Sunday, September 23, 2007

el quinto pino


My dear friends at Tia Pol
have opened their second project, El Quinto Pino.
El Quinto Pino (the fifth pinetree) is catalan slang for
saying something is out in the boondocks, or so I hear---
not being the most linguistic of people.

It's no secret that I am a huge fan of this group
of restauranteurs and the food that comes out of
the Tia Pol kitchen. Alex Raij, the chef,and I became friends
one day when she asked me about my goat purveyor.
You can guess how that made me swoon.
Her and her husband/sous chef, Eder, were regulars at Lassi
and as soon
as I could tear myself away from the kitchen I gave
Tia a whirl and I've never turned back.

El Quinto Pino is as true a tapas joint as we have here
in NYC. No seats. Standing only. And it's giving Alex a chance to really
show how versitile she is. Over a meal last week at Next Door Nobu, she
told me how excited she was about the upcoming uni panini she was going
to start serving. I hear there is some Andalucian lemonade that is
out of this world.
Rock and Roll.

Photos of Pino to come.

El Quinto Pino
401 west 24th street
btwn 9th and 10th aves.

Tuesday, September 4, 2007

Goat


A few words about goat meat.

We go through a lot of goat meat at Lassi. It's always been a favorite
of mine and it's been great to work with it as much as we do.
It took us a long time to find a good purveyor. We looked in Bay Ridge,
Washington Heights, out in Jackson Heights and over on Essex Street.

We ended up at the Union Square Farmers Market--which for a New York
City chef is like forgetting to look in front of your face.
It was there we found Elly Hushaur, the owner of Patches of Star Dairy
in Nazareth, Pa.

Elly feeds her meat kids alfalfa, orchard grass and clover with
straight well water. The well water has natural minerals like shale,
calcium and magnesium phosphate.
They milk up to only 3 months and are ready at 60-70 lbs.
Sorry animal rights activists.

I'm on a little crusade to get more chefs to use goat.
One of our most popular dishes is a goat kabob. In India,
they make kabobs with ground meat. Kind of cool.
People love kabobs. They're like the Tom Hanks of the food world.
No matter who you are, you dig a good kabob.


Thought we'd share a little with you today.

Goat Kabobs

6" bamboo skewers--soaked in water

3 lbs ground goat
2 onions-finely chopped
3 tblsp grated ginger
3 tblsp garlic-finely chopped
2 tsp. chili
2 tblsp garam masala
2 tblsp cilantro-chopped
2 tblsp ground almonds
2 eggs
1/2 cup besan (chickpea flour)

Combine all ingredients and refrigerate
for at least 4 hours.

Form over skewers with wet hands.
Combine 3/4 cup yogurt with 4 tsp. canola oil
and brush over meat.
Cook 20-25 minutes until browned in 350 degree oven.
Garnish with onion rings and lemon wedges.