Flavorful Fats

Sorry for the lapse. I’m working on a big post about noodles. In the meantime…

We’re almost out of canola oil.

The better I get at cooking, the longer it takes me to go through a bottle of canola oil. It’s not because I’m cooking light: it’s because when I reach for an oil or fat, I’m more likely to choose something with flavor. I keep the canola in the fridge so it doesn’t go rancid before I’ve used all 32 ounces.

Sometimes a flavorless cooking oil is exactly what you want, although nothing besides brownie mix is coming to mind. Most often, though, I’ll reach for olive oil when I’m cooking Italian; peanut oil for Chinese and Thai; lard for frying potatoes and many other things; and butter for everything else.

Has anyone else noticed this? Also, sometimes I hear people talk about the flavor differences between supposedly flavorless oils like canola, corn, sunflower, and soybean. To me, however, the refined versions of these oils that you find in the supermarket really are indistinguishable. I buy canola not because it’s rich in monounsaturated fat, but because that’s what Ming Tsai used to use on _East Meets West_.

Question Time

We have entered a new and dangerous phase in Iris’s development: she has just learned to ask questions. A couple of days ago, Laurie and Iris were playing with fennel seeds in Iris’s kitchen. Iris wouldn’t stop eating the seeds, so Laurie went to put them away, but the little spice jar they came in was nowhere to be seen. “Maybe Dada knows where it is,” said Laurie.

So Iris ran over to my chair and said, “Where’s the fennel seed jar?” Only she didn’t say it like that. She said, “WHERE’S THE FENNEL SEED JAR?” like you might say, “YOU SPENT A HUNDRED DOLLARS ON *WHAT?*”

Today Iris invented a game where we put two chairs in the hallway and they represent Grandma’s car (the only car Iris ever rides in, since we don’t own a car). Iris drove around to a restaurant and a store picking up and dropping off various things. First she went to the Chinese restaurant and got some pancakes. Then she came over to me and held out her hands. “Iris need some bagels and pork,” she said.

Which means Iris has the same approach to Judaism as I do: she’s in it for the jokes.

Iris reads The Art of Eating

The Art of Eating is one of the strangest food magazines on the market. Give the average food journalist an assignment to write about, say, polenta, and they will go down to Whole Foods and buy a bunch of cornmeal, then compare recipes from Marcella Hazan and Lynne Rossetto Kasper and come up with a couple of serving suggestions. That’s how I’d do it, at least. Ed Behr of _The Art of Eating_ would start in an Italian cornfield, talking to a careworn farmer who laments the loss of the old ways. Behr would explain at length why polenta isn’t as good as it used to be and why the polenta you’re eating is crap.

I haven’t actually seen an article about polenta in AoE, but I’ve seen Behr give this treatment to various wines, Belgian beer, steak, and many foods that will coincidentally place him in one of the more picturesque reaches of Italy or France. He’s a dogged reporter, and his style is almost absurdly dry. In short, you want to hate Ed Behr, but you can’t, because you know he’s right.

We just got the new issue of AoE, and the cover story is a classic Behr piece on Comté cheese, which is the French equivalent of Swiss gruyère. Inside is a photo of large rounds of Comté aging on racks. Iris picked up the magazine this morning and said, “Big stack of cheese! Maybe mouse eat it.”

Little tiny donuts

Does your city have an independent donut chain? Seattle does: Top Pot Doughnuts. They offer a couple dozen varieties and are sold throughout their chain of coffee shops (which are masterpieces of retro-hip design) and at plenty of other places in town.

I’ve grown pretty annoyed with Top Pot. Their prices have more than doubled since they opened in 2002, and now all glazed and filled donuts are $1.69. I’m certainly not averse to paying that much for a pastry, but it had better be special. The trouble is, the last couple of times I’ve gotten a Top Pot donut, it has been fried in insufficiently hot oil–the unmistakable symptoms are a soggy crust and greasy interior.

But I know how Top Pot can regain my trust. They can start making donut holes. Donut holes are always better than donuts. Everybody knows this. You can eat a bunch of different kinds without getting sick, and you can throw them at ornery coworkers.

On our recent Vancouver trip, Iris got a little grumpy after lunch one day, and the solution appeared before us like a sign from the Canadian version of God (aka Geddy Lee): Timbits. Timbits are the donut holes at Tim Hortons, and they come in no less than a dozen flavors, the best of which is sour cream. Since I don’t work in an office, feeding Timbits to Iris is the closest I get to throwing donut holes at ornery coworkers.

Anyway, Top Pot needs to roll out the donut holes ASAP. And I expect fanfare!

Little tiny bagels

I make my own bagels. Not very often, but as far as I know there’s only one place in Seattle that makes a decent bagel (Bagel Oasis), and it’s too far from my house.

The two problems with Seattle bagels, just like bagels everywhere (even New York), are size and steam. Most bagels are too big, which makes them less fun to eat, just like one giant potsticker would be lame compared to a plate of regular dumplings. And to cut corners, many bagel outfits steam their bagels instead of boiling, resulting in a bagel with lousy crust.

Luckily, homemade bagels are quite easy. You can make them in the evening, let them ferment overnight in the fridge, then boil and bake them in the morning. I made bagels a few days ago (Iris helped) from the Montreal bagel recipe in Alford and Duguid’s book Home Baking. It’s becoming conventional wisdom that the world’s best bagels come from Montreal; Hillel Cooperman discusses the greatness of Canadian bagels at Tastingmenu.com. He also gives his recipe, which looks pretty tasty.

In any case, when you make bagels at home, you can make them small, and you will boil them, and they will be good. We made ours really small (about an ounce each) and put sesame seeds on them. If you’re nervous about working with dough, know that bagels are made with very dry dough, which means it won’t stick to everything or burble away across the counter like ciabatta dough. Bagels also freeze well. I defrosted the remaining bagels this morning and somehow they were even better than the day I made them. Maybe I’m just getting my appetite back.

There are two weird ingredients you need for making bagels. Bagels are best made with high-gluten flour, the highest protein flour you can buy. And they contain malt, either in the form of malt powder or malt syrup. Malted milk powder will not work. Malt syrup (usually barley, sometimes wheat) can be found at most health food stores. Malt powder (sometimes labeled “diastatic” or “nondiastatic”–the difference is irrelevant for bagel making) and high-gluten flour are available from [King Arthur](http://www.bakerscatalogue.com). Their high-gluten flour is called Sir Lancelot. I reordered recently and our flour is still in its bag, which means somewhere around the house is a Rubbermaid container that says “Sir Lancelot” on it.

Do you have Sir Lancelot in a Rubbermaid container?