Pizza using San Marzano tomatoes

We’ve been making pizza for many years, making our tomato sauce out of tomato paste mixed with a little homemade tomato sauce. But many people swear by the excellence of pizza made using San Marzano tomatoes instead.

San Marzano

The San Marzano tomato originated in the town of San Marzano, near Naples in the Campania region of Italy. It’s a plum tomato, but longer and thinner than other plum varieties. It has more flesh than many other varieties, with a stronger, sweeter taste.

The tomatoes originally were grown only in the volcanic soil near Mt Vesuvius, which may have led to their somewhat unique flavor. Here’s a nice summary of the tomatoes and the town where they are grown.

Canned San Marzano tomatoes are widely available, but only those with a DOP label are considered authentic, since they are grown only in the Campania region. Seeds are widely available, and you can grow them yourself, but they won’t be the same as ones grown in the warm climate of southern Italy.

The tomatoes are indeterminate (which means they keep growing rather than stopping at a particular height) and are thus prolific have a long growing season. My own experience of growing them in New England would suggest that they are a pale imitation of their Italian cousins: they need the Italian climate. They are also somewhat disease prone in northern climates.

So, to make your San Marzano pizza, you would use canned San Marzano tomatoes, just as the Italians do. They are readily available, but more expensive than other varieties. We found a 22 oz can of Cento brand organic San Marzano tomatoes at Stop and Shop for about $6.00. However, you can buy the same tomatoes with the organic marketing label for about $4.00 at Walmart. (For a complete discussion of organic marketing, you can read about how the organic program developed here).

Our recipe

Still, San Marzano are more expensive. Cento sells a 22 oz can of “canned Italian tomatoes” for only $2.99. But for this recipe, we bought the Stop of Shop Cento organic San Marzano for $6, carrying them gingerly to our car. (We found the Walmart price for the non organic version later).

These tomatoes come in a puree, also made from San Marzanos, but a bit watery to use in pizza sauce, so we scooped out the actual tomatoes and drained them in a sieve before using them.

We always make our pizza sauce using garlic, oregano, basil and rosemary, so we put the drained tomatoes into a blender with the cut up spices and minced garlic. This was really all there was to our pizza sauce, but since it was still a bit watery, we drained it again before spreading it on our homemade pizza dough.

We rolled out our usual pizza dough recipe and slipped some cornmeal under the dough so we could easily slide it onto the pizza peel. We spread the sauce on the rolled out dough.

Then we added some EVOO and topped the pie with fresh mozzarella, pepperoni, onions and some sliced mildly hot peppers. We slipped the pie onto a hot pizza stone in a 475˚F oven and baked it for 18 minutes.

We’ll have to say that it tasted great. Was it different than our usual recipe? Yes, it did have a slightly different taste. Was it better and worth the expense? I think I’ll quote Martha Stewart here, and suggest that you have to decide for yourself. Some people will find it worth it, and others would not be able to tell the difference from ordinary canned tomatoes. It’s up to you!

Finding great Pho at the Mecha Noodle Bar

Pho is a Vietnamese beef noodle soup, and is a delicious work of art. It is not something simple like American chicken noodle soup, but a deep, rich beefy broth made slowly for hours. You can make your own, but a really good pho broth is made by simmering beef meat and bones for 6 hours or more. Even an Instant Pot version of pho takes up to 3 hours of simmering. And, of course, there are pho beef broth concentrates you can buy. And if you do go to all that work, how would you know if you’ve achieved anything like what real Vietnamese pho is like? And these recipes don’t easily scale down to broth for just a few people.

I looked around my area for restaurants that served pho to see what it should be like. There were two places in Norwalk, CT that offered pho, as well as one more in Stamford. So I set out last week to try the closest one, Good Hope Dumpling and Ramen House. They offered pho for $16 and with beef slices added, $20. They also offered pork soup dumplings, a favorite of mine.

Well, their pho came as a do-it-yourself kit. A quart of chicken stock and a bowl containing the rice noodles and bean sprouts, and some rather dry slices of beef. They also provided containers with a lime, some jalapeno slices and a sprinkling of cilantro. They also provide little cups of Sriracha and Hoisin sauces to mix in. As a quick soup, this was OK, but from reading about pho, I expected a spiced beef broth as a base.

The soup dumplings were OK but a a bit tough.

The dumplings at the Ren Dumpling and Noodle house are tenderer, when they are available.

So, I went the following week to the Mecha Noodle Bar on Washington Street in Norwalk. Mecha Noodle Bar is a small chain: they have restaurants in Fairfield, Norwalk, Stamford, New Haven, West Hartford, CT and Brookline, MA, Boston, Columbus, OH and Denver, CO. But here, you can get pho, pho sure! They offer five versions, as well as Steam Bao, Hand Rolls, Ramen and Munchies. I ordered the Pho Bo Vien (with rare beef and meatballs) and an order of Sweet and Sour Spareribs. They also have an extensive drinks menu.

This is definitely where you should go to get pho as well as anything else on their menu. It was superb!
There was a container of spiced beef broth and a bowl of rice noodles, topped with the meatballs and rare (raw) beef, that cooks when you pour the hot broth onto it. The result is shown at the top of the article.

But, while Mecha offers takeout, they suggest that these dishes are better fresh at their tables, and that’s what I’ll do next time. I’m looking forward to it!

Le Cremaillere in Bedford

We were always happy to visit Le Cremaillere for an excellent French meal, and this visit was another outstanding one. The restaurant reopened after the pandemic in 2022 with Chef Thomas Burke in charge. The menus were fresh and the chef came and chatted with you during your meal. It couldn’t have been a better experience.

In February of this year, Burke and his partners announced that they were revamping their menu to be “seafood forward,” and renaming the restaurant Le Poisson. They also rearranged the bar area as a lounge where you could eat without a reservation. They started serving in March and those who got there found it impressive. But eventually Burke and the owners had disagreements, and Burke left in late July, taking the “Le Poisson” name with him. The current restaurant simply restored its original name, Le Cremaillere. Watch for Burke to reopen his dream French seafood restaurant soon.

It was this latest incarnation that we visited last weekend. Before we even saw the menu, we received excellent hot rolls and butter and a little amuse-bouche crab puff.

The menu is divided into five courses, Froids (cold dishes), Chaudes (warm appetizers), Les Poissons (seafood) and Les Viandes (meats), and Desserts. You couldn’t possibly eat all five large courses, but they do offer a Chef’s Tasting Menu for $145 , in which you can pick one from each category and receive a smaller portion of it. The only drawback is that your whole table has to order the same 5 things. But this was a disagreement easily resolved, because everything on the menu was outstanding.

We started with the Country Style Duck Terrine, with pistachios, truffle, cornichon and condiments, along with some crusty bread to eat with it. It was silky smooth with a nice crunch from the pistachios. Other choices included smoked salmon, burrata, aromatic house salad and foie gras au torchon.

The Chaudes section included the beloved Billy-Bi (PEI mussels and saffron cream soup) as well as Green asparagus with hollandaise and Hudson Valley foie gras, but we chose the Baked Escargot in Garlic Custard with breadcrumbs, nuts, tomato puree and parsley sauce. This was a really interesting take on escargot: no shells, no curry flavor, but a lovely fusion of flavors.

The seafood course offers sea scallops, sautéed red snapper, and seared Scottish salmon. But the outstanding choice was the Dover Sole with fava bean puree, broccoli, carrot and caviar beurre blanc. I’ve never had a better serving of sole.

The meat course selections include Rack of Lamb, Duck Breast and Roasted Chicken, but we chose the Filet Mignon, with crispy shallot topping, pommes puree, mixed mushrooms and sauce au poivre. It was tender and juicy and much more flavorful than the run of the mill filet you often get.

The waitress suggested come French fries to go with it, but all this food we barely touched them. They were excellent, however.

Finally, while the full dessert menu contains nine selections, the waitress only suggested two when she took our dinner order. We chose the chocolate souffle with Grand Marnier and pistachio. This was a do-it-yourself souflee: you got to poke a hole in it yourself and pour the pitcher of chocolate sauce into it. And, if you look carefully, you will notice a small serving of a rich, chocolate gelato alongside.

And, of course, there were final cookies as well.

This is not an inexpensive restaurant. With 3 glasses of wine, coffee and tea and tax, but before tip the bill for two was $392. But it was a lovely evening, with superb service throughout, and outstanding food in every way. We’ll be back again!

Ventuno is absolutely top notch!

Eating at Ventuno (21 Federal St) is always a great pleasure. The breadth and creativity of their menu makes every visit delightful.

Last week was Nantucket Restaurant Week, and Ventuno gave you a choice of their Restaurant Week menu: 4 courses for $75 or their full menu. The only real difference is that that the smaller menu skips some of the more expensive items, but everything else was the same, and there was plenty to choose from. Either way, you get a selection from Antipasti, one from Primi, one from Secondi and a dessert from Dolci.

We were going to just order from the reduced menu until we discovered the breast of duck on the full menu. Thus, we became a full menu customer.

Our Antipasti choice was a Caesar Salad, made with Romaine, celery, ciabatta-parmigiano croutons, a Caesar dressing and thin slices of parmigiano cheese. Crunchy, delicious and substantial in size.

As a surprise, the waitress gave us an extra little course of the Chef’s Ricotta spread on toast as well. It was smooth, creamy and quite flavorful.

This was followed by Strozzapreti, dre’s spicy chicken sausage, broccoli rabe, and pecorino, served with some extra parmigiano cheese to sprinkle as needed. This was spicy but not overpoweringly so, and quite a change from the usual Nantucket fare.

And finally, the main course: cherry & balsamic glazed duck breast, roasted cherries, farro, radicchio, endive, hazelnut crema & candied hazelnuts, with scallions & pecorino. What a magnificent preparation. Tender, juicy duck breast sitting on the cherries and candied hazelnuts. What could be better?

Well, of course, there was still dessert. We’d had many of the other desserts, so we went with the burnt sugar and orange flan with a candied orange slice in it.

What a great way to finish a terrific meal. We are always really impressed with Ventuno, and hope you will be too!

Le Languedoc — as elegant as ever

Le Languedoc remains one of our favorite island restaurants. It styles itself as a bistro, but it is quite an elegant one, having been in existence since the 1970s. Its core menu changes but a little, but has additions every week to its elegant selections, based on classic French techniques.

You can always count on finding bistro classics such as Steak Frites and their Languedoc Cheeseburger, as well as a number of other outstanding dishes. We very nearly ordered their Seak Frites again this year until we saw that they had a veal chop in the corner of the menu where new additions appear, and we had to try it.

Just as we were about to order, the waitress told us of a special addition that night of a foie gras terrine. It was served with toasts and a generous spoon of blackberry jam to contrast with the smooth silkiness of the delicious foie gras.

This was followe by the veal chop, served with asparagus, and a delicious brown gravy. An incredibly elegant meal.

Meanwhile, our neighbor had the Duxelle stuffed chicken, with corn, bacon & horseradish croquette, roasted carrots, and sherry vinegar jus. It also looked terrific.

And, of course, we had to end with their special Small Town Girl butter crunch hot fudge sundae. Of course we got the petite version, and could barely finish it after all the rich dishes we’d had, but over all this was an outstanding evening and one of the islands highly regarded restaurants.

We are always delighted with Le Languedoc, and you will be, too!

Millie’s is as great as ever!

If you haven’t been out to Millie’s at the far western end of Nantucket in Madaket, you’re missing one of the island’s outstanding restaurants. The menu is mostly seafood tacos and quesadillas, but there is a lot more to it (beef, chicken and even berries), and all of it is imaginative and delicious. There is now a Mid-island Millie’s at the Rotary as well, serving lunches from 10:30-4, with a similar but not identical menu.

When we rented a house out in Madaket, the first place we’d always go would be to Millie’s for dinner, and sometimes we’d go again on our last day. Now that we stay downtown, it seemed as if getting to Millie’s without a car was too much trouble. It’s not.

We jumped on the Madaket Route WAVE bus in front of the Historical Society (across from the Juice Guys) and rode for 20 minutes to the end of the line at Millie’s. And this year the WAVE busses are free! We puttered around Madaket, and went to dinner at about 5, easily catching a return bus at 6:30. It couldn’t be easier! The busses leave downtown on the hour and Millie’s on the half-hour.

This year they’d added a new dish we had to try: Fried Oyster Mini-tacos with purple cabbage slaw, pickled jalapeño, and lemon aioli. There were two fried oysters in each taco, dotted with a bit of mayo and topped with that pickled jalapeno. They also provided hot sauces to top them with if you wanted. We had them without so we could savor the oysters. These were a great, crunchy appetizer that you could pick up or eat with a fork (or both).

There seems to be a bit more lobster on the menu than there used to be: you get a warm lobster salad, a lobster Po’ Boy and a lobster quesadilla. They all cost around $39 so they all probably have quite a bit of lobster in them.

We couldn’t resist trying the Steps Beach Lobster quesadilla with Lobster, slow-roasted tomato, grilled zucchini, and Monterey jack cheese. The lobster was indeed plentiful and with the cheese and veggies this is a very filling and delightful dish. If it’s too much for you, they’ll box the rest, of course, or you can cheat as we did an pick out the rest of the lobster with a fork! It still is a lot of food and outstanding! You can’t go wrong at Millie’s.

Black-Eyed Susan’s is back for breakfast

Thanks to Michael and Orly LaScola, Chef Todd Edwards and Anna Worgess, who purchased Black-Eyed Susan’s from its previous owner, Susan Handy, the beloved restaurant is back and this year serving its well-regarded breakfasts 6 days a week. (They are closed on Wednesdays.) Breakfast is served to walk-ins from 7am to 1pm.

Being that it is still early in June, we were able to walk in for breakfast without the longer summer wait and sit at a table. The menu is similar to the old restaurant, offering eggs, scrambles, pancakes, hash browns, French toast, omelets and breakfast sandwiches. But even if you have to wait for a while on the benches outside, it’s worth it. It is just about the only breakfast place downtown and it is simply excellent.

We ordered eggs over easy with sausage and their excellent oat bread toast.

But more to the point, we got our tea in an actual teapot: one of the few restaurants in the Northeast that serves it that way.

And did we mention the service? The staff is warm and welcoming, and you can watch it your order being prepared in the open kitchen behind the counter. Our bill for tea, eggs, sausage and toast was $30.49 including $1.99 tax. And it is likely to be one of the best breakfasts we’ll have here!

Dune- one of Nantucket’s finest restaurants

Coming to the island for a brief visit, we ate at Dune first. It has always been one of our favorites, with its imaginative menu and outstanding service. And to our delight, this is Nantucket Restaurant Week, and Dune offered a prix fixe menu of appetizer, entrée and dessert for only $68. As usual the dinner was excellent.

We started with their widely regarded roast oysters (traditional chilled oysters are also available). They are served with chorizo-ramp butter, cucumber, shallots, picked ramps and lemon. You actually get 5 oysters in this dish, but we cropped it down to 4 to fit on the page. The oysters are warm, and you can pick up each shell to drink any remaining juices without bring yourself. Absolutely terrific.

We vacillated on the entrée: considering scallops, swordfish and sirloin before choosing the roast cod loin.

The Pan Roasted Cod Loin was served in a coconut-lemon grass broth along with purple creamers (potatoes), Romanesco asparagus, bok choy, shiitake, fried garlic and basil. They server makes sure you have a spoon so you can spoon that terrific broth over your cod as you eat. The result is outstanding: we didn’t leave a drop behind.

Finally, you get a free dessert this week: a brown butter cake served with cherries, lemon cream icing, and candied almonds.

However, travelling solo, we managed to get a couple of photos of other appetizers. One was roasted red and golden beets with whipped goat cheese,pistachios, balsamic and a red sorrel beet vinaigrette.

And the other was Korean Barbecue Short Ribs, with sesame bbq, napa cabbage, Asian pear, red onion lime vinaigrette, fried shallots and cilantro.

What a terrific re-introduction to Dune’s cuisine. We couldn’t have been happier.

Make your own buttermilk (and biscuits)

We described the characteristics of buttermilk in our previous article. Most important is that it is more acidic than ordinary milk and that helps things like pancakes and biscuits rise nicely when they interact with baking powder and baking soda.

You can make your own buttermilk substitute by simply adding a tablespoon of white vinegar to milk to acidify it. It really works very well as you can see in the video below.

To summarize:

Buttermilk

1 cup milk (whole or 2% or skim all work)
1 Tb white vinegar

Biscuits

2 cups flour
1 Tb baking powder
½ tsp baking soda
½ tsp salt
6 tb unsalted butter
1 cup buttermilk (about)

Bake at 450˚F for 10 minutes.

The battle of the buttermilks

I first tasted buttermilk at my grandmother’s house in Lincoln, Nebraska. My mother and I had taken the train from Columbus out to Lincoln to visit her family there. I was probably 10 or 12 years old. I came in from playing with my cousin Steve, climbing trees and the like, to find that they were going to make pancakes with buttermilk. I tasted the buttermilk and didn’t like it much. “But,” they said, “wait till you taste the pancakes. They will be like you poured a lot of butter into them!”

And, yes, the pancakes were very good indeed.

Some years later, when I started collecting recipes, I got that buttermilk pancake recipe from my mother’s sister, Elsie, and have saved it ever since. Since it was originally my grandmother’s it is probably over a hundred years old, and was probably made from real buttermilk. Here it is:

2 cups flour
2 eggs
2 tsp baking powder
1 Tb sugar
1 tsp baking soda
½ tsp salt

As a memory guide, Elsie pointed out that you can summarize the recipe as 2-2-2-1-1-1/2.

Mix dry ingredients and add buttermilk until you get a “thickish batter.” Cook in a large cast-iron pan or a griddle. Turn the pancakes when they start to show bubbles.

Buttermilk was originally formed by allowing the milk to stand to separate the cream allowing it to ferment a bit. Then, after churning, they let the buttermilk ferment and thicken. But once centrifugal cream separators were developed, you didn’t have to let the cream set and begin to ferment before churning the butter. So, another way to make buttermilk was developed, where they took part skim milk and added the same bacteria that were found in fermenting the original buttermilk. These were usually Lactococcus lactis and Leuconostoc citrovorum. This was called “cultured buttermilk” and is commonly found in the US, where there is little original buttermilk available.

I have been making excellent pancakes using Friendship Buttermilk for over 20 years. But recently, our local market dropping the Friendship buttermilk, offering only Kate’s Buttermilk. You can still buy it at ShopRite and at some Stop and Shops.

So, it seemed like a good idea to compare the two. We made up two identical batches of dry ingredients and eggs, and added buttermilk to each until we reached a “thickish batter” stage. We initially cooked 4 pancakes on each time on our Presto griddle. But recognizing that the griddle’s heating was uneven and measurement of each pancake aliquot was difficult we then simply put one carefully measured ¼ cup of batter on the griddle from each recipe, and placed them close together so they would have the same cooking temperature.

The result:

The pancake on the right, made with Friendship cultured buttermilk, clearly rose higher than the one made with Kate’s buttermilk. We would assume then that the Friendship buttermilk is slightly more acidic and reacts with the leavening more that the Kate’s recipe did.

How did they taste? We tasted a slice of each pancake without any added butter or syrup. The Friendship pancake had a rich buttery-milky flavor, but the Kate’s pancake was quite bland, with no distinct flavor at all.

So, how do the two buttermilks themselves taste? Not surprisingly, the Friendship buttermilk tasted more like buttermilk. The Kate’s just tasted sour. No real butter-milky flavor at all. So, we are sticking with the Friendship for our pancakes. An experiment with biscuits showed similar differences in rising as well.

Sorry to say, despite all the positive press Kate’s has gotten, we found it quite disappointing.