Last weekend, two of my dearest friends got married. And because I love them very much and don't think before I speak, I offered to make ice cream for their reception. For 110 people. Should you too decide to share your love of homemade ice cream with 100 of your closest friends, it's not too hard once you plan out all the steps. To help you on along the way, here are some tips on making ice cream for a crowd. More
A lot of the pastry love at Artopolis goes to their phyllo pastries, and justly so, but give this unassuming semolina cake a try. It's an undercover winner. More
Non-falafel options at falafel joints often disappoint, but that's not the case at The Falafel Shop. More
A Serious Eats reader from Australia emailed me recently with a deceptively simple question: I'm visiting New York soon to gather research for a sandwich shop I want to start back home. Where should I visit in the city? If you were leading an introductory sandwich tour of New York, where would you go? More
The flavors of this ham and mozz sandwich are subtle but well balanced, with plenty of gooey-cheese chew, and for $6.50 it's a more than respectable value. More
Chef Shai Zvibak soaks his dried chickpeas overnight, rinses them, then simmers them with baking soda "to accelerate the cooking" for five or six hours. He purées them with tahini—no olive oil—and some spices he brings over from Israel. He tops the finished hummus with warm spiced chickpeas, starchy fava beans, or spiced ground beef. Then he does it again two hours later.
His Local 92 is an East Village hummus bar with aspirations beyond a hummus bar. There's a wine and cocktail list, appetizers, entrées of schnitzel and meatballs and fish. The roomy, casually pretty interior is a far cry from most of the city's cramped hummus and falafel shops, including Zvibak's own attractive but slender Hummus Shop on the Lower East Side. But it's the hummus, indeed made every two hours so it's always fresh, that keeps me coming back.
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Some day, perhaps, we'll have a standout kouign amann in every New York neighborhood. But for now I'm grateful for what we have: Dominique Ansel's, of course, and Bouchon Bakery's uptown, and also Macaron Parlour's, which sports a sweet glaze-like crust with notes of honey and caramel. More
David Manheim has dreams of his own talk show some day, but for now he's Katz's sole Jewish waiter. To share his grievances of working there he made this video—part audition tape, part Yiddishe jeremiad—about a day in the life of a server at the 125-year-old deli. More
Brisket, cheese, and chilies are an easy recipe for success, and an excessive one at that, but it's the balance and incredible depth in this sandwich that keeps you coming back for more. More
The falafel ($5.75) at The Falafel Shop may be petite, but it's far from delicate. More
I became obsessed with combining peanut butter and bananas. Enter the banana peanut butter ice cream sandwich: banana ice cream smooshed between soft but rich peanut butter and oat cookies. More
For Sung Park, the chef and owner of Bistro Petit in Williamsburg, it was a foie gras torchon. That's what opened his eyes to the world of French fine dining, and the dish that set him on a mission to do that kind of cooking himself. More
Some of the sweets at Bosie Tea Parlor are more evocative of fine dining restaurant than neighborhood tea shop. Case in point: this chocolate-orange-chai brownie cake, which you'll want to taste slowly to appreciate all the layers. More
"We're not trying to be a typical Greek taverna," Michael Psilakis says, which is why his newly opened MP Taverna is so unlike its Astoria neighbors. "I still think it's Greek, but my mother didn't cook anything like this." On the menu: octopus with yogurt and chickpeas, mussels with feta and Greek sausage, and more. More
For $5.25 you get a generous portion of chopped roast meat over rice, tender with creamy fat and a hint of caramelization around the edges. More
Classic Coffee Shop isn't a place to go out of your way for, but it's a standout example of a dying breed of neighborhood luncheonettes worth preserving for its tuna melt alone. (The egg cream's pretty great too.) More
It's an easy assumption, and one we're often told by food writers and ice cream makers: if you want the best ice cream, you have to make it with the best dairy. But what about for the home cook? Does fancy cream and milk make noticeably better ice cream? And is it worth the cost? I put it to the test to find out. More
"Could I get a potato and egg sandwich on lard bread?" I asked. "No!" the more surly of the counter people respond. "You see the size of that loaf? That's two potato and eggs. More
What's better than making slushies at home? Making boozy slushies at home—here some tips and tricks to get them right. More
Firmly priced in the everyday—and gutbusting—chicken parm camp, Grand Appetito's foot-long sandwich is a more than decent option for Little Italy. More
Use "home cooking" to describe a restaurant's menu and you give it a kind of death sentence. The comfort food is familiar and well meaning—and ever so slightly boring.
That's a shame, because we all know at least one home cook who isn't like that at all—whose cooking is raw and unafraid, maybe a little off-kilter and all the better for it, who uses a few too many lumps of butter or extra licks of salt. What they lack in cheffy respect for balance they make up for in pure conviction, and you always hope they invite you over for dinner.
At Lao Cheng Du, chef Big Sister Zhu is that cook. And her fiery take on Sichuan cuisine is on the menu.
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Take a bite without knowing and you might guess it's lamb shoulder, subtly gamey and deeply tender with soft striations of fat. But there's a darker, more mineral quality to the meat, a funk that, come your second bite, you realize could only come from tongue. This is one of the more approachable applications of the muscle out there. More
The LoDown has a nice piece profiling six Lower East Side diners and their owners, some of which have been in business for over three decades. More
This sorbet is the next-easiest thing to eating straight-up fruit: puréed mango, sugar, lime juice, and salt. There's some water to get the blender going, but otherwise nothing standing in the way between you and the mango. The result is an impressively creamy sorbet with an elasticity verging on ice cream. More
@jessjess It varies by location. In New York, United City is the only company I know of that sells dry ice. But I just walked in and bought it—easiest part of the process.
I didn't have to scoop at the wedding—the caterers took care of it after I made sure they were familiar with scooping ice cream from dry ice. The ice cream was served with the cake so we didn't incur any additional dishware costs.
@dm83737 Fixed!
@Chris Oh man, good catch. Added it in.
Mea cupla on Cafe Ollin! We are indeed fans (http://newyork.seriouseats.com/2012/08/cafe-ollin-cemita-mexican-sandwich-taqueria-review.html). A thoughtless omission, not a tactical one. Adding it as we speak.
Uh, I live in Astoria and went to school in Chicago. Is there some Columbia Greek sweets tradition I'm not aware of?
@gargupie I don't think I could say, as I haven't tasted their hummus with direct comparison in mind. But I'm glad we're living in such a hummus-rich town.
@Becka K-S Ha, oh dear. Yeah, don't sweat!
@bpym27 Good clarification--it does get topped with olive oil, but the chef says there's none in the hummus itself. Yotam Ottolenghi's recipe in Jerusalem works much the same way.
@NYC Food Guy Amen sir.
EZ, I'm gonna miss you something fierce. Thank you for the years of kindness, brilliance, and generosity.
Fixed, thanks!
@jkaww I see what you're saying, but in the grand scheme of things it's not always crazy expensive. You can get two massive legs of duck confit with toast and eggs for under $20, or three very satisfying sliders for $10. This sandwich is definitely pricey for a sandwich, but as a meal it's easily shared with an order of mac and cheese pancakes on the side.
@Anna Do it!
It is? It's cheaper than Taim's (yes, smaller, but not that much), and on par with most of the falafel prices we've seen. Sure, you can get cheaper at Mamoun's, but this is way better.
@MMParkerL Yes, agave would work, though it'll impact the flavor somewhat. Honey would be too overwhelming a flavor for this application.
The menu doesn't specify "house-dried" or anything like that. But it's definitely dried; I just wanted to clarify that it still came from the kitchen, not a tub.
@scalfin Evaporated milk certainly has the benefit of a higher protein content, which makes for a smoother ice cream, but this test doesn't address the flavor of canned dairy, which is somewhat more distinctive than the difference between factory farm and premium dairy, one way or another.
@jedd63 Battenkill milk is indeed awesome. Made some rice pudding with it last night and am glad I did.
@film_score @RobC It's also just one of many factors. There are ways to make ice cream creamier besides fat, but for the home cook, yes, butterfat content is the easiest to manipulate. This butterfat calculator is a fun tool to play around with.
@kriklaf I don't know if you could. Everyone's preferences are different, and that would ignore other key factors like sugar, air, and serving temperature.
@800lb I think freshness definitely plays a role. And there's another important correlation to remember: people who care a lot about what their dairy goes into are probably working hard to make that product taste really good.
@Saria Almost all ice cream recipes these days are cooked custard bases. Plus all this milk and cream—premium and not—has been pasteurized, so it's already been cooked dramatically.
It's a shame "brisket porn" is probably a loaded term, because this is some beautiful brisket porn, James.
@Trucster Yes indeed. This review came out in 2010.
@hershekiss you can try making it like a granita: add base to a wide shallow pan, stick in freezer, and stir with a fork every half hour to break up the large ice crystals. Should take about 6 hours, and won't give you quite the same texture, but that's better than no slushy at all.
@paintchipgirl Try corn syrup! It gives the slush a better body with fewer ice crystals. And it's worth noting that corn syrup you buy in the store isn't the HCFS in manufacturered food. Besides being an invert sugar that resists crystallization it's no different from cane sugar. But if you can't do corn syrup at all, yes, a simple syrup will work.
@bebo The slices are decidedly not bad. Not great, but alright, and better than dollar pizza. I think they do a good job with the buffalo chicken slice.
Rocket Joe's on the Lower East Side has a very substantial meatball parm. It's much better than the pizza.
You can substitute frozen mango purée for fresh, though if it has sugar added you'll need to adjust the sugar you add accordingly.
@PeteNJ I haven't been very happy with the Mei Li Wah bao I've tried recently. The char siu bao were more fat than meat, and mushy in an unpleasant way. Longtime Mei Li Wah fan Robyn thinks they might be going downhill. But perhaps those other bao have been more successful?
@PNutOH Not interactive (we're working on that, actually), but you can at least download the map as a printout.
If you're in town this coming Sunday, check out the Burmese Food Fair in Jackson Heights. All home cooks doing great food, and a really fun community event.
I also tell visitors to hit up Staten Island for some amazing Sri Lankan food (a guide here). The trip on the ferry is lovely, with a beautiful view of downtown, and the restaurants are worth the ferry ride. New Asha is probably my favorite.
This is a question I've been looking into, though I've only been able to visit dedicated hot pot restaurants thus far. Mister Hot Pot in Sunset Park is probably my favorite, in large part thanks to their super milky white broth. The Little Sheep in Flushing is good, as is the all you can eat for 2 hours $23/head hot pot at Hou Yi.
@simon Fixed! I guess a lobster newburger will have to wait for another day. And then we'll let burger purists have their fun.
Last year's Lucky Rice Asian food festival was a weeklong hit of delicious food events, and this year's looks like it'll be even better. Today we're giving away two tickets to the largest event of the festival. More
In the past we've hacked together our own banh mi, stuffing them with the likes of soft shell crab and local tofu. This is that same ethic on a grander scale: a true New York banh mi mashup with fillings from fish balls to falafel to pastrami. The result: 19 banh mi this city can be proud of. More
Step into Serious Eats and get ready to forget everything you know—or thought you knew—about what should and shouldn't go in the refrigerator. Ed's number one rule? Never, ever refrigerate fresh mozzarella. It ruins the texture. My question this week: can anything be done to rescue it? More
I saw a tree-shaped cake pan at the grocery store and, naturally, thought it'd be pretty cool for baking bread. Then I figured I could make a pull-apart loaf into a free-form tree shape instead. More
I couldn't help but think of the stereotypical fiery Latin temperament when I was making this recipe. Arroz con leche (riz au lait or rice pudding), is such a languid, drowsy, gentle thing, so tender it's even suitable for those with smooth gums and weak constitutions, and yet, it is among the most well-liked and frequently made desserts throughout Latin America. Maybe we're all bark and no bite. More
It continues to baffle me how little attention is given to spices today. Maybe it's because we're told to eat local (they rarely are) or organic (they're usually not). Spices seem to still have a reputation of being slapdash cover-ups for mediocre chicken—and far too often they are—but they don't have to be. Yes, spice hunting requires a little time, effort, and money (though less than you think), but once you start using fresh spices in you're cooking, you may just find yourself addicted. More
Just reading through the thread re: Anthony Bourdain. And saw some vegan and vegetarian SE's saying how good the "mock/faux" meats are, even in one case saying how they are better than the real thing. What about you folks... is... More
Recently I've been digging Lao Shan greens like this one. It's super-creamy and fragrant, a nice changeup from more harsh grassy greens.