NEW YORK
New York, you beautiful, crazy, challenging, magical city, you were good to me - and to NOON!
Being in New York, never feels normal! The city is vibrating, your body and mind are vibrating, and everything and everyone around you is moving, constantly. It feels like being on the edge of a cliff, where you can see more beauty, more life, where you can feel more alive, than in any safer spot. A week is packed with enough adventures and inspiration to fill a whole year. When you leave New York, you’re filled up with life, but at the same time, you feel like you need to sleep for days to return to your normal rhythm.
I’ve now returned to Berlin, the ground underneath my feed still a bit wobbly, my mind still a little overwhelmed, but what a trip! The launch of NOON in New York City, celebrated with a conversation with Hetty Lui McKinnon at Rizzoli Bookstore on Broadway, was the first stop of my book tour. I was nervous before I went on stage, it had been four years since I last spoke about my book (365 in 2019). I wasn’t sure if I had gotten rusty, if I’d feel shy about this book that is very personal and means so much to me. NOON was born at a difficult time in my life, a time of loss and change. And although this is not what this book is about, would I be able to talk about it? As this is what made me re-discover this time of the day.
There was no reason to worry, Hetty - and everyone else who came to Rizzoli to listen and celebrate with us - made me feel safe and comfortable. And the response I received was proof that we can share our struggles, how they challenge us and make us grow, how they can even inspire us. And by doing so, by sharing this very personal yet at the same time universal experience that we all face at some points in our lives, we can spread a feeling of encouragement, a feeling of trust in regaining safety and comfort. The path of getting there is never easy, but the people around us, our friends, but also strangers, and also our cooking and food, can make it so much easier.
Through noon - and through NOON - I found new rituals and recipes, and discovered a form of empowerment that goes beyond just enjoying - and sharing - recipes. Noon and NOON taught me to take better care of myself, to allow myself to focus on my own needs, at least once a day. Midday, when I sit down for lunch. Sharing this experience echos and resonates with the sentiment of so many people who I’ve met and talked to. Sharing recipes that can help make it easier to find a new rhythm, a rhythm which allows a healthier form of self care, is a truly beautiful and powerful side of this book, which I only really discovered now since the book is out.
Changing your routine can have such a powerful impact. And maybe, in the end, it doesn’t matter if this change happened by choice or was forced upon us, in the end, it’s just about our decision, what we choose to do with that change. It’s quite a stunning realization that our transformation and the direction it will take are still, despite all outer odds and struggles, in our own hands.
While I was in New York, I also got to sign copies of the book, which are now available at these bookstores in Manhattan and Brooklyn:
Kinokuniya, 6th Avenue
Barnes & Noble, Union Square
The next stops of my NOON book tour will be Berlin (by invitation only, as it would become too big an event otherwise) and London on October 5th:
You can join me in conversation with Helen Goh about women in food, hosted by Hanna Geller at Building Feasts in a beautiful (secret) location (you will get the address when you buy the ticket - feels like clubbing in the 90s…), with Lallier Champagne and snacks from NOON! GET YOUR TICKET HERE and I’ll see you in London!
Today, I’m sharing a recipe with you from NOON, which couldn’t fit any better to New York. It’s a sandwich, nourishing and simple, yet at the same time just as much fun as New York is: Take a thick slice of (sourdough) bread, generously spread hummus on top, and finish it off with a pile of squeezed (uncooked) sauerkraut. To save time, you can use store-bought hummus, but I find it tastes so much better with my homemade spiced hummus from the book (recipe below).
Before I’ll let you indulge in your sandwich, I’m sharing some of the places with you that I enjoyed this time in New York, while running around, signing books, meeting people, and being mesmerized by this magical city:
Fabrique Bakery (cardamom bun)
Getrude’s Brooklyn (burger & fries)
SEY Coffee Brooklyn
Radio Bakery (basically everything)
Jack’s Wife Freda (Noam’s Malva Pudding)
Da Andrea (homemade pasta, get a table outside!)
Finn’s Bagels
Roberta’s Brooklyn (pizza)
ilili (for our post-book launch dinner with friends)
I want to thank Hetty, for being an amazing, supportive friend and interview partner. If you don’t have her latest book yet, TENDERHEART, go grab a copy! And Holly La Due, my editor since book no.1, and friend since we first met, thank you for shaping NOON together with me, and for always making me feel home in New York. Thank you for your support, Lauren Salkeld, John, Michael, Kavita, Eric, Sara, Odette, Lukas, Laura, Judy, Rona, and everyone else who came to celebrate with us!
The pictures of the book launch at Rizzoli bookstore were taken by my friend Daniela who came all the way from Costa Rica just to celebrate NOON - and us. We’ve been friends for 30 years, we studied architecture together, and we met the last time 10 years ago, in Berlin. During our university years, we used to enjoy long nights with lots of good food and wine; not knowing where life would take us; not knowing that one day, thanks to a cookbook, we’d sit together at a restaurant in Chelsea, chatting for hours, embracing New York, our lives, and our friendship.
So, I’m picking up on the dedication I wrote in NOON: To friendship!
Sauerkraut and Hummus on Sourdough Bread
from NOON: Simple Recipes for Scrumptious Midday Meals & More, Chronicle Books
You can use leftover hummus for other recipes, such as Roasted Eggplant and Hummus on Dark Bread with an Herb-Fried Egg (which you can also find in NOON).
Makes 1 large sandwich
FOR THE HUMMUS
1¼ cups (250 g) drained and rinsed canned chickpeas
2⁄3 cup (150 g) light tahini
1⁄3 cup (75 ml) water
¼ cup (60 ml) freshly squeezed lemon juice
1 large clove garlic, crushed
2 whole cloves, finely crushed with a mortar and pestle
¾ teaspoon ground cinnamon
½ teaspoon fine sea salt
¼ teaspoon ground cumin
FOR THE SANDWICH
1 large slice thickly cut spelt or rye bread, ideally sourdough
2 to 3 tablespoons drained jarred or canned sauerkraut
For the hummus, purée the chickpeas, tahini, water, lemon juice, garlic, cloves, cinnamon, salt, and cumin in a food processor or blender until smooth. Season to taste with additional salt and transfer to a small bowl.
For the sandwich, generously spread 2 to 3 tablespoons of the hummus on the bread, pile the sauerkraut on top, and enjoy!
NOON is OUT (and on Broadway)!
I just arrived in New York, happy and overwhelmed, on the publication day of this book that means so much to me.
Noon (and NOON) is a gift to yourself, shape that time of the day so that it fits to your own cravings. Make it yours! Use this 1 hour, or these 30 minutes, to make yourself feel good. We plan so much in our lives, every day, we just refuse to often do so when it comes to our own, our very personal needs. And we all need a break but we associate the creation of that break with even more work. So the solution is to find ways (recipes) to reduce that work and time for the preparation of our lunch so that we actually have more time for ourselves when we finally sit down; time to relax and enjoy. I hope NOON can offer you these recipes, but even more, I hope it offers you inspiration to make noon yours.
If you don’t have your copy yet, you can find all the links to order it online here, or support local and buy, or order the book from any bookstore all over world. The chapters in NOON cover Salads, Vegetables, Soups, Sandwiches, Pasta, Seafood, Meat, and Grains & Bakes - so your midday break will definitely be sorted!
Good noon! Meike xxx
The picture of me on Broadway was taken today - right after I had landed in New York - in front of Rizzoli Bookstore where I‘ll be in conversation with Hetty Lui McKinnon on Thursday, September 7th at 6pm - come join us! (For more information, click here)
If you won’t be in New York this week, but if you happen to be in London on October 5th, you can join my conversation with Helen Goh at Building Feasts, hosted by Hanna Geller, with Lallier Champagne and snacks from NOON! (For more information, click here)
Meet In Your Kitchen | Deb Perelman - Smitten Kitchen's Berry Ricotta Galette
Last week I went to New York and I had three wishes on my mind:
1. I wanted to win the James Beard Award (I had strong doubts that that would happen).
2. I wanted to eat oysters at The John Dory.
3. I was hoping that Deb Perelman would open the doors to her famous Smitten Kitchen for a Meet In Your Kitchen feature.
And what can I say, I was a lucky girl. I won the award, I had a fantastic pre-award oyster treat just for myself (if you like oysters, book a table at April's restaurant next time you visit NYC!) - and I met and baked together with Deb!
Smitten Kitchen was the only blog I knew about when I started Eat In My Kitchen in November 2013. I discovered many more in the past three years, but not many managed to keep my attention with such persistence as Deb's. She knows how to entertain, impress, and inspire me with calm ease. Her love for food jumps out of all of her recipes, out of every picture she takes and every line she writes. She's a perfectionist, but she knows how to hide it. She's a charmer.
Deb's blog is a staple in the blog world. She started in 2003 writing about her life in general and focussing on recipes since 2006. When you ask yourself how a single person can build up such a successful food platform on her own and keep it running like a smooth motor, you just have to meet her and you'll know why. Deb is full of life and energy, at the same time down to earth and humble. She's not interested in the blunt surface, in superficial attention, she wants to explore a recipe in depth and present it in all its glory. And here lies her secret: all her recipes make sense, from a cook (or baker) and an eater's point of you. She calls herself a fussy eater, picky like her children, she doesn't mind baking the same cake 14 times until it's just right. This leads to a habit of excessive note taking whenever she's at the cooker. To learn, to improve, and to develop the right formula that she and her readers can totally trust. This trust is what a food blog is built on. Mrs. Perelman takes this task quite easily as she loves what she does, she only cooks the food that she craves herself and that she's curious about. She's like a passionate scientist, working late at night, while everyone else is already in bed, and she's still there, solving culinary problems.
Her journey into and in the kitchen was influenced by her work at a bakery as a teenage girl, by her family with roots in Germany and Russia, Jewish baking, and American cooking. Her mother's cookbook by Julia Child added some French extravagance to the palate and sparked her interest. When you read Deb's blog, you can see that she has a weak spot for comfort food. She might be a fussy eater but she's not into fussy cooking.
After hundreds of recipes developed by herself and shared online, it was time, in 2012, to turn this treasure into a physical publication. When Deb's first cookbook - The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook: Recipes and Wisdom from an Obsessive Home Cook - entered the book shops, it happened anything but quietly. It was a success that screamed for a follow up book. A second child (the cutest baby girl!) and obsessive recipe tasting caused a few delays in the schedule, however, Deb's confident that it's going to happen this year. Her new book will come out soon, including more global influences than in the predecessor's recipes. It's a collection that represents how we cook and eat today. Different cultures from all over the world inspired Deb to experiment with ingredients that are relatively new to our kitchens. The frame, however, is Deb, her style, and her love for American comfort cooking.
We baked the most wonderful berry ricotta galette together, it tasted divine, and the fact that Deb baked it for me made it taste even better.
Berry Ricotta Galette
Recipe by Deb Perelman / Smitten Kitchen
Deb also made a couple small galettes (as you can see in the picture above), but if you aim for the star-shape it's easier to make one large galette. The smaller ones opened in the oven.
Leakage is almost inevitable when making galettes but you shouldn’t sweat it because I’m convinced that it’s more distressing for the baker (who knows exactly how much jammy deliciousness has been lost) than anyone eating a wedge (it will taste like nothing is missing at all).
Here’s the PDF template I made to help you form a star shape, if desired. As should be abundantly evident, I’m no graphic designer, but it will hopefully give you a start.
Makes one 7.5 to 8-inch (19-20cm) galette
For the pastry
1 1/4 cups (160 grams) all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon table salt
1 1/2 teaspoons granulated sugar
Zest of half a lemon
8 tablespoons (4 ounces or 113 grams) cold unsalted butter, cut into pieces
1/4 cup (60g) ricotta, yogurt or sour cream
3 to 4 tablespoons cold water
For the filling
2 cups raspberries, blackberries, and blueberries
3 to 4 tablespoons granulated sugar (use the lower amount if your fruit is especially sweet)
2 tablespoons cornstarch
Juice of half a lemon
Pinch of salt
For the glaze
1 egg yolk beaten with 1 teaspoon water
1 heaped teaspoon turbinado or coarse sugar for sprinkling
For the dough, whisk the flour, salt, sugar and zest together in the bottom of a large bowl. Work the butter into the flour with your fingertips or a pastry blender until mixture resembles a coarse meal and the largest bits of butter are the size of tiny peas. Stir ricotta and 3 tablespoons water together in a small dish and pour into butter-flour mixture. Stir together with a flexible spatula as best as you can, then use your hands to knead the mixture into a rough, craggy ball. Wrap in plastic and flatten into a disc. Chill in the fridge for 1 hour or up to 48 hours, or you can quick-firm this in the freezer for 15 minutes.
Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).
On a floured counter, roll the dough out into a large round-ish shape, about 14 to 15 inches (36-38cm) across. If you’d like to form your galette into a star, as shown, use the red dashed outline of the PDF template mentioned above. It will print smaller on an 8.5×11-inch (DIN A4) piece of paper than you need, but you can use it as a rough guide to cut as large of a pentagon shape as your dough will allow.
Transfer round or pentagon-shaped dough to a parchment-lined baking sheet; I like to fold my dough gently, without creasing, in quarters then unfold it onto the baking pan. If you’re making a star, cut a 1-inch (2.5cm) notch in the center of each side, angling it toward the center, as shown in the blue dashed lines of the template.
Stir together all of the filling ingredients and spread them in the center of the dough, leaving a 2-inch (5cm) border. If you’re making a round galette, fold the border over the filling, pleating the edge to make it fit. If you’re making a star shape, fold each of the 5 corners into the center, along the green dotted lines of the template. Pinch the outer corners closed, to seal in the filling and the shape (see 6th and 10th picture).
Whisk egg yolk and water together and brush over exposed crust. Sprinkle with coarse sugar.
Bake for 30 minutes, or golden all over. Remove from the oven and let stand for 5 minutes, then slide the galette onto a serving plate. Cut into wedges and serve hot, warm or at room temperature, preferably with vanilla ice cream.
The ever-growing number of Smitten Kitchen's followers has now trusted you for over a decade. What's your secret?
I have no idea how I got so lucky with this. When I got started food blogging in 2006, there was no such thing as turning it into a career so it wasn't even in the remotest corner of my mind. All I wanted to do was create a collection of recipes I considered perfect so once I got a dish the way I liked it, I didn't have to reinvent the wheel every time I was hungry for it. I still feel exactly this way. Having an audience makes it way more fun, but I often wonder if I'd still be doing this in a vacuum because I will always want to cook new things and get them right.
You call yourself a perfectionist, do you feel the drive to perfection just in the kitchen or also in other fields of life? Does the perfect recipe really exist, when do you know you have to stop?
I think near-perfect recipes exist. I don't think every recipe is going to work with every set of ingredients, in every kitchen, at every altitude, at all times but I think when the recipe is very strong, it withstands these variations well. If I think a small thing will throw a recipe immeasurably off though, I won't publish it because I've found in 10+ years of comments that if something can go wrong with a recipe, it sooner than later will for someone.As you've seen my fridge and freezer (since cleaned, but only under duress), I think you know my perfectionism does not extend everywhere in my life. But I do want things the way I want them and I hear from my parents I have been this way from the beginning (sorry guys).
Which of your recipes do you love the most? Which one does your husband and two kids love the most?
We all love the Leite's Consummate Chocolate Chip Cookie, especially now that I've updated them in a way that I can make them more often (I like to stash them in the freezer, bake whenever we remember). And not to be too much of a tease but because this is something I've been working endlessly on for the last couple years, there's a grandma-style chicken noodle soup and a crumb cake in my next cookbook that everyone is nuts for. They never go to waste.
Where do you find inspiration for new recipes?
Oddly, never inside the kitchen. The kitchen is where I test out ideas and pay close attention to what happens, but it's not where new ideas come to me. They come to me when I'm on a train or in a car going somewhere far enough that my mind wanders off, or at a restaurant when I like the flavor intersection of ingredients and want to apply it to something else at home.
How do your family's roots in Germany and Russia influence your cooking and your personal culinary journey?
From my husband's Russian family (he was born there but doesn't remember it), an appreciate of garlic, pickles, sour cream, dill, wafer-y cakes, syrniki (cottage cheese pancakes), as well as the value of a freezer full of pelmeni, vareniki (filled dumplings), and at least one bottle of vodka. From my mom's German side, spaetzle, schnitzel, bretzel, Bienenstich (popular German cake), and every type of almond paste/marzipan confection you can dream up.
What do you enjoy about writing a cookbook and what do you hate about this project? Do you prefer working on your blog or on a book?
I love both for different reasons; the blog is my favorite place to be, to try out ideas, chat with people in the comments, field questions and more. The speed of output and feedback is faster, it lends itself well to cooking whims and streaks; it makes me very happy. Books are less balanced. You spend years (5 years, even!) working through recipes and ideas behind the scenes with an additional layer of design -- I don't know how your book experience was, but I seem to always go 20 rounds with the cover, 45 rounds with the title, 10 rounds with page layouts, and am making recipe swaps until the day I'm cut off, like being at a bar at 2am -- all to yield one (hopefully) wonderful thing that you hope people will want to take home and read and cook from but you have no idea and so, perhaps, the stress is also much greater. But so are the rewards (or is it relief?) should people be as excited about it as you were. I loved getting to book tour last time, and hope to do more this fall.
You have a large cookbook selection in your apartment, what makes a good cookbook in your eyes?
So many things. While I love, like anyone with eyes, looking at beautiful pictures, it's never made a just-okay cookbook a great one. What I love even more is feeling like I'm stepping into a story, a world, with recipes. I love a funny anecdote about how a recipe came to be or a small tidbit I wouldn't have known about a dish. I want the recipes to be airtight, even though I know how hard this is, but to me this is the baseline of a cookbook. And I'm always hoping to see something I hadn't seen before; to feel the creativity bursting from the page.
Do you enjoy being cooked for? On a special night, do you prefer to eat at home or dive into New York's vibrant food scene?
I love being cooked for! I love going out; we used to do it so freely before kids and I do miss it, it's just more complicated with noisy people with early bedtimes. I get so inspired going somewhere teeming with fresh ideas, and it makes me want to come home and cook immediately, so eating out fuels eating in.
Who is your biggest inspiration in the kitchen?
I've always enjoyed Julia Child's tenacity, Marion Cunningham's defense of home cooking against drudgery, and Gabrielle Hamilton's unapologetic embrace of her food vision.
When it comes to school events or a friend's party, do you get requests to bring a dish or are people shy to ask Deb from Smitten Kitchen to bring a birthday cake or sandwiches?
Absolutely not.
What was the first dish you cooked on your own, what is your first cooking memory?
Brownies, I think. Not very different from My Favorite Brownies on my site, but I'd forgotten to add the flour. They were a little burnt at the edges and very mushy in the middle and yes, we still ate them. They weren't even bad, but I never heard the end of it.
What are your favourite places to buy and enjoy food in New York?
Union Square Greenmarket for vegetables and fruit and everything; Murray's or Saxelby for cheese, Kalustyan's for spices and around-the-world ingredients, Buon Italia in Chelsea Market, mostly to load up on the Setaro pasta, Faicco's for spiral sausages for grilling weather, which are always a huge hit, can I go on and on? I could go on and on.
If you could choose one person to cook a meal for you, who and what would it be?
I think my kids should wake up early to make me pancakes this weekend for a change. (I am joking, of course. They are 1 and 7 and our apartment would be in ashes.)
You're going to have ten friends over for a spontaneous dinner, what will be on the table?
Spaghetti with clams or mussels and fries or assemble-your-own steak salads with a side of roasted potatoes.
Do you prefer to cook on your own or together with others?
Solo if I'm working on a new recipe or one I haven't ironed out yet, because I want to be able to pay attention and take notes and make tweaks. If I'm throwing together the above meal for 10 friends, they better be hanging out in the kitchen and drinking wine with me.
Which meals do you prefer, improvised or planned?
Improvised; I like the challenge.
Which meal would you never cook again?
Anything where I've ended up cooking things individually over a stove for many people; I have bad memories of making Fake Shack Burgers for 10 people (so much hamburger grease from head to toe when I was done) as well as an early brunch party where I made French toast for everyone as they trickled in.
Thank you Deb!
Ricotta Beetroot Doughnuts, New York and my 4th book launch
New York, November 2016:
The monotony of clouds and waves kept me in a daze while I crossed the Atlantic, but then, when I finally spotted Nova Scotia from high up in the skies, I was as excited as a little girl. Soon we'd land in New York JFK, to open the last two chapters of my overwhelming Eat In My Kitchen book tour. New York and Washington DC had been on my itinerary for months, but to know that I'd be there in just a few hours gave me shivers.
This trip was emotional, which I got used to after weeks of being on the road in London, Berlin, and Malta, my emotions seem to be tied to a rollercoaster. And now New York, this city filled with so many dreams and visions, vibrant, loud, and bright, it never rests. As I stumbled out of the subway, packed with all my bags and suitcases (I took a few pounds of Maltese sea salt with me), my view was drawn to the sky, along the shiny facades of the city's famous skyscrapers. Jet-lagged, happy, and with an espresso in my hands, I felt breathless as I stood on the vibrant streets of Greenwich Village.
Ten days on the East Coast allowed me to dive deep into this magical city, to meet and get to know so many people and to enjoy some of the most delicious treats. I hadn't seen my dear friend and editor Holly La Due in more than a year, and to step into her office on Broadway for the first time, to finally meet the entire team of Prestel Publishing that worked on my book, almost made me cry. And I ate - constantly! There was so much to discover, so much to try, it felt like traveling the world through food, but in one city. My palate enjoyed the most amazing Jamaican curry, Cuban stew and pies, Korean BBQ, Indian treats, and American classics. Breakfast was lush, every day: The richest Challah French toast, fluffy blueberry pancakes, huge muffins, crunchy cookies, fudgy brownies, perfect bagels, lobster roll, juicy burger, creamy clam chowder, and generously filled sandwiches.
New York is heaven on earth if you love food. The quality is outstanding, proven by the fact that I didn't experience a single bad meal, I can recommend almost every restaurant I went to as you can see in my list below. One of the treats that struck me on our last day was a gorgeous pink doughnut at Bryant Park Holiday Market filled with ricotta and covered in sticky beetroot glaze. This combination is so good that I decided to come up with my own recipe and share it with you. My version is a soft and spongy oven-baked yeast doughnut refined with orange zest and sprinkled with pistachios. Next time I'll fry them in oil, which adds that extra rich flavor plus calories.
There's no better way to explore a city than on foot, so as I ate my way through Manhattan and Brooklyn, I also got to walk on the elevated High Line, a 1.5 mile long city garden. It's an impressive green oasis along the closed tracks of the West Side Line.
I managed to see a live performance and also Nan Goldin's Ballad of Sexual Dependency at MoMA, and a fantastic show at The Met Breuer, by James Kerry Marshall called Mastry. And visiting Kenzi Wilbur at Food52's holy test kitchen in Chelsea (picture above) was another highlight.
I came to New York to present the Eat In My Kitchen book, at a wonderful book launch feast at Maman NYC and at a cozy book signing event at the beautiful - and so tempting - Whisk kitchenware shop on Broadway. It's my first book, and to have had these two unforgettable celebrations in New York makes me feel very humble. I can't thank everybody enough who's been involved in both of the events. Maman is a stunning space with high ceilings in TriBeCa, founded by Michelin starred French chef Armand Arnal, Elisa Marshall, and Benjamin Sormonte. They are the sweetest team and they did everything possible to turn our event into a very special night. Chef Hetty McKinnon from Arthur Street Kitchen, and author of the cookbook Neighbourhood, prepared the recipes from my book for this special event. She's a precious gem, as a chef and as a friend.
My trusted partner Meridiana Wine Estate shipped their glorious Maltese wine over the Atlantic just for our event - our American guests are already thinking about how they can get hold of this wine from Malta in the future. Marisa Dobson is the power woman who helped me so much, organizing all my events in the US, and she introduced me to Baked (see the list below). Photographer Maria Midões is the lovely woman who captured the magic of our night at Maman in her gorgeous pictures. I had a dream team in New York, accomplished by the support of my wonderful publisher Prestel. You can't create a book on your own, but you also can't send it out into the world on your own. Thank you, my friends!
Here are some of my favourite food spots:
Manhattan
Baked TriBeCa, American bakery (they bake Oprah Winfrey's favourite brownies)
Maman TriBeCa, coffee, bakery, and events
Tina's Cuban Cuisine
Luke's Lobster East Village (the best lobster and crab roll and clam chowder)
Clinton Street Baking (New York Magazine voted: the best blueberry pancakes)
ABC Kitchen (their spinach, chèvre, and dill pizza is a revelation)
Stick With Me (Susanna Yoon's finest confectionaries)
Black Seed Bagels (delicious tuna melt and salmon bagel!)
Pondicheri New York (acclaimed Indian restaurant)
Food market at Bryant Park, especially
The Doughnut Project
Salumeria Biellese Deli (the best sandwiches lusciously filled with Italian prosciutto and cheese)
Blue Bottle Coffee
Eileen's Special Cheesecake
Jongro BBQ (Korean BBQ, be prepared for loud! music)
Russ and Daughters
Compagnie des Vins Surnaturels
Hot Pot Under de Tree in Harlem (Jamaican Diner on Frederick Douglass Boulevard)
Williamsburg - Brooklyn:
Khao Sarn (delicious Thai soups and papaya salad)
The Rabbit Hole (cozy breakfast spot, try the challah french toast with strawberry mscarpone!)
Extra Fancy (American restaurant, seafood and burger)
Peter Luger Steakhouse (reservation needed!)
Vanessa's Dumpling House
Ricotta Beetroot Doughnuts
Makes about 16 doughnuts plus doughnut holes
For the dough
plain flour 325g / 2 1/2 cups, plus about 2 tablespoons if the dough is too sticky
fast-acting yeast 1 1/4 teaspoons
granulated sugar 50g / 1/4 cup
fine sea salt 1/2 teaspoon
orange zest 1/2 teaspoon
milk, lukewarm, 155ml / 2/3 cup
butter, melted and cooled, 20g / 1 1/2 tablespoons
vanilla bean, scraped, 1/2
organic egg 1
For the filling
fresh ricotta, whipped, 250g / 9 ounces
For the glaze
icing sugar 200g / 2 cups
beet juice 4-5 tablespoons
unsalted pistachios, chopped, a small handful
orange zest 1 tablespoon
For the dough, combine the flour, yeast, sugar, salt, and orange zest in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the dough hook. Whisk together the milk, butter, vanilla seeds, and egg - the mixture should be lukewarm - and add to the flour mixture. Knead on medium speed for a few minutes until well combined. The dough should be soft and moist, but not sticky. If it's too sticky, add a little more flour. Transfer the dough to a table or countertop and continue kneading and punching it down with your hands for about 4 minutes or until you have a smooth and elastic ball of dough. Place the dough back in a clean bowl, cover with a tea towel, and let rise in a warm place, or preferably in a 35°C / 100°F warm oven (conventional setting), for about 60 minutes or until almost doubled in size.
Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper.
When the dough has almost doubled in size, punch it down, take it out of the bowl, and knead for 1 minute. On a lightly floured countertop, using a rolling pin, roll out the dough until it's about 1cm / 1/2" thick. Using a 7 1/2cm / 3" round cookie cutter or glass, gently cut out circles and transfer them to the lined baking sheets. Using a 3 1/2cm / 1 1/2" cookie cutter or shot glass, stamp out the smaller inner circles and arrange them around the doughnuts on the baking sheet. If you use a smaller cookie cutter for the inner circles, the hole in the middle will close while baking. Cover with cling film and let rise in a warm place for about 25-30 minutes or until puffy.
Preheat the oven to 190°C / 365°F (conventional setting).
Bake the doughnuts and the doughnut holes for about 6-8 minutes or until light golden and still soft. If you're not sure, take out one doughnut and cut it in half to see if it's baked through. Transfer to a cooling rack and let cool completely. Cut the doughnuts in half and spread each bottom with about 1 heaping teaspoon of ricotta.
For the glaze, whisk the icing sugar and beetroot juice until smooth, the mixture should be quite thick. Using a teaspoon, sprinkle the glaze generously over each doughnut and doughnut hole. Immediately sprinkle with pistachios and a little orange zest.
