

Savory Ricotta Tart, with Whatever Vegetable You Want

– 1 tart crust (I used the one from the Greens cookbook)

– 1 1/2 cups ricotta (or more)

– vegetable (singular) or vegetables (plural) of your choice, sliced in 1/4-inch thick slices — squash and tomatoes are particularly good here, but you could also use eggplant, peppers, corn, leeks/onions, peas…endless options.

1. Dry out your vegetable: Not all vegetables will need to be dried, but squash and tomatoes definitely do. Peppers and eggplants are questionable. Peas or corn do not need drying. To dry, cut the vegetable in 1/4-inch slices and lay them out on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Sprinkle with salt and roast in a pre-heated 400-degree (or so) oven for 20-30 minutes, checking occasionally.

2. Pre-bake your tart crust: Freeze the assembled tart crust in pan for 20 minutes or so, then bake in a pre-heated 425-degree oven for about 10 minutes, until the crust is beginning to color.

3. Assemble tart and bake: Fill pre-baked crust with ricotta. Top with vegetables. Bake for another 10-15 minutes, until ricotta is warmed through. Serve with sauce, and squash blossoms.

Technically, this is called pico de gallo. Wikipedia has all sorts of interesting etymological explanations for why it’s called that. But to me, this is fresh tomato salsa. Easy to make with summer ingredients, and delicious as a condiment or as its own salad. The funny thing is, it’s so simple and easy. But it’s rare to see on the table. Maybe salsa is now universally associated with the soupy stuff you find in a jar, and the thing about those jars is that you’re constantly trying to use them up once they’re opened. So no one ever thinks to make it from scratch.

Well, as they say, your first time is always special. My first time, I was spending a depressed summer in Paris and a friend came over and said ‘hey, let’s make fresh tomato salsa!’ It changed my life. My second time came the very next day, when I invited three other friends over and promptly passed it off as my own invention. They were duly impressed, and I’ve never stopped eating it since.

Ok, absurdly easy instructions:

Ingredients:

• Tomatoes. The juicier, the better – there’s going to be a lot of juice on the bottom of the bowl in the end, but it will be delicious. Tomatoes are still in season, so eat them while you can.
• Onions. I use red onions because they’re sweeter, but any type is fine.
• Peppers. There are four varieties displayed here, but of course there are hundreds of different kinds, and you should pick according to your taste for piquancy and flavor. Just mince finely if you plan to use anything hotter than a wax pepper. If, on the other hand, you’re the type who enjoys accidentally biting into a huge piece of jalapeño just to feel the burn, now’s your chance.
• Cilantro. Ok, it’s optional, but you don’t need to add much to really transform the dish.
• Fresh lime juice. The lemon is optional; the lime is not. Lots and lots of lime. One of my Paris friends got so enthusiastic he not only squeezed out the juice, but used a spoon to painstakingly scrape out all the flesh, until the lime halves resembled two little, dry cups.

Instructions: Chop and mix. I use 2-3 tomatoes per onion, and cilantro and peppers to taste. You can decide how finely you want to chop the tomatoes. It won’t affect the taste to have some big pieces in there. But take more care with the onions and peppers, again to avoid a sudden, overwhelming mouthful of something.

Serving suggestion: If you’ve ever thought about hosting a burrito-making party, this is a particularly kick-ass thing to make. It’s not practical if you’re just making burritos yourself, because you can’t put enough inside each burrito to use up very much. But if you invite over three friends and you each have three burritos, you’ll probably use three tomatoes’ worth of salsa. Buen apetito.