The Bitten Word

English Muffins

Food Network Magazine (October 2015)

We have completely fallen for "The Great British Baking Show," which has to be the most charming thing on television right now.

If you're unfamiliar, it's a BBC show that's rebroadcast on PBS here in the U.S. It's home cooks taking on weekly baking challenges, but it's perhaps the most pleasant, drama-free reality television we've ever encountered.

Don't expect anyone to throw a pie here: It's all incredibly civil and absolutely delightful. Each episode features 3 baking challenges, and someone -- or sometimes two people, depending on the whims of the judges -- goes home. 

The judges, whose names are Mary Berry and Paul Hollywood (yes, really), are keen but kind in their critiques. 

In episode 2 of this season, the contestants were asked to make English Muffins (and yes, they referred to them as "English Muffins," even though they're in England). Here's what the judges were looking for: beautifully browned tops, with browned bottoms and white around the edges. Soft texture, with a good crumb structure and a muffin that's baked all the way through. As Mary put it: "I love the feel when I touch them, the sort of squidge at the sides."  

We don't know much about squidge, but we were inspired. And then lo and behold, Food Network Magazine had a feature about making English Muffins at home. We dusted off our baking gloves and got to work.

Kitchen Fail: Gravlax

Food Network Magazine (April 2014)

 

Bittens, would you like a little foreign-language lesson? Let's learn a new word together, shall we?

The word is katastrof. It's Swedish for "disaster" or (obviously) "catastrophe." 

And it's important for this little story about making gravlax.

Because the first time we tried this, we ended up with a sizable katastrof on our hands.

Perfect Fried Eggs

Cook's Illustrated (August 2013)

Giving advice about cooking eggs is tricky.

Everyone has his or her own personal preferences, established and honed over years of habit. Fried, scrambled, hard-boiled or poached, you like your eggs the way you like your eggs.

It's a matter if personal taste; there's no "right" or "wrong" way to cook an egg.

But there is an effective and an ineffective way to get the kind of egg you want. And that's where Cook's Illustrated comes in.

Fluffy Omelets with Asparagus and Ramps

Cook's Illustrated (April 2013)

As the write-up accompanying this Cook's Illustrated recipe says, there are basically three kinds of omelets.

There's the French omelet, with its uniform, creamy crepe-like texture and sparse accoutrements.

There's the American diner omelet, with its thicker texture and slightly scorched exterior bursting with cheese and other fillings.

And then there's the fluffy omelet. It's light and delicate and ethereal.

Well, we've tried French omelets. And we've tried diner omelets.

It was time for us to round out the trifecta.

 

Crunchy French Toast with Cap'n Crunch Coating

Cook's Country (April/May 2013)

Our friends Drew and Ralph -- characters you know doubt recognize from many a dinner featured here on The Bitten Word -- have just opened a restaurant (a second restaurant, technically, that just so happens to be very favorably reviewed in today's Washington Post).

As they've been getting the new eatery up and running, they've been understandably busy, so we haven't been able to hang out as much. To make up for lost time, they invited us to come over to their house for brunch on Sunday. 

"What's for brunch?" Clay casually asked Drew a few days beforehand. 

"We saw this recipe in the latest Cook's Country that looks awes---," 

"The Really Crunchy French Toast with the Cap'n Crunch?!?!"

The answer: a resounding yes.

We'd spied this recipe when picking out April recipes. We loved the idea, but it seemed a bit of an overindulgence to just make for the two of us. 

But when friends invite you over for a French toast feast, you don't turn them down. 

 

Tofu Scramble

Bon Appétit (January 2013)

Back in July, we spent a wonderful July 4th week at the beach in Provincetown, Mass. As it turned out, we knew tons of other people vacationing in P-town that week, too. (The gays like to travel in herds, you know.)

Anyway, we spent the week biking to the beach, meeting friends for lunch and hopping around various house parties. It was all super fun.

One afternoon while we were there, our friends Sean and Nathan texted to invite us over for brunch the next day. "Sounds great!" we texted back. "See you then!"

Then the horror hit us: Sean and Nathan are vegans.

A vegan brunch? On vacation at the beach?

Were we being punished?

Spicy Zucchini Frittata

Whole Living (July/August 2012)

There are a few specific times when we make a frittata:

We're craving eggs but are a bit bored with our routine of scrambled or fried...

It's after work and we're ready to eat but haven't gone to the supermarket and have very little on hand...

We find ourselves with an overflowing crisper drawer and need a quick way to use up a bunch of vegetables...

And often, it's a combination of all three. 

The frittata (or FRRREEE-TAH-TAH if you're Giada) is a handy, simple recipe to have in your back pocket when hunger comes calling. 

And you can't find a more basic template for creating your own frittata than this version from Whole Living that combines ingredients that are in their prime time right now: zucchini and corn. 

Avocado Toast with Chile Flakes and Crushed Pistachios

A Bitten Word Recipe

Here's a breakfast item we've been making for ourselves a lot this spring. Inspired by a delicious appetizer we ordered last year at Cork Wine Bar here in D.C., we decided that avocado on toast sounded pretty yummy for breakfast, too.

To find our perfect avocado toast, we played around with different variations of this dish. Cork actually drizzles theirs with avocado oil, which is delicious if you happen to have some (but pricey and probably not worth buying if you don't). We even tried a drizzling hot bacon grease over these, but it was just too much (yeah, we said it).

Fluffy Diner-Style Omelets

Cook's Country (January/February 2012)

If we serve eggs at our house, chances are they're going to be scrambled.

If we're feeling fancy, we might do over-easy, maybe served on top of a vegetable or beef hash if we're being industrious. 

Poached? Forget about it. Over-hard? Blasphemy. 

Omelets are another matter altogether. We love omelets and often order them when we go out for breakfast, but we hardly ever make them at home. Why is that? Well, in truth, we're not very good at making omelets.

We build big, beautiful omelets, cooking the eggs and then filling them with delicious vegetables and meats. And then it comes time to seal the deal (literally), and the whole thing falls apart, making for a really ugly omelet that we then hack up and serve as a scramble, as if to make ourselves feel better. 

And we're not talking about Julia Child-style omelets. (If you've never seen the Omelet Dinner Party episode of "The French Chef," you should.) We want to make omelets that are stuffed with deliciousness and then folded over, an omelet that sits tall on the plate, oozing with cheese and fillings.  

When we saw this recipe for Fluffy Diner-Style Omelets in Cook's Country, we knew the wizards at America's Test Kitchen would show us the errors of our omelet ways. 

Poached Scrambled Eggs with Goat Cheese Sauce

Food & Wine (January 2012)

We like to think we're pretty good at scrambled eggs. We have a particular way of doing it that makes eggs just the way we like 'em: creamy and soft and delicious. Essentially, it involves cooking them over very low heat and stirring almost constantly. (Also, we picked up a tip a very long time ago from an otherwise ridiculously over-the-top omelet recipe: Stirring eggs with a chopstick or the thin end of a wooden spoon yields perfect fluffy eggs every time.)

We love the way we make scrambled eggs. The only problem is that it can take 15 or 20 minutes of near-constant stirring.

So we were more than a little intrigued by this recipe, which promises perfectly scrambled eggs in only 40 seconds. FORTY. SECONDS.