Mark Bittman is good at getting down to brass tacks on what you really need in your kitchen (we still refer to his 2007 list of essential, inexpensive cookware and tools). In today's Times, he's paring down the pantry, telling us what we need to throw out and what to have on hand for easy, top-notch dishes. See if you agree...
1. Toss the canned beans; buy tomato paste in a tube. All of Bittman's suggestions made sense to us, but some were more surprising than others. Freshly grated parmesan instead of the green can? Old news. (Although his tip that fresh parmesan can keep in the fridge for a year was pretty revelatory.) But some substitutions, like tomato paste in a tube instead of a can and sherry vinegar instead of inexpensive balsamic, were great hints. We also really liked his off-the-cuff recipe suggestions for using some of the ingredients.
2. Spicy, tangy Southeast Asian chicken soups. Full of lime and coconut and curry... These sound so good to us right now.
3. Do you eat fish for breakfast? Melissa Clark is pushing flounder and eggs, baked together in one pan- simple and quick.
4. Eat more squirrel. Would you? We're not sure. But in an attempt to control the grey squirrel population in the UK, chefs are serving it up as a new meat. Reports of its greasiness turned us off, though.
5. Barrel-aged beers that are priced like wine. Some brewers are going back to ancient traditions of aging beer in oak barrels. Sounds good, but we're not sure it's worth the $30+ price tag.
What did you think of today's Dining section?
Related: Previous Top 5: Butter Cookies and a Better Pot Roast
(Image: Francesco Tonelli for The New York Times)
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Squirrel? Ah, no. I don't think so.
Technically, a very large part of the US eats squirrel. It's only in the cosmopolitan parts of the country do we frown upon it. Often for very poorer communities who have to hunt their own food out of neccessity during the year, large grey squirrels can provide good food. It's outside the big city idea where we feed them in the park, but then again we also keep rabbits as pets but happily eat them as well.
For the most part it's a lot like rabbit. Hank Shaw, a food writer who hunts a lot of his own food, did a really good piece about it on his blog.
http://www.honest-food.net/blog1/2008/10/25/on-cooking-squirrels/#more-519
He even has a recipe for squirrel: http://www.honest-food.net/blog1/wild-game-recipes/rabbit-hare-squirrel-recipes/braised-squirrel-aurora-spanish-braised-squirrel/
As for being greasy? Depends on the type of quirrel, also if they eat a lot of walnuts they take on a nutty flavor.
A quick bit from Hank Shaw's blog "Hunter Angler Gardener Cook" about meat from the bushy tail:
Squirrel hunting with a .22 rifle is exactly like deer hunting: You need to be just as stealthy and just as good a shot. Mind you I am talking about wild, forest squirrels, not those that scamper around at the Capitol or your backyard.
And squirrel meat is delicious. Squirrels can live a long time, up to 6 or 7 years, and as such can be deeply flavorful. The meat looks like rabbit, but is grayer. It has a far denser texture than rabbit, which rarely live more than a year. Squirrel also takes on flavors of what it eats — yes, you really can taste a nutty flavor in squirrels that live in a walnut grove.
Back to the lonely squirrel in my freezer. I finally decided to braise him slowly, because that’s the safest thing to do when you don’t know the age of a squirrel — young ones are fantastic fried like your favorite fried chicken recipe. But what sort of braise?
I immediately thought of a Spanish braise I’d made a few years back when I hunted squirrel in Minnesota. Squirrel Aurora, it is loosely based on a rabbit recipe in Penelope Casas’ Delicioso! The Regional Cooking of Spain, a fine cookbook. The main flavors are almonds and green olives, both of which I had lying around. But with only one lonely squirrel I added fingerlings to bulk it up; it proved a good choice.
The dish was fantastic, although I brined the squirrel a bit too long so it was pretty salty. A rich sauce, a dense, flavorful meat, great with crusty bread. What’s not to love?
I don't know, my mom has squirrels in her backyard that will sit on her lap and eat peanuts. I couldn't eat Earl!
Actually, I just had squirrel about a month ago at my great-uncle's birthday party. Its not an uncommon meat to cook in my family. My grandparents and their brothers and sisters grew up in a poor, rural area of Appalachia. A great deal of their food supply was directly from nature. So that means that they did eat squirrel pretty frequently. I guess they acquired a taste for it because my grandmother still cooks squirrel and dumplings on occasion.
:( But I love (live) squirrels...