Two Dirty Spoons: July 2012

Monday, July 30, 2012

Tomato, Chard, and Gruyere Casserole recipe from Food & Wine August 2012 Issue

The hardest part is waiting 10 minutes for it to cool down.

Sunday, July 29, 2012

Recap of Battleku

Last night I had the pleasure of judging a cooking competition for Mealku at Gourmet Guild in Williamsburg. Mealku is a homemade meal cooperative that allows home cooks (with kitchens that meet Mealku's standards) to share extra portions of their food with other Mealku members. The way it works is that when a member makes too much say, Thai Fish Curry or Burratta Pizza with Pancetta and Cherry Tomatoes (what did you expect, Hamburger Helper? These are hardcore NYC Foodies) they alert Mealku who then picks up the food, packages it into individual portions, and posts the available food on their website. Currently Mealku is a complimentary service (they are still in beta mode), as in free food delivered to your door. Eventually they will require a membership starting at $10/month plus $7.75 for each order to cover the cost of delivery and packaging. A great deal if you ask me!

Gourmet Guild, located at 110 Broadway in Williamsburg (off of the J and M train), is a gourmet grocer that offers a curated selection of specialty items ranging from produce to eco-friendly cleaning products. I left with two ears of sweet corn, purple bell peppers (if only you could smell how fragrant these are), some Quinn's Vermont Maple and Sea Salt Microwaveable Popcorn (with popping bags free of toxins!), and some really stellar peach balsamic. I am not normally one to go for sweet vinegars, but the moment I sampled this stuff (made with white peaches, oh yes....), my mind's palate could already taste the pork chop and caramelized onions that it would accompany.

I recently signed up with Mealku at an information booth in Tribeca. I have yet to order a meal from them, but I certainly will the moment that a new meal is posted on their website!

Battleku, (the name of this cook-off) was comprised of five home cooks who passed a pre-screening. At 12:30p.m. each cook was presented with a unique box comprised of several mystery items that they must construct into a dish. There were some really tough ingredients out there such as beef jerky and jarred pear compote. Contestant Priya Malani was assigned the baffling task of working with parmesean popcorn, dark chocolate, jalapeno oil, and tomatoes. While off-beat, these were all high quality products available at Gourmet Guild. Below is a picture of my favorite dish: Indian vegetable croquettes made by Mukti Banerjee. Mukti specializes in Indian cooking and even teaches classes out of her Brooklyn home. I thought her dish really worked despite the mystery box consisting of very un-Indian ingredients such as beets and squash.