Contigo - Eating Al Fresco in February and Loving It

Strings of miniature bulbs are strung over long picnic tables all across the courtyard. A set of yard games are laid out past the tables, where kids who didn’t know each other 15 minutes ago are playing like old friends. The barn door to the bar is wide open and warm light glints off of shelves of exotic liquors and onto the gravel. We really don’t need the warmth, but a fire pit off to the edge of the courtyard springs to life as the sun sets.

This is what it’s like it to eat outdoors in February in Austin, at least at Contigo, over by the old airport. There is hardly any building at all – just an open space covered by a simple roof, and an open space that is not covered by anything. Somewhere, there is a kitchen nestled back in there, churning out amazingly nuanced dishes, but it’s pretty well hidden from view.

I don’t mean to get all whimsical on you guys. I know how you all hate that, but there’s really no other way to describe this place. The food by itself is fantastic, but it’s made even better by the idyllic simplicity and camaraderie of the surroundings.

Like many in the new crop of East Austin trend setters, everything here that can be made in-house is - bacon, bread, pate, sausage. But this is not so much comfort food reimagined, as it is comfort food rediscovered. The sausage in the pigs-in-a-blanket is what a lil’ smokey was meant to be; the dough surrounding them is chewy, freshly kneaded, wrapped and baked. Green beans are tempura fried and served with a kicking little Asian aioli. Pate is lush and accompanied by the single best preparation of eggplant I’ve ever had – sliced razor thin, tempura fried, drizzled with honey. More bread (or less pate) would be welcome – the proportion seemed a bit off – but it was all delicious. And that’s sort of the way Contigo rolls.

Big plates are a little more mixed than the small ones, with some really spectacular bright spots, and a few small misses. Our kids gravitated to the burgers, and while I appreciate that they were not fancied up and messed with in any fundamental way (predominate spicing was salt and pepper), the buns were a little sweet for our taste and the fries were well seasoned but a little floppy. You get the sense that the kitchen’s primary love is not churning out burgers. On the other end of the spectrum, the Pot Roast with spaetzle was absolutely luscious – unbelievably tender, with layers of flavor and winey broth that defined and rounded out the spaetzle beautifully. The mussels were also good, with a booming thai-inspired lime/coconut broth and julienned root veggies. Not a lot of variety on the desserts, but what they have are lovely – apple handpies with a little glass of spiced milk and dense, lovely buckwheat chocolate cake.

You leave this place feeling like you’ve done more than eat well – you leave Contigo feeling like you’ve lived well.

Grubbus Cooks: Apple Tart

So, by part three of my New Year's Eve posting marathon, you may be wondering - what's up with the year-end spree after just about disappearing this fall? And all this home cooking? Grubbus? Hello?

Grubbus has been a little light lately because, well, I'm writing a book. I'm still getting used to how that sounds. A few months back, I signed a publishing contract with an amazing little publisher out of Charlotte, The History Press, to write a book we're calling Austin Food: The Story of a Local Eating Revolution. Very excited about this. We're chugging along getting that all researched and written, and, as a result, Grubbus hasn't had quite the attention it had before. That's fixing to change in 2013, but for now, that's what's been keeping the posts infrequent.

So infrequent, that, round about this afternoon, I figured out I was a couple of posts short of where Grubbus needed to be, year-end-wise. And so, this. Three of my favorite recipes of 2012. Things that I've made for friends, food that's marked special occasions all year.

This recipe - the last one for tonight - is for a wickedly simple, absolutely beautiful apple tart.

Apple Tart

The Filling:
2 lbs apples (my favorite: half granny smith and half braeburns)
1 tablespoon lemon juice
3 tablespoons butter, melted plus 1 tablespoon butter cut into 1/2 inch chunks
3-4 tablespoons sugar (I like coarse sugar best here)

The Tart Dough
1 cup flour
6 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into 1/2 inch chunks

1/4 cup cold water

The Dough Part 1:
Work the butter into the flour with a pastry cutter or two knives. It just takes a few minutes - and you don't need to worry about consistency - some decent-sized pieces of butter will still be in place. You can also run this about 5 seconds in a food processor. Pour in the water, just a little at a time, and work the dough until it comes together in a ball. Get it good and stuck together, flatten it a little, wrap it in plastic wrap and let it rest in the refrigerator for at least an hour.

The Filling:
Peel and core the apples, and cut into thin slices - about 1/8 inch. If you happen to have a Mandoline - game on - it's perfect for this. Sprinkle the slices with the lemon juice and set aside while you roll out the dough.

The Dough Part 2:
Preheat the oven to 400.

Unwrap the dough and set out on a floured board. If it's really cold you may need to let it sit a bit. Roll it out from the center to the edges, adding flour as needed to keep it from sticking, until it's about 1/8 inch thick. This is a free form tart, and, just like the empanadas, I like to use a plate as a template to cut it into a circle - in this case I use a 10 1/2 inch dinner plate.

Assembly:
Put the rolled out crust on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Lay the apple slices on the tart dough in concentric overlapping rings, starting about an inch from the outside edge and working your way in. You should be able to fit 2 overlapping layers with a little space left in the middle. Overlapping is the key here: I try to cover about a third of the apple slice next in line for each slice within the ring, and layer the next ring about a third over the last one, with the slices facing the opposite direction. This all sounds harder than it is - just approximate the illustration, and you're golden.

To close up the crust, just pinch a little of the dough together every inch or so along the perimeter. This will lift up the dough to make a short wall around the apples. Brush the pinched-together outer edge with the butter. It's a lot of butter. Keep brushing. Drop the extra butter chunks over the apples, and start sprinkling sugar, with extra attention to heavy sprinkling on the crust.

Bake for about 40 minutes - you're looking for golden brown on the crust.

That's it. Wickedly simple. Absolutely beautiful.

Adapted from Alice Waters, The Art of Simple Food.

Grubbus Cooks: Chicken Empanadas

I should be clear about this right up front. These are really good empanadas, better than just about any you could score in town. Just about. Because the empanadas at Buenos Aires Cafe, full of delicious and some kind of black magic, beat the pants off any other entrant in the entire grand empanda universe.

Chicken Empanadas
12 empanadas - about 4 servings.

The Filling
1 split bone-in chicken breast (2 breasts, about 1.5 pounds)
1 tablespoon neutral oil (I like grapeseed)
1 medium-size onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1-2 teaspoons ground ancho chile (or good chili powder - I like Ancho Mama)
4-5 chipotles in adobo (I like San Marcos better than Goya - a 7oz can works well)
4 cups chicken broth
1 tomato, peeled and chopped
1 lime, juiced
1/3 lb. Cotija Cheese, grated (sharp cheddar works OK as well)

The Dough
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 cup masa (or masa harina - in Austin, the easiest to find is Maseca, in the 5lb bag)
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup butter, chopped into 1/2 inch cubes (lard works well here too)
1 egg yolk
3/4 cup water
1/2 cup milk

The Dough, Part 1
Whisk together the flour, masa, baking powder, and salt. Use a pastry cutter or two knives to cut in the butter, or just toss it all in the food processesor with the regular blade for about 5 seconds. Just like pie dough, the texture should be gritty, along the lines of super-coarse corn meal.

Whisk together the egg yolk and the water and add to the dough a little at a time, gently working the dough until it comes together into a ball - this may or may not take all of the water/egg mixture. This is a dry dough, and it'll be a little crumbly until you get it good and chilled.

Cut the dough ball into 12 sections, wrap each in plastic wrap, and throw them all into the fridge for at least 20 minutes. 20 minutes works, but best results for me were when it chilled for about an hour. While the dough is chilling...

The Filling, Part 1
Preheat the oven to 450

Season the chicken generously with salt and pepper. Heat a large pot (at least 6 quarts) over medium high heat. Add the oil and sear the chicken breast for a minute or so on each side. It should stick a little. This is good. We'll use all those bits that stick to the pot later. Remove the chicken to a plate to rest.

Add the onion to the pot and saute for about 5 minutes, until softened, then add the garlic and saute for a minute or so more. Add the broth and deglaze the pan with a wooden spoon.

Now, everything else goes in. Cumin, ancho, chiplotle, tomatoes. Crank up the heat. When it comes to a boil, add the chicken. At this point, you are dealing with some seriously spicy broth, at least by my standards. No worries. The chicken that comes out has only the mildest of kicks. Reduce the heat to low, maintaining a simmer, and cover. Let the chicken simmer for another 25 minutes. While the filling is simmering...

The Dough, Part 2
Take each little dough ball in turn and roll it out to about 9 x 9 inches on a floured board. If it's too hard to work the dough, warm it up just a bit in your hands. If it's too sticky, more flour. I use an 8 1/2 inch salad plate as a template, and cut around the edge to get the dough to an even circle. Hang on to the extra dough until you're through assembly.

The Filling, Part 2
Remove the chicken breasts from the broth, and into a good-sized bowl. Remove and discard the skin. Add about a cup of the broth. Using two forks, shred the chicken down to the bone. Toss the bone. Add the lime juice. If it still seems a bit dry, add more broth.

Assembly
Final stretch here. Take a dough-circle, add a good-size dollop of the filling, top with the cotija, brush the edges of the dough-circle with water and fold it over. Using your fingers first, fold the edge of the dough over, rolling the bottom layer over the top layer. Use a fork to crimp the edges together securely. If things start to fall apart a little at this stage, just patch it up with the extra dough left over from rolling it out.

Place the empanadas on a parchment-lined baking sheet (I use a little high-heat spray to make sure they come up easy, but that may just be paranoia - I think they'd be fine without it). Brush each empanada with milk, and bake for about 20 minutes, or until they're golden brown.

Serve with the lime wedges and salsa (don't laugh -  but I love the La Frontera Chipotle Salsa with this).

That's it. You can stuff these with anything, though I don't have a reliable source for black magic. You need to hit Buenos Aires Cafe for that.

Grubbus Cooks: Lemon Ricotta Pancakes

I love Saturday mornings. No one pays much attention to the clock, the kids stay in their pajamas all morning, and, sometimes, we get it together to get ingredients for something interesting for breakfast. If the smells coming from the kitchen are good enough, and we get a first round of coffee going early, no one complains much about eating a bit later than usual. Bliss.

This week – Lemon Ricotta Pancakes with Macerated Berries. I’ve tackled this a few times, with a few different variations, but consensus was that this particular combination worked the best.



Lemon Ricotta Pancakes
6-8 servings

· 2 cups ricotta (a 16oz container works well)
· 2 tablespoons plus 2 tablespoons sugar, divided
· 1 lemon zested and juiced
· 2 cups all-purpose flour
· 2 tablespoons baking powder
· 1/2 teaspoon salt
· 4 large eggs, separated
· 2 tablespoons butter (melted and cooled) plus about 2 tablespoons for cooking
· 1 1/2 cups whole milk

For macerated berries (optional)
· 2 cups raspberries
· 1/4 cup sugar

· 2 tablespoons lemon juice (about 1 lemon)

Bowl 1: Dry
Whisk or sift together flour, baking powder, and salt.

Bowl 2: Frothy
Beat the egg whites and 2 tbs of the sugar until soft peaks form.

Bowl 3: Wet
Whisk egg yolks, milk, 2 tbs of the sugar, 1 tbs lemon juice and the zest together. Gradually add the melted butter while continuing to whisk to work it in completely.

Bowl 4: Berries (Optional)
Combine berries, sugar, and lemon juice. Stir every few minutes as you work through the rest of the recipe.

Combine:

Pour Bowl 3: Wet into Bowl 1: Dry and stir gently until the flour mixture is combined Lumps are not a problem. There’s more stirring coming up.

Add a dollop from Bowl 2: Frothy and all of the ricotta and give it a few more gentle stirs to combine.

Add the remaining contents of Bowl 2: Frothy and fold it in to the batter. The egg whites should just barely disappear into the batter, which should be getting good and silky.

Cook:
At this point, you may be noticing that there are TWO tablespoons of baking powder and 4 egg whites in this stuff. And, yes, as a result, these are major league fluffy. Fluffy clouds of pancake. The trick is cooking them slow.

Preheat the largest decent skillet or griddle you have over medium-low heat. Add a pat of butter and drop the batter in – about 1/3 c. per pancake. Cooking time will vary, but you’re shooting for a minute and half on the first side, about a minute on the other. Adjust heat to accommodate. Stash finished pancakes in a warm oven as you work through batches.

Serve:
I like these with Bowl 4: Berries and a little powdered sugar. If you don't do the berries, these are also mighty tasty with maple syrup.

Unexpected Favorite: Elizabeth Street Cafe

I didn't want to love Elizabeth Street Cafe. I thought that it would be too corporate, too precisely choreographed, too highly designed to be really good. I was wrong. Elizabeth Street is a little slicker than most homegrown places, but it is nevertheless staffed with people who love what they do, a menu that is innovative and beautifully executed, and a space that takes your breath away.

First things first, Elizabeth Street is gorgeous. Every time you round a corner, the color and space and light leaps out at you - I'm not sure exactly where it transports you - colonial French Vietnam maybe? - but it definitely transports you somewhere beautiful. On nice days, the outside seats are particularly amazing, with plenty of shade and the ultra chic elegance of the restaurant against the backdrop of South First.

A caveat here: I've been to Elizabeth Street Cafe many times, but it's always been for breakfast. It's when the days are the most mild, when the quiet simplicity of the place is most pronounced. I am sure that the vibe is no less interesting, the food no less delicious if you were to go in the evening, but that'll have to be a follow up for me.

For breakfast, Elizabeth rocks. I've been through the full set of breakfast Bahn Mi - combinations of crispy pork belly and fried eggs with avocado and mint; ginger sausage and scrambled eggs; egg white and chili. The baguette these are each served on is crusty and airy with a perfect bite. The presentation is perfect. Even better is the ginger sausage with poached eggs, sticky rice and touches of thinly sliced radishes and cilantro. The richness of the egg yolk connects to the subtle sweetness of the rice and is brightened by the ginger and radishes.

The coffee is Stumptown, and while the espresso drinks aren't really at the level they could be (the milk is frothed to dish soap bubble consistency), coffee in both American and Vietnamese styles is quite good. Pastries are made next door, and are a mystifying combination of absolute bliss and curious short cuts. This is nowhere more apparent than with the almond croissant. A million buttery layers and a perfect crisp, but sliced through the middle and infused with a sort of almond-extract butter. Not the most elegant approach.

These are small weak spots, and they give just enough humanity to Elizabeth Street to make it's slickness seem organic, just enough to make the entire experience of breakfast there one of the loveliest in town.

Koffee Kup Keeps it Real

Through a series of fortunate events, my wife Tracy and I recently got a morning free together in San Antonio. Though the Koffee Kup may not be a typical spot for a romantic interlude, it was just about perfect for our little getaway.

The Koffee Kup is far off the beaten path, in West San Antonio, about a 15 minute drive from downtown. It's a quirky little greek-columned storefront sandwiched between nondescript stores, in a mildly dingy stretch of 1970s stripmalls.

That said, after years of upscale and self-conciously ironic comfort food in Austin, it was a little bit of a relief to step foot in an actual functioning greasy spoon. The place is tiny - a small patio out back and maybe 10 tables in front, with a shockingly tiny open kitchen, and the register off to the side. The linoleum floors, the wood-pattern veneer tables, the simple wooden chairs, all standard issue diner basics, a little worn around the edges, but clean and cheery.

The Kup pulls away from the everyday almost immediately. Warm, friendly, smiling waitresses bustle everywhere - like you've been a once-a-day regular for years even though it's the first time you step through the door.

We ended up taking a table out on the patio under brightly colored umbrellas in the slight breeze of the morning. Over sips of drinkable coffee, we settled on splitting a Cowboy Breakfast - eggs, biscuits, gravy, sausage - and waffles. It was an enormous amount of food. The sausage gravy was intensely fresh, peppery and lighter in texture and taste than the slop that passes for cream gravy most places. The biscuits, fresh out of the oven. The sausage had a nice bright flavor and easy crumble. The details across the board were impressive, from the frequent coffee refills to the perfect crisp of the waffle. Everything that the Koffee Kup made, they made very well. Low spots were the bits they didn't make themselves - the bacon wasn't particularly impressive and the syrup, as one would have expected, was the corn syrup goo that passes for maple most everywhere. Side note: seriously considering traveling with a flask of maple syrup to avoid this in the future.

It was a place that was extraordinary in it's ordinariness. There was no attempt to make anything not made a thousand other diners across the country, but every chance they had to make it well, the Koffee Kup delivered. Crowded, but without a wait, the Koffee Kup was full of happiness and pride - a place you can imagine had stood in that spot for generations (even though it just opened in 2009). Gems like this exist hidden in cities all over the country, I'm glad we managed to find this one.

Miles Above the Curve - Fork in the Road

Fork in the Road, or FitR, as they call themselves, approaches food in ways no other place in Lansing can touch. Locally grown produce, house-cured bacon, pasture-raised eggs, world-class coffee. These are details you just can't get anywhere else in these parts - at least not until you hit Ann Arbor or Grand Rapids.

The menu is small - mostly made up of comfort-food favorites, done up fancy and built by hand. They have tots, but they are not what you think they are. These are house-made, grated potato infused with sundried tomato, basil, garlic and a hickory smoked cheese - so while the presentation recalls tater tots, the taste is a million times bigger. The fried chicken is exceptionally tender, with interesting spikes of heat, tartness and sweetness from the drizzled sauces and honey. Grits are gorgeously textured and oozing with sharp cheese. The veggie tacos are a stunning balance of tartness from little sections of lime and tomatillo, earthiness from carmelized onion, substance from the fresh house-made flour tortillas, and creaminess from the queso fresco. This is a taco that would work anywhere - that would be a standout in Austin - to find it here is a happy moment indeed. Desserts (especially the pots de creme and the bread pudding) are great, and the coffee is on a different planet from the chains that dominate here. Serious eating opportunities.

Fried Berry Pie, Fried Chicken, Tater Tots, Bread Pudding

The menu also has a few duds - the chili is passable, but too sweet and bland; and the Ballin' Ass Tacos are a one-note drone compared to the orchestra of the veggie version - chorizo is very tough to get right, and in these tacos, it overwhelms everything around it, including the outstanding homemade tortillas.

The place itself is slowly transforming from a neglected storefront to an urban garden oasis, with a fantastic mural splayed across the wall, and tomato plants and herbs growing in every sqaure inch of available dirt. The interior is straight up diner - not modern diner, not fancy diner - just diner, but it's cozy and clean and a perfect backdrop for the surprising sophistication of the food.

Being this far above the local curve has it's pitfalls - it's easy to let things slide a bit when no one is a close second. A year into its life, FitR is not immune to occasionally dialing it in. I've visited when the pork shoulder was too dry, the grits a little underspiced, but I've never been in when it has been anything less than the most food-centric, sustainable, ambitious, creative cuisine for miles and miles in any direction.

Grilled Nectarine (with Pots de Creme), Trout, Tomato and Mural, Grits, More Tomato, Veggie Taco