The World Turned Upside Down: The Second Low-Carbohydrate Revolution (40 page)

The trick to cooking with peppers is
that they have an outer
membrane that is unappetizing and indigestible. The best way to remove
them is
to burn them off in a gas flame. Put the whole pepper on a skewer and
hold it
over a high flame allowing it to char. You can frequently find bottled
roasted
peppers that are whole and can be used for stuffing. Spaghetti squash
is a good
stuffing. Top with cheese and bake for 20-30 minutes.

The sauces. Mayonnaise

Mayonnaise is one of the things that
you give up on a
low-fat diet but it is traditional in French and other cooking. The
commercial
mayonnaise is, in my opinion, very good but not comparable to home-made
and
some people don't like it because it is high in the kind of fat called
omega-6
which we probably get too much of.

Home-made mayonnaise is more like a
real sauce while
store-bought is a day-to-day condiment. There are many methods and most
are
difficult but there is one fool-proof, quick way that involves only
three
really important principles. Violate these and you will have a much
harder
time.

1. Use
   an immersion (stick) blender.
   
2. Everything
   at room temperature.
   
3. If
   you add lemon juice, add it after making the mayonnaise. (The acid my
   make it
   harder to thicken).
   

Before you start, you can rub the
mixing bowl with garlic.
Best is to use the jar that you are going to store it in; make sure the
neck of
the jar is big enough for the blender). If you use a lot of garlic (4-6
depending on taste) this is called aiöli (
pr
.
Eye-o-lee), which is a well-known variation.

The oil: light olive oil may be best;
virgin olive oil will
have very strong taste you may not like. I use 1:1 light olive oil and
avocado
oil (if you can find it) or peanut oil (because I like the taste but,
as above,
people don't always like vegetable oils).

Add one or two tablespoons of wine
vinegar in the jar with
salt and pepper. Small amount of prepared brown mustard (I use
^®
Gulden's).
Add one egg yolk or whole egg (room temp) and 1 cup oil. Put the
immersion
blender at the bottom of the jar and turn the blender on. As it
emulsifies,
move the blender up and down until you have a uniform mixture.

Useful trick for thicker mayonnaise.
Crack the uncooked egg,
stir it as for scrambled eggs and put it in the freezer. The next day,
take it
out and allow it to come to room temperature. For unknown reasons, it
will now
thicken much better. This is done in making commercial mayonnaise where
they
use fewer eggs. There is no reason to avoid cholesterol but commercial
mayonnaise has less cholesterol than you might think for this reason.

All-purpose sauce.

There are many variations of
mayonnaise – obviously you can
add anything you like – but common ones add some kind of tomato or
aromatic
relish. Russian dressing is mixture of mayonnaise and ketchup pretty
much
verboten
with
store-bought ketchup because of the added sugar. Adding store-bought
salsa to
mayonnaise produces a quick all-purpose sauce that can be used as salad
dressing or served with fish or beef.

Classic French Remoulade is
mayonnaise seasoned with chives,
herbs and other aromatic stuff. There are numerous recipes. Like many
New
Orleans adaptations, the term
Remoulade
in Cajun cooking can mean anything and there are many variations with
the
characteristic multiple ingredients and overdoing everything.
Laissez rouler
les bons temps
.

Avocado

The secret to avocado is salt. If you
serve it in slices,
salt the slices and let them stand for a while. The secret to guacamole
is
restraint. Rub the bowl with garlic, salt the avocado and mash. (Don't
overdo
it, there should be some pieces) Depending on your taste, you can add
other
things but nothing tastes better than simple.

A
mediterranean interlude

Mediterranean Diets are very popular
and
are considered to be
some kind of ideal, because they are not explicitly low-fat (most of
the time)
while still allowing you to avoid saying low-carbohydrate. They are
evocative
of picnics in the verdant hills of Italy, but their real advantage is
that
nobody is sure what they are and hence they can be used to push your
favorite
diet recommendations.

What follows is a version of my blog
post. At the time, I
had written  of Mediterranean diets that "...nobody is sure
what they are and
hence there are no long term trials of the type that makes low-fat
diets look
so bad, as in the Women's Health Initiative." Well, there is at least
one study
claiming that one or another version of the diet would prevent heart
disease.
The paper
[112]
"Primary
Prevention of Cardiovascular
Disease with a Mediterranean Diet" was the most widely accessed paper
at the
New England Journal of Medicine. The data are shown in
Figure
25-1
with a calculation of the effect.

Figure
25-1
. Outcome data from the MEDIPREV trial
[112]
with approximate calculation of event frequency.

A sign of the continuing state of
poor
science in nutrition, the
paper shows little effect of a Mediterranean diet while claiming that
it will
prevent heart attacks. In fact, it is not clear from the paper what
people
really ate beyond adding nuts or EVOO (whose meaning is left as a
puzzle for
the reader).

As described on one of the
Greek
food sites
"anyone visiting Greece would
wonder exactly what is meant by the Mediterranean diet, for while those
of us
outside the Med have been eating more whole grains, extra virgin olive
oil and
fresh vegetables.... as the Greeks become more affluent they eat more
meat." I
haven't been in Greece for many years but I remember quite a bit of
meat even
twenty years ago. Of course, affluence is a sometime thing in Greece as
elsewhere but I'll offer my own view of Mediterranean eating.

Tournedos Rossini

Start with Giochinno
Rossini.  It
is generally known that
his life as a composer included significant time for food. He retired
in his
forties and devoted the rest of his life to cooking and eating.
(William Tell
was his last opera). Rossini said that he had only cried twice as an
adult. The
first time was when he heard Paganini play the violin and the second,
when a
truffled turkey fell in the water at a boating party.

Giachino
Rossini, photo by Carjat, 1865. Tournedos Rossini

Rossini's later life was spent more
or
less in seclusion so there
is some uncertainty about his gastronomic experiences. It is not even
clear
whether Tournedos Rossini was made by him or for him. In fact,
it is not
even clear where the name Tournedos comes from. Derived from
tourner en dos
,
turning
to the back, it may refer to the method of cooking or possibly that the
presenter had to turn his back during the preparation so as not to let
anyone
see the secret of the final sauce. The recipe, although simple
in outline,
has expensive ingredients and the final sauce will determine the
quality of the
chef. It simply involves frying a steak and then putting a slab of pate
de foie
gras with truffles on top and adding the sauce, based on a
beef reduction.

1. Sauté
   the 4 center-cut filets mignons, chain muscle removed, 6 ounces in the
   2
   tablespoons (30 milliliters) clarified butter or vegetable oil on both
   sides
   until rare.
   
2. Remove
   excess fat with with paper towel and place on heated plates.
   
3. Place
   warm
   paté
   de foie gras
   slices
   on each tournedo.
   
4. Cover
   with
   Périgueux
   Sauce:
   
5. Bring
   1½ cups (375 milliliters) of
   demi-glace
   to slow simmer. Add 5 tablespoons (75 milliliters) of truffle essence
   and 2
   ounces (50 grams) of either chopped or sliced truffles. Off heat and
   cover with
   tight-fitting lid, allow truffles to infuse into the sauce for at least
   15
   minutes. (The sauce using truffles sliced into shapes rather than
   pieces is
   called
   Périgourdine
   ).
   
6. Finish
   with a little truffle butter.
   

Lardo di Colonnata

Not really a make-at-home item, this
traditional creation from
Tuscany captures the care in processing that makes Italian
food
famous.  The original curing method supposedly goes back to
the year 1000
and has been handed down from generation to generation.  The
lard, of
course, comes from pigs that have not undergone the genetic
transformation that
American pigs have.  In any case, you will need marble tubs
which you
should keep in the basement assuming that there are no caves in your
neighborhood.  You rub the tubs with garlic and then layer the
pork lard
and cover with brine, add sea salt and spices and herbs. You continue
with
additional layers until the tub is full and then cover with a wooden
lid.
Curing time is about 6 to 10 months.

Greek Barbecue

A sign of affluence, or at least an
interest in food, is the
availability of festive holiday foods all year.  The most
popular food for
Easter is whole lamb roasted on a spit.  The recipe is simple,
if not
convenient for the small family.

"You will need 1 whole lamb, skinned
and
gutted..." 
Seasoning can be simple salt and pepper or the lamb can be basted with
ladolemono
,
a mixture of
lemon juice, olive oil and oregano.