A Good Dish

making food simpler

It Is Getting Much Easier To Find A Great Grass-Fed Burger In New York And Beyond

Grass-fed burger from The Double Windsor
Plate by Adero Willard

Even though I try to eat clean, healthy food most of the time, sometimes I just crave a big, juicy burger. When I do eat meat, I want it to be from a grass-fed, well raised animal. It used to be almost impossible to find a good grass-fed burger in Manhattan but that is changing quickly. There were plenty of good tasting burgers, always have been. Now you can find great grass-fed in most neighborhoods, even in some chain restaurants (Bareburger and Umami Burger, for example).  

Grass-fed Umami Burger

There are many reasons to choose grass-fed, including your health and the health and welfare of the animal supplying your meals. Cows are ruminants, which means they are constituted to eat grass, not grains. The fat they produce eating grass is different (and healthier) as is the quality of their lives than when eating grain, which causes them a lot of gas. Even if you don’t care about animal welfare, you might care about global warming (think about all that additional methane from grain-fed animals) or your own longevity, in which case, you would be choosing better (read completely grass-fed beef and eat it less frequently. It is lower in calories since it is leaner and it provides more omega 3 fatty acids – the kind we want.

Grass-fed burger at Cleaver Counter (formerly The Green Table)

I’ve read that all the meat advertised as grass-fed may not be, so it is worth asking the restaurant or your server where you eat your burger where they get their beef. Organic, Wagyu and Angus don’t necessarily mean grass-fed and, in most cases, are not (organic refers to the quality of the feed, usually corn and Wagyu and Angus are types of cattle). Hopefully, disclosure in restaurants and markets will get more transparent as better grass-fed beef becomes more widely available. 

Grass-fed burger at Smorgas Chef

Okay – lecture over – now to the burgers. There are certainly many great grass-fed burgers I haven’t tried but these are the burgers I can recommend, including a few in other cities. Many of these places also serve a good bison or veggie burger and often serve delicious French or sweet potato fries or a  salad with the burger. I’ve found the best way to order (or cook) grass-fed meat is medium rare. If you overcook grass-fed beef, it tastes, well, too grassy.

Grass-fed burger from Community Food & Juice
Grass-fed burger in a collard green wrap at Bareburger

New York Burgers I Have Known and Loved:

  • Bareburger (multiple locations including Upper East and West Side and West Village)-Good tasting and if you aren’t eating bread, you can get this served in a collard leaf
  • Buttermilk Channel (Carroll Gardens)-tasty and juicy in a hopping neighborhood cafe
  • Cleaver Counter (Chelsea Market- used to be The Green Table)-now served not with kimchi but with bacon jam-yum
  • Community Juice and Wine (Morningside Heights)-with caramelized onions and cheddar
  • Cookshop (Chelsea near the High Line)
  • The Distillery (formerly the Brickyard Gastropub in Midtown West)-with sautéed onions and avocado (very reasonable price) and a very good veggie burger – great lunch specials
  • The Double Windsor (Windsor Terrace)-with cheddar and pickles in a neighborhood tavern with a great selection of draft beer, cider and whiskey
  • Ella Kitchen & Bar (Upper West Side)-big well-salted patty with sautéed mushrooms and mozzarella – open for lunch and dinner
  • The Meat Hook (Gowanus in Threes Brewing)-a kitchen outpost of a well-respected, conscientious  Brooklyn butcher shop in a bar with a big draft selection and a garden
  • Smorgas Chef (Midtown East in Scandinavia House)-a quiet respite south of Grand Central with a very good burger
  • Tessa (Upper West Side)
  • Umami Burger (all over) really tasty, especially with Parmesan fricco (a yummy fried cheese crisp) and mushrooms or salsa 
  • Upland (Park Avenue South)-with avocado and peppadew peppers in a big, bustling brasserie
Grass-fed burger at Ella Kitchen & Bar

Beyond New York:

  • Allen Street Hardware Cafe in Buffalo-plus an amazing bison burger
  • Busboys & Poets, DC (and good salads)
  • Toups South in New Orleans-everything delicious (sit at the counter to watch the cooks)
  • Village Whiskey, White Dog, Tired Hands (actually Ardmore) and Standard Tap in Philadelphia
  • BelCampo Restaurant in Larkspur (Marin County, CA) with restaurants in SF, Palo Alto, Santa Monica and LA – delicious burgers made from beef from their own farm/ranch
  • Farmburger, Asheville (amazing onion rings)
  • Sweet Pea Cafe, Mount Desert Island, ME
  • The Table in London’s Southwark (across from Tate Modern)
  • Row 34 in the Seaport District in Boston
Grass-fed burger at Village Whiskey in Philadelphia

Curried Cabbage With Cashews Might Just Be Your New Favorite Winter Vegetable Dish

Curried Cabbage with Cashews
Porcelain bowl by James Makins

One of the tastiest winter vegetable dishes I make is also one of the easiest. It is a simple sauté of a handful of nuts with spices and chopped cabbage but the total flavor is much richer than its individual components. This recipe makes a satisfying meal when served with rice (and, perhaps, a salad) or can be used as a supplemental side.

Cabbage is an inexpensive and nutritious winter vegetable that stores well for months in the refrigerator. It is one of the few local green vegetables we can depend on being available through the fall and winter. Cabbage is known historically for having saved sailors on ships from scurvy because of its high vitamin C content. It is also easy to prepare various ways: fresh in a salad, salted and made into sauerkraut or cooked by steaming, boiling, baking or sautéing. If you don’t overcook it into a sulfurous mushy mass (overcooking is what gives it a bad reputation), cabbage can be quite delicate, savory or tangy, varied by seasoning. When used raw in a salad, it can be sweet and crunchy, depending on the individual cabbage, of course. (When buying cabbage, search for a heavy, dense head with fresh looking, crisp outer leaves).

If you cut cabbage into quarters, you can easily slice it thinly

This curried cabbage recipe is from Yankee Magazine, a surprisingly good source of interesting, reliable recipes, alongside the small town stories, foliage reports and event listings. I tweaked it slightly, playing with the spices a little. If you want it spicier, add more mustard seeds and if you don’t like spicy, leave them out altogether. On the other hand, if you like your cabbage sweeter, add some raisins, currants or even dried cranberries toward the end of cooking. If you don’t like cashews, try almonds or walnuts. Whichever way you choose, this curried cabbage will be quick and tasty.

Curried cabbage with ginger, turmeric and cashews
Porcelain bowl by James Makins

Curried Cabbage with Cashews

  • 3 TBs olive oil (or 2 oil and 1 butter for flavor)
  • 1/2 cup raw, unsalted cashews
  • 3 TBs (or about 3″) raw ginger, minced
  • 1 heaping TBs cumin seeds
  • 1/2 tsp mustard seeds (optional)
  • 1 small (about 1 1/2 lbs) or 1/2 of a large cabbage, thinly sliced
  • 1 tsp ground turmeric or 1TBs freshly grated turmeric root
  • 1 tsp kosher or sea salt
  • 1 tsp freshly ground black pepper

Heat oil in a large skillet over medium heat.

Add cashews, ginger, cumin and mustard seeds.

Cook, stirring often, until cashews are golden and all smells fragrant, about 2-3 minutes.

Add cabbage and turmeric and cook, stirring often, until cabbage is just tender, about 8-10 minutes. 

Season with salt and pepper and top with fresh, chopped cilantro. 

Serves 4-6 and keeps up to 3 days in the fridge.

Thanks For a Terrific Year at A Good Dish! – The Top Recipes from 2018

Nine of your favorite 2018 recipes on A Good Dish

Happy New Year and thanks for all your supportive comments on A Good Dish in 2018. This post is a reminder of some of your favorite recipes of the past year. My goal in 2019 is to make the recipes more easily indexed on the blog so you can find them quickly. More recipes, handmade pots and source tips will be coming your way throughout the year. Please keep writing in with comments and suggestions – I look forward to continuing the conversation. Happy and healthy cooking in 2019!

 

Peach and feta salad with cilantro and arugula
Square plate by Mary Barringer
Summery St. Germain Cocktail
Porcelain cup by Andy Shaw
Lava bread with smashed avocado
Porcelain plate by Aysha Peltz
Botticelli Cocktail with lemon
Porcelain Tumbler by Silvie Granatelli
Miso soup with vegetables
Earthenware bowl by Lisa Orr
Purple Cabbage Salad with Umeboshi Dressing
Wood Fired Bowl by Perry Haas
Curried Salmon Salad
Porcelain Bowl by Claire Weissberg/Claireware
Wild Rice Salad with Dried Cherries
Earthenware Sheep Cup by Ayumi Horie
A slice of carrot cake is hard to resist
Square plate by Maishe Dickman

 

 

A Solstice Cocktail May Be Just What You Need On The Longest Night Of The Year

Averna and Cider make a great cold weather cocktail
Soda fired cup by Tom Jaszczak

The longest night of the year calls for celebration, gathering together, warming the gloom with lights and a toast to the cozy days ahead. Since alcohol may disrupt our sleep cycles, we don’t necessarily want a drink that is too boozy. A solstice cocktail needs to be tasty, warming, comforting but not too alcoholic. Hence, I can recommend the drink my brother-in-law served for Thanksgiving, the oddly named but delicious Fall Spritz. He found the recipe in Bon Appetit magazine and it was perfect for the occasion- took the edge off without getting anyone sloshy.

These two Amari may be similar but we definitely preferred the Averna

The recipe in Bon Appetit called for 1 part Averna to 4 parts Basque-style hard cider. Averna is a Sicilian amaro, a digestif made with herbs that you could sip on its own over ice but is often used to balance other liquors in a cocktail. It can substitute for vermouth in a Manhattan (known as a Black Manhattan), replace part of the vermouth or add depth to any whiskey, bourbon or rye drink. Our local liquor store doesn’t carry Averna but prefers Rammazotti, an amaro from Milano that is more bitter, a little thinner and costs less. We tried both and but I preferred the slightly sweeter Averna. There is a whole world of Amaro out there and I am enjoying learning about them. Aperol, Campari, Cynar and Fernet Branca are some of the most well known here  but Averna and Rammazotti are both quite popular in Italy. If you buy a bottle to try this drink and wonder how else to use it, there are lots of recipes online. Food and Wine published a piece on Averna cocktails last year which included a delicious sounding Averna and ginger beer, perhaps a good alternative if you don’t go for cider. I tried the recommended Basque cider but found I like a more standard hard cider (the Basque-style was a bit sour for my taste) which is more broadly available. Specifically, I used Harpoon Craft Cider but any brand that is not too sweet will work.

I found this Basque Cider at Whole Foods

We garnished our Solstice cocktail with a slice of orange but one of those delicious Amarena cherries I wrote about last week or a slice of lemon would also be tasty. It is an easy cocktail to mix (a pitcher can be mixed ahead and ice added by the glass), will warm a cold and dark night and toast the beginning of the beautiful winter season.

Happy Solstice!

Winter can be a blast! And certainly beautiful.

It’s The Season – Specialty Items And Seasonal Produce Are Available Now

Clementines are now in season
Bowl by Melissa Weiss

As those of you who have been reading this blog for a while know, I am a big advocate of eating seasonally. Not only does it make more sense in terms of avoiding excessive shipping and pesticides, supporting local farmers and adapting to temperature shifts by cooking with weather-appropriate vegetables, but it also makes foods which are only available at certain times of year seem more special and tied to seasonal celebrations.

These cherries are good in all kinds of drinks and on ice cream

Now that Thanksgiving is over, the holiday season is in full swing. It doesn’t matter what holiday you celebrate or if you celebrate any, the shorter, darker days of December need festivity. Perhaps the fact that so many holiday are grouped at certain times of year (harvest, spring and the start of winter) is because we need connections at these moments of transition. Whatever the reason, this is a great season for using specialty items – things that are either only available around the winter holidays or are in season now.

Pomegranates are one of my favorite seasonal fruits
Plate by Melissa Weiss

In New York, bags of domestic little orange clementines and big red pomegranates have begun to appear. Both are perfect for adding splashes of color and juicy bursts to otherwise drab winter salads and tabletops. Pomegranates can last up to two months refrigerated so I often try to stock up in December for after the holidays, when we also will need some vitamin C and rosy color. (This year I may even try freezing the arils). Ditto gorgeous orange Fuyu persimmons, although they don’t last as long, perhaps only a week or two. Persimmons are delicious eaten on their own, sliced or diced into salads or slow roasted in the oven. Domestic Meyer lemons are at their best right now through the winter and are fragrant and tasty. Leave a big bowl on your kitchen counter and use them to brighten vinaigrettes, sauces and cocktails.

Meyer lemons add vibrancy to all kinds of dishes and cocktails
Plate by Melissa Weiss

At my favorite local market from Thanksgiving through January, a giant bag of mixed in-shell nuts will tempt me to buy some every time I am there. A bowl of nuts with a cracker serves two purposes; one – fresh nuts are just that – fresh – much less likely to be rancid than packaged nuts which may have been sitting around a long time and two – having to crack nuts by hand slows down how fast you can eat them (they are both nutritionally and calorically dense). When you visit your local farmer’s market, now is the time to stock up on winter squashes like buttercup, butternut and kabocha, onions and garlic, all of which will last for a couple of months in a cool, dark place. Root vegetables, like carrots, parsnips, daikon and beets, will keep in a crisper drawer in your fridge for a month or two, especially if you leave them dirty. Don’t forget fresh thyme and rosemary, which you can hang in bunches to dry or use fresh to stuff inside poultry and fish or to chop and sprinkle over roasted cauliflower, carrots, parsnips or squash.

Fresh nuts just taste better!
These are at Mani Market on Columbus Avenue

Besides seasonal produce, there are specialty items which appear only around the holidays and which I try to remember to buy while they are available, both to use and to give as gifts. This year I discovered Amarena cherries – jars of real Italian cherries in syrup to use in place of those scary neon Marischinos we stopped buying long ago. These jarred cherries are delicious to use for a Shirley Temple, cherry milk or especially for a cocktail like a Manhattan, if you can resist eating them right from the jar. This is what I will stock up on and bring for house gifts this season. I’ve also seen tins and boxes of  spiced cookies, herbed crackers and flavored Marcona almonds around, canisters of peppermint or marshmallow hot chocolate mixes, scented fir, eucalyptus or gingerbread candles, truffles, filled chocolates and boxed or planted Amaryllis bulbs. (These will be even better when given in or with a piece of handmade pottery in which to eat, drink, store, serve or display them). Get them while they are available. All make wonderful (and easily transported) gifts for others or just for treating yourself.

Amaryllis bulbs and plants are available late fall and early winter